HDMI Spec Upgraded To Support 'Deep Color'

writertype writes "If you own a digital television, there's a good chance it supports HDMI as an A/V interface. Well, for all you early adopters who bought an HDMI-less TV and regretted it later, the HDMI spec has been upgraded yet again, to version 1.3. Features include "deep color", or color depths beyond what the human eye can perceive, eight-channel audio support, among others. Interesting note: the PlayStation 3 supports deep color, according to the HDMI chief."

Comments

I only care about ONE deep color

[reklusband]

Does it support Deep Purple? Inna gadda davida baby! 8 CHANNELS AND DEEP PURPLE!!!!

Re:I only care about ONE deep color

[Hawthorne01]

And neither one of them have enough cowbell.

Licenced colors

[Volante3192]

Unfortunatly, due to unforseen copyright issues, all colors between Deep Green and Deep Violent will be subjected to a licencing fee.

IBM was unreachable for comment.

Huh?

[sexyrexy]

Sorry for stating the obvious, but doesn't color depths beyond what the human eye can perceive just seem really... pointless? I don't think the human eye is going to evolve to greater color sensitivity during HDMI's lifetime. It's one thing to have a higher quality image to downsample to, but... seriously. Isn't there SOMETHING the bandwidth could be used for besides information we can't use?

Re:Huh?

[statemachine]

I figured someone would be confused by this. However, the article expains:
"The color bit depth [of today's displays] is typically 24-bits RGB - that gets you 16 million colors, and the human eye can distinguish that," Chard said. "That leads to scaling and onscreen effects which you can pick up. Either 36-bit or 48-bit RGB is beyond the ability of the human eye to distinguish."

Right now your eye can see the color transitions. The point is to make it so you can't see the transitions.

Re:Huh?

[pthisis]

With current color depths, you can distinguish the difference between adjacent colors (in some limited portions of the field). By taking it to a depth where differences are imperceptible, you make things look smoother.

Essentially you want to have your colors go as deep as you need to to make differences imperceptible, which this (supposedly) does. After that going even deeper would be a waste.

Re:Huh?

[MBCook]

The best example of this is a gradient. Take your monitor and make a gradient that is full screen from solid red to solid black. As things are now you get 256 bands of color because there are 256 possible values for red. The problem with this is that the transitions are VERY obvious.

Now if you have 4090 possible values of red, your eye may not be able to perceive the difference between #1024 and #1032 individually. But when you make that large gradient while you will not be able to see the individual bands.

You've gone from blocky to smooth. Anywhere you want a gradient, this is good. Fading to black, the sky, etc. And let's not forget that this can give us better HDR.

You're confused

[93,000]

You're confused. The song you're talking about is done by that religion guy, I. Ron Butterfly.

Bad video games. Bad!

[Volante3192]

Geeze, there's a case for video games adversely affecting the mind... Even with the preview button I missed that typo. It's Violet. VIOLET!!

Re:beyond what the human eye can see?

[one-eye-johnson]

The HDMI spec now supports microwaves. If you're suspected by the MPAA of watching pirated films your TV just cooks you as you sit.

Upgraded...

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

So how do I flash the firmware on my TV and DVD player?

Hidden Agenda

[eclectro]

If the media you are playing is not Approved Media (TM), it plays in shallow color, otherwise known as black and white.

Re:Bad video games. Bad!

[B1]

In fact many parents don't even let their children play violet video games, for fear that the games might adversely affect their children's minds.

Re:beyond what the human eye can see?

[EvanED]

It doesn't increase the range of values that can be represented probably, just the resolution. (I don't mean resolution in the 1080p sense, but the bit depth of each pixel. E.G. the 24-bit part of 24-bit, 48 kHz.) It decreases the difference in between successive levels of each color.

Grue and Bleen

[spun]

The new spec lets you see the difference between green and grue, and also between blue and bleen. Riddle of Induction solved!

HDMI hardware support

[path_man]

Really, shouldn't the industry concentrate on properly implementing to the existing spec's before they bother with new & improved features?? I currently have an HDTV Panasonic plasma panel, a Denon receiver and a SciAtl set-top-box all tied together with HDMI, and I cannot get a signal because HDMI does not properly authenticate for the very reason HDMI was created -- to legally broadcast copy protected signals.

I am personally sick of these half-assed industry rollouts where most of the spec is adhered to by vendors, but the rest is blatently ignored, just so they can be first to market with a shiney new badge on their product. There is so much inoperability between HighDef products and home-theatre in general, that you're really playing russian roulette by being the first on your block to try an untested combination of components.

To you vendors out there: GET IT RIGHT first. You know why folks aren't lining up outside their local electronics boutique to get the latest HD gear? They are pretty sure that the stuff isn't going to work and they won't be separated from their hard-earned dough by the latest marketing gimmick.

PS - in case anyone wants to know my "workaround" I actually had to downgrade to connecting my SciAtl box to the Denon via component RGB cables then run HDMI to my panel. I talked with a Denon tech and this was the only workaround due to the stupidity of the *ahhem* engineering *ahhhem* at SciAtl. Maybe the Cisco acquisition will fix that nonsense.