[cut2cure]

IMHO 12-bit color is the factor in bluray and hd-dvd which is the most interesting. Now that we have lossless audio and high resolution, the last step to reference quality movies is deep color to eliminate those hideous banding artifacts. So two questions.


1. Does anyone know when we'll start seeing deep color content?


2. Is 12-bit color too costly? Meaning is the bitrate of bluray sufficient to handle it without sacrificing any PQ?


Thanks

 

[Kris Deering]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cut2cure /forum/post/12876192


IMHO 12-bit color is the factor in bluray and hd-dvd which is the most interesting. Now that we have lossless audio and high resolution, the last step to reference quality movies is deep color to eliminate those hideous banding artifacts. So two questions.


1. Does anyone know when we'll start seeing deep color content?


2. Is 12-bit color too costly? Meaning is the bitrate of bluray sufficient to handle it without sacrificing any PQ?


Thanks

1. Probably never. It isn't in the spec for either and masters aren't even in deep color.


2. Yes. Right now color is sampled at YCbCr 4:2:0 which is SIGNIFICANTLY less bandwidth. Blu-ray is spectacular in terms of video bandwidth but it would still take more if you want everything else and deep color. Banding isn't much of an issue with Blu-ray and is only noticeable on some animation titles. This is usually a limitation of the mastering, not the bandwidth.

 

[cut2cure]

Thanks for the input, I guess I wont hold my breath for 12-bit color. Maybe when HD-bluray comes around

 

[metalsaber]

^^


how many displays support "Deep Color" anyways?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

10 bit should be good enough

if they can get 10 bit to work

I think some of the (8 bit) banding I see might be due to my LCD

(but it's hard to know for sure without comparing the same content on a 1920x1080 CRT or similar TV)

 

[sethk]

Many 2008 displays support it and more will in the future. Other than camcorders and theoretical PS3 games that don't exist yet, there are no sources though. I suspect we won't ever see deep color on BR, but with Sony driving the format, who knows, maybe when things get stagnant they'll throw out a BR 3.x spec.

 

[William]

If you added deep color to BD or HD DVD it would make all players obsolete. It's not going to happen until the next format.


One thought for BD is if a 200GB disc could be developed and there could be some way of putting 8 bit standard on the 50GB and using the other 150GB for a separate deep color encode it might work. Remember all things being equal deep color would not fit on current discs because of the increase in space requirements.

 

[IanD]

I'm sure a lot more can be done with advanced interpolation in the players to reduce banding, before we need to go to deep colour (just like advanced upscaling of DVDs can now look almost HD-like). Motionflow and other inter-frame interpolation methods are only just getting started to smooth motion of 24fps source, so there is more scope for improving the presentation of existing material.

 

[jvillain]



Quote:
how many displays support "Deep Color" anyways?

I hate it when people respond like that. OK there are nearly no displays so lets not improve the players. Mean while there are no players so lets not up grade the displays. So we are never going to try and improve any thing ever again? Is that the idea?

 

[dildatonr]



Quote:
Originally Posted by jvillain /forum/post/12878568


I hate it when people respond like that. OK there are nearly no displays so lets not improve the players. Mean while there are no players so lets not up grade the displays. So we are never going to try and improve any thing ever again? Is that the idea?

Well it's a valid question to ask, why ask for something your display can't resolve. I don't think he or anyone else is actually advocating the end of all advancments in home theater, cripes. Let's not be mellow-dramatic.



There's so many chips that have to fall into play before it becomes a reality - so I think it would be most likely to be seen as a marketing point for the next HD format after BR. MAYBE you'll see it in a game. But it's not in the BR spec - so the chance of seeing it in a stand alone in the next few years is slim.


Let's say a player does introduce it in 3-4 years. What studio is going to pony up the money to transfer a film in 12 bit that the vast majority of BR players. displays in homes can't resolve, and hence how many people will pay the extra cost, that the studio will have to charge to make up for the added expense. and that's IF it's ever introduced in the spec - and we have yet to have even a hint from any insider that introducing it is even a possiblity with this format generation.

 

[talbain]

i just want to know where all these titles with the "hideous banding artifacts" are. i certainly don't own any...

 

[cut2cure]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Bloggs /forum/post/12877361


10 bit should be good enough

if they can add 10 bit to work

I think some of the banding I see might be due to my LCD

(but it's hard to know for sure without comparing the same content on a 1920x1080 CRT or similar TV)

People have actually done research on this stuff and a trained human eye can still visualize coloring artifacts (banding) with 10bit color while at 12-bit color even when trained to look for banding the human eye doesnt have enough color resolution to distinguish any artifact.


I think one issue is size in that 50GB may not be enough data but another conspiracy theory may be that studios dont want to release 12-bit high def movies with lossless audio. Potentially if enough people had decent setups with virtual studio masters, why would anyone go to the theatre.


My hope is though that now that we have have 1080p, 24p, 120hz, lossless audio the next logical step is to offer 12-bit color to entice us suckers to keep buying this stuff.

 

[tdavis21484]

Someone earlier nailed it on the head - 8 bit color is the limitation of both formats.


Sampling in "deep color" would take dramatically more storage space and bandwidth, for a relatively small, potentially unnoticeable improvement in picture quality.

 

[madshi]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Kris Deering /forum/post/12876383


1. Probably never. It isn't in the spec for either and masters aren't even in deep color.


2. Yes. Right now color is sampled at YCbCr 4:2:0 which is SIGNIFICANTLY less bandwidth. Blu-ray is spectacular in terms of video bandwidth but it would still take more if you want everything else and deep color. Banding isn't much of an issue with Blu-ray and is only noticeable on some animation titles. This is usually a limitation of the mastering, not the bandwidth.

Maybe 12 bit is overkill. But 10 bit is a different topic. At least Tom McMahon sais:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post12630736
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post12637675

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom McMahon /forum/post/0


In talking about taking next steps in the blue laser HD disc video specs, we also shouldn't forget about possible going to 10 bits. Surprisingly (again because of the way video codecs work), this would result in no increase in the nominal bitrate on the disc but it definitely would have an impact in the silicon data paths and memory BW.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom McMahon /forum/post/0


I'll give you a few reasons why things might go to 10 but not beyond:


1) In the extensive D-Cinema testing that was done by SMPTE, DCI and others in Hollywood, most experts couldn't see more than 11 bits on a big screen under optimal conditions, with the best projectors with everything completely calibrated. So some would question if we really need more than 10 in a consumer environment (some will question if we need more than 8 for that matter, but I think that experiments will clearly show that most people can easily see the difference between 8 and 10).

 

[Joe Bloggs]



Quote:
Originally Posted by talbain /forum/post/12879743


i just want to know where all these titles with the "hideous banding artifacts" are. i certainly don't own any...

Have you watched the end of King Kong (2005) HD-DVD UK edition?

or watched the Sony 'colour bar' option on one of their Blu-ray discs?

(though as I've said - it may very well be the limitations of my Sharp LCD HDTV)

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Here's probably a stupid question on required colour depth, but I'd like to know the answer anyway

For film based content (say 35mm film), aren't they made up of 'film grains'. Aren't these grains only made up of a limited number of colours or are their many graduations of those colours (eg. for colour (negative) film do you have something like cyan, magenta and yellow (and black?) grains? Are each many intensities or is it just a case of the grain being their or not? If the later and you only wanted to reproduce film content on Blu-ray couldn't you make do with only 2 bits (4 colours)

or is it many intensities of these film grains that have to be reproduced? (PS: this is assuming the pixel resolution stored on the disc is so high as to easily record each film grain)

 

[talbain]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Bloggs /forum/post/12882357


Have you watched the end of King Kong (2005) HD-DVD UK edition?

or watched the Sony 'colour bar' option on one of their Blu-ray discs?

never noticed anything like it on the us version of kong. where would i be looking for it in the color bar on sony discs? haven't noticed it there either


regardless, even if banding were present in these examples, i'd hardly think it would be a launching point for people to be clamoring for deep color support...

 

[jvillain]



Quote:
Sampling in "deep color" would take dramatically more storage space and bandwidth, for a relatively small, potentially unnoticeable improvement in picture quality.

I am sure you are "aware" that there are posts all over this board saying the same thing about HDM.

 

[Joe Bloggs]



Quote:
Originally Posted by talbain /forum/post/12882478


never noticed anything like it on the us version of kong. where would i be looking for it in the color bar on sony discs? haven't noticed it there either


regardless, even if banding were present in these examples, i'd hardly think it would be a launching point for people to be clamoring for deep color support...

As for the King Kong (2005) there are differences in the US and UK ones, eg. the UK has more languages but no IME features (US has IME but less languages). I don't know whether there are differences in the bitrate given to the picture on the US ones - perhaps the US one has a greater bitrate?)


Also did you watch the entire end credits of King Kong (2005) especially at the point where they first appear? And you saw no banding or macroblocking at all? If so what type of HDTV do you have? LCD? (though it may only be a problem on the UK version

or both of my LCDs)


As for the Sony colour bar thing when I tried that option (it was hard entering whatever number you have to enter on my remote/player

) on my LCD 1920x1080 TV on one of the tests screens, the one that was greyscale only that seemed to go from black (grey ?

) to white, if I switched between the different AV modes on my Sharp Full HD TV there was what appeared to be banding near the left hand side of the screen, and the position of the banding changed with the different AV modes.


Also as someone else has said, adding 10 bit (or even 12 bit) support wouldn't greatly increase the number of bits you need to store on the disc (and you wouldn't need to store them on the disc as 'dithered' like they currently do) which should further improve the efficiency of the encoding. And you could have a dither option in your player if you wanted to use such an option if your TV wasn't capable of accurately reproducing 10 or 12 bit colour etc.

 

[RWetmore]

They should have included optional 10bit color in the blu-ray spec, IMO.


I think the best we can hope for are future player that can "upscale" 8bit color.