nVIDIA RSX - Native RGB color space output?

[manux]

Broadcast/ AV systems have RGB values which corespond to 16 - 235, therefor this is the range of values available on a Bluray or DVD.

This is not true. Movies can and are encoded to contain the full colour range. There might be some exceptions where the guy encoding is insane and end result is not "full".

Even dvd supports yuv 4-2-0 which provides full colour range.

What I would like to see is captures straight from hdmi with different settings when playing back movies as that would be quite the definate evidence without any possibility that testers tv for example is doing something wrong.

 

[grandmaster]

Last shots I'm taking before I pack for my flight:





Kingdom of Heaven Blu-ray.

 

[novcze]

Broadcast/ AV systems have RGB values which corespond to 16 - 235, therefor this is the range of values available on a Bluray or DVD.

All modern HDTV's should be setup to accept 0-16 as black and 235-255 as white. Thus should be set to limited.

Computer displays are designged to accept values from 0-255 there for if connected to a PS3 (set as limited) true blacks and whites will NOT be available. However setting the PS3 to full will remap the 16-235 range to 0-255, allowing the full colour spectrum on a computer monitor.

Likewise connecting a New HDTV to a PS3 set to full, will result in crushed blacks as grey values are mapped to maximum black, and light colours are mapped to full white. This may initially look better as it makes the image more viberant but you loose LOTS if not MOST of the detail in dark or light images.

However I have no idea how this works with games which I assume would have values ranging from 0-255.

Do games even change dependant on the limited full full setting? If you change the output mode to YCbCr does this only affect blurays/ DVDs?

If limited is used does the 0-255 range get mapped back to 13-235 for output?

games/xmb = Full RGB 0-255
dvd/blu-ray = YCC 16-239

1. PS3 set to Limited RGB and BD/DVD set to YCC = games are remaped to Limited RGB 16-239, movies are in their native YCC

2. PS3 set to Limited RGB and BD/DVD set to RGB = games are remaped to Limited RGB 16-239, movies are converted to Limited RGB

3. PS3 set to Full RGB and BD/DVD set to YCC = games are in their native Full RGB format, movies are in their native YCC

4. PS3 set to Full RGB and BD/DVD set to RGB = games are in their native Full RGB format, movies are converted to Full RGB

What is best for you depends on ability of TV and is not so hard discover how TV reacts on certain input signals. I don`t understand why is so much confusion about this.

 

[manux]

I don`t understand why is so much confusion about this.

Confusion is with movie playback colour performance. The main question being is there some extra information to be seen in full mode with ideal equipment.

If your interpretation of colour modes is right then it would seem that full mode doesn't contain any extra information as the values are just scaled.

Well, back to peeking the pics posted by grandmaster and trying to determine if the values are scaled or if there is full 0-255 range.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, back to peeking the pics posted by grandmaster and trying to determine if the values are scaled or if there is full 0-255 range.

They evidently prove that. They are direct grabs, and one has black at 16 (use the colour picker in a graphics applications) and the other with better contrast has black at 0. Ergo PS3 is outputting black at 0 in one mode, and 16 in another. novcze's idea is contrary to the whole market of the HD format and movies, and suggests HDTV makers included Full RGB mode support for the sake of games consoles (and only PS3 at that...) with no use whatsoever for movies! I think you'll find BRDs (dunno about DVDs) are encoded at 0-255 and the player scales for output, but as BRD requires HDMI, most HDMI enabled TV support Full RGB anyhow.

 

[sir doris]

Something else I've read is that limited offers the ability of blacker than black and whiter than white (something like YCC Super White?) information to be stored in the 1-15 and 236-255 ranges for displays capable of displaying them. Apparently there are a couple of available Blurays which have Blacker than Black.

Weather this is BS I have no idea.

 

[novcze]

Confusion is with movie playback colour performance. The main question being is there some extra information to be seen in full mode with ideal equipment.

If your interpretation of colour modes is right then it would seem that full mode doesn't contain any extra information as the values are just scaled.

Well, back to peeking the pics posted by grandmaster and trying to determine if the values are scaled or if there is full 0-255 range.

what color mode? difference between full rgb and limited rgb is most visible on contrast, because both modes have same gamut, but full rgb have obviously more unique colors (in games, not movies of course).

 

[novcze]

novcze's idea is contrary to the whole market of the HD format and movies, and suggests HDTV makers included Full RGB mode support for the sake of games consoles (and only PS3 at that...) with no use whatsoever for movies! I think you'll find BRDs (dunno about DVDs) are encoded at 0-255 and the player scales for output, but as BRD requires HDMI, most HDMI enabled TV support Full RGB anyhow.

I think you don't understand me. Is my english so bad?

edit: and is not my idea, it is widely accepted true, everyone with PS3 and modern TV (and little bit of knowledge) can run their own tests.

 

[novcze]

Something else I've read is that limited offers the ability of blacker than black and whiter than white (something like YCC Super White?) information to be stored in the 1-15 and 236-255 ranges for displays capable of displaying them. Apparently there are a couple of available Blurays which have Blacker than Black.

Weather this is BS I have no idea.

blacker then black signal was useful for brightness calibration with dedicated dvd/bd players (there is no other use), because PS3 have picture browser we can use old fashion PC calibration pictures to calibrate bightness on Full RGB

 

[manux]

They evidently prove that. They are direct grabs, and one has black at 16 (use the colour picker in a graphics applications) and the other with better contrast has black at 0. Ergo PS3 is outputting black at 0 in one mode, and 16 in another. novcze's idea is contrary to the whole market of the HD format and movies, and suggests HDTV makers included Full RGB mode support for the sake of games consoles (and only PS3 at that...) with no use whatsoever for movies! I think you'll find BRDs (dunno about DVDs) are encoded at 0-255 and the player scales for output, but as BRD requires HDMI, most HDMI enabled TV support Full RGB anyhow.

It's not that simple. The question is
1) Does ps3 scale the limited range to full range(still only 235-16 unique colours) but stretched to scale 0-255.
or
2) Are the films actually really decoded full range, 256 unique shades shown

There is widely spread idea that ps3 full range movie mode colours are only stretched.(and this is also what novcze is implying).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not that simple. The question is
1) Does ps3 scale the limited range to full range(still only 235-16 unique colours) but stretched to scale 0-255.

Yes, I thought of that after posting, but it still flies in the face of incorporating Full RGB on TV sets. Why have a 0-255 range if source material is only ever going to be 220 unique intensities? It achieves nothing different to accepting a 16-235 and just adjusting contrast, brightness and gamma to spread it from 'as black as the TV can do' to 'however bright you want white to be'. Surely the whole point of Full RGB support in TV's is to get more range into the image.

I have a new Samsung TV monitor with a setting for HDMI black level 'normal' or 'low'. Are you telling me that the new HD video standard takes a 16-232 range, stretches it to 0-255, and then the TV compresses the range back into the 16-232 display range? Or that Samsung put this feature in solely for PS3's with a Full RGB output on their games?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought that the digital content and display pipeline meant producers could and did target the full dynamic range rather than artificially cap themselves to a standard steeped in antiquated analogue!

 

[manux]

I have a new Samsung TV monitor with a setting for HDMI black level 'normal' or 'low'. Are you telling me that the new HD video standard takes a 16-232 range, stretches it to 0-255, and then the TV compresses the range back into the 16-232 display range? Or that Samsung put this feature in solely for PS3's with a Full RGB output on their games?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought that the digital content and display pipeline meant producers could and did target the full dynamic range rather than artificially cap themselves to a standard steeped in antiquated analogue!

I'm wondering the same things as the compressed colour range doesn't make any sense to me in the context of modern display devices and media.

 

[novcze]

It's not that simple. The question is
1) Does ps3 scale the limited range to full range(still only 235-16 unique colours) but stretched to scale 0-255.
or
2) Are the films actually really decoded full range, 256 unique shades shown

There is widely spread idea that ps3 full range movie mode colours are only stretched.(and this is also what novcze is implying).

1) right, movies (on DVD/BD) are native YUV (YCC) which is 16-235/239, what PS3 does is convert YCC to RGB and stretch this to Full RGB. Conversion between Full and Limited RGB or vice-versa is HDMI transmitter work (according to pux post).

I think PS3 does pretty good job with this conversions, because I don`t see any obvious difference between native YCC format and Full RGB conversion.

There is no exact advice how to set up your PS3, because every TV reacts on input formats differently.

 

[novcze]

Yes, I thought of that after posting, but it still flies in the face of incorporating Full RGB on TV sets. Why have a 0-255 range if source material is only ever going to be 220 unique intensities? It achieves nothing different to accepting a 16-235 and just adjusting contrast, brightness and gamma to spread it from 'as black as the TV can do' to 'however bright you want white to be'. Surely the whole point of Full RGB support in TV's is to get more range into the image.

Full RGB support on TV sets is mainly for PC (and PS3 Full RGB mode).

I have a new Samsung TV monitor with a setting for HDMI black level 'normal' or 'low'. Are you telling me that the new HD video standard takes a 16-232 range, stretches it to 0-255, and then the TV compresses the range back into the 16-232 display range? Or that Samsung put this feature in solely for PS3's with a Full RGB output on their games?

Full RGB was not even valid format until HDMI 1.3 version because is not needed for AV devices. Full RGB in PS3 menu was not avaible until some fw. update, because is not standard for AV devices (unlike PC).

 

[manux]

Full RGB was not even valid format until HDMI 1.3 version because is not needed for AV devices

Are you sure that you are not mixing deepcolour(10bit per pixel) and fullcolour...

 

[novcze]

Are you sure that you are not mixing deepcolour(10bit per pixel) and fullcolour...

yes, but I'm not sure if this information is true because I read that somewhere and don't remember where. But this is not important, HDMI is physically capable of Full RGB from begging, it's just matter of standards and HDMI was aimed to AV market first so later support for PC standard is somehow logical.

 

[grandmaster]

The only REAL deep color source I Know is "Foldingf@Home".

That's quite surprising. Almost as surprising as the fact that Folding@Home makes no use of the SPUs whatsoever. As one respected PS3 developer told me, 'No way was this coded by a games programmer!'

 

[obonicus]

That's quite surprising. Almost as surprising as the fact that Folding@Home makes no use of the SPUs whatsoever. As one respected PS3 developer told me, 'No way was this coded by a games programmer!'

Are you saying it's running entirely on the PPE?

 

[patsu]

That's quite surprising. Almost as surprising as the fact that Folding@Home makes no use of the SPUs whatsoever. As one respected PS3 developer told me, 'No way was this coded by a games programmer!'

Wait a minute... Folding @ Home for PS3 makes no use of the SPUs and yet outperforms a regular CPU significantly ? Your PS3 developer friend is most likely mistaken (or you may have misinterpreted his comments).

Here's a post from Sony about F@H's SPU component: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/08/21/foldinghome-update-2/comment-page-5/

This latest update addresses issues in two major areas: user requests and improving the accuracy of the core that we have running on the SPU.

EDIT: The F@H team has done some recent work on the nVidia GPU client:
http://folding.typepad.com/news/2008/05/gpu-news-gpu1-g.html

We've been working with NVIDIA to develop a GPU2 core for NVIDIA hardware. So far, the code is progressing well and the new GPU2/NVIDIA core is now in closed beta testing. It's hard to tell if there will be any show stoppers (there's lots of things that could go wrong in distributed computing on GPU's), but so far so good. We're very excited about the performance (more details on that later). We hope to have a public beta in the next few weeks.

I do not know if it will work for G7x clients (May be not). Would be awesome if they can use both RSX and Cell to fold.

 

[novcze]

so it`s Folding@Home "Deep Color" source or not? . . . I really wanna know.