Display Myths Shattered...

[Lonbjerg]

Just read this good piece at gizmodo, seems like the display business is worse than the 3D business

http://gizmodo.com/5541957/display-myths-shattered-how-monitor-companies-cook-their-specs

 

[Jawed]

As stated above, there are specialized color gamuts for specialized applications, and some of these are larger than the sRGB/Rec.709. Adobe RGB, one of the more common ones, is used by imaging professionals and you'll find it as an option on some digital cameras and scanners. Just be aware that if you use the Adobe gamut, you will also need a display that produces the Adobe gamut, and only a small fraction of consumer displays can do this. If you display an image produced with an Adobe gamut on a monitor with a standard sRGB/Rec.709 gamut, the colors will be incorrect and oversaturated.

Actually: under-saturated.

Sadly those of us who live in PAL land get a rough deal from sRGB in light of how video works on conventional (CRT) TV sets for which PAL is exceptionally well tuned - in PAL land on CRTs the viewing-chain gamma is actually 2.5, not 2.2. Also, I've no idea what the actual gamut is, it's certainly bigger than sRGB/Rec.709's.

Interestingly NTSC's gamut is considerably bigger than sRGB.

He misses out a discussion of Rec.601 at his peril - effectively writing-off standard definition legacy content. Flat panels tend to render standard definition (Rec.601) content in a most vile way.

There's real sanity over at:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

And for what it's worth the Lagom tests are better than DisplayMate:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

And if you want to check gamma:

http://perso.telecom-paristech.fr/~brettel/TESTS/Gamma/Gamma.html

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm

The gamma 2.2 test image linked off that second page is real nice.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm surprised there isn't a market for professional quality displays that list more accurate specifications. You see that somewhat in the audio world. They still lie, but not as much as in the consumer market.

 

[aaronspink]

I'm surprised there isn't a market for professional quality displays that list more accurate specifications. You see that somewhat in the audio world. They still lie, but not as much as in the consumer market.

The HIGH end of the market tends not to lie but just charge a lot. Graphics pro grade 24" displays are in the 1200-1400 range and imagining/medical pro grade 24" displays are in the 2000-5000 range. Most of the specs on the graphics pro displays are correct, and ALL the specs on the imagining/medical grade displays are correct.

 

[Zaphod]

I'm surprised there isn't a market for professional quality displays that list more accurate specifications.

Something like this? Then again, they're still far from perfect and $2.5K a pop. A friend of mine who works with imaging (some medical stuff, lightning controlled environment and all that jazz) swears to Eizo, and a colleague of his I met seemed akin to sell his firstborn to some other niche manufacturer whose name I can't remember at the moment.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Cool. I guess I just never hear about those brands because they are probably not very common with such a high price range. Are there any lesser known tv companies that are somewhat more reputable about their display characteristics? I'm guessing no.

 

[aaronspink]

Something like this? Then again, they're still far from perfect and $2.5K a pop. A friend of mine who works with imaging (some medical stuff, lightning controlled environment and all that jazz) swears to Eizo, and a colleague of his I met seemed akin to sell his firstborn to some other niche manufacturer whose name I can't remember at the moment.

And that's mid range for ultra high quality LCDs:

http://radiforce.com/en/products/mono-gs521.html

There are some even well beyond that and color as well.

 

[aaronspink]

Cool. I guess I just never hear about those brands because they are probably not very common with such a high price range. Are there any lesser known tv companies that are somewhat more reputable about their display characteristics? I'm guessing no.

There are profesional series displays from NEC and others that are very good. EIZO also offers a 56" 9 megapixel display designed primarily as a OR display panel.

 

[MfA]

Response times on modern displays aren't quite as bad as that article makes out (apparently a year can make a difference).

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00346013/

That said, the response times measured in there are still quite high ... I kinda thought manufacturers had solved the problem. I wonder how much improvement Sony et al have been able to make for their 3D LCDs ... 20 ms response time with a flashing backlight is plenty fast enough for normal viewing, but it's not going to hack it for frame sequential 3D.