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Ask Slashdot: Why Don't HDR TVs Have sRGB Or AdobeRGB Ratings?

dryriver writes: As anyone who buys professional computer monitors knows, the dynamic range of the display device you are looking at can be expressed quite usefully in terms of percentage sRGB coverage and percentage AdobeRGB coverage. The higher the percentage for each, the better and wider the dynamic range of the screen panel you are getting. People who work with professional video and photographs typically aim for a display that has 100 percent sRGB coverage and at least 70 to 80 percent AdobeRGB coverage. Laptop review site Notebookcheck for example uses professional optical testing equipment to check whether the advertised sRGB and AdobeRGB percentages and brightness in nits for any laptop display panel hold up in real life.

This being the case, why do quote-unquote "High Dynamic Range" capable TVs -- which seem to be mostly 10 bits per channel to begin with -- not have an sRGB or AdobeRGB rating quoted anywhere in their technical specs? Why don't professional TV reviewers use optical testing equipment that's readily available to measure the real world dynamic range of HDR or non-HDR TVs objectively, in hard numbers? Why do they simply say "the blacks on this TV were deep and pleasing, and the lighter tones were..." when this can be expressed better and more objectively in measured numbers or percentages? Do they think consumers are too unsophisticated to understand a simple number like "this OLED TV achieves a fairly average 66 percent AdobeRGB coverage?"

6 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Because... by msauve · · Score: 5, Informative

    "why do not have an sRGB or AdobeRGB rating ... Why don't professional TV reviewers use optical testing equipment..."

    Because video is ultimately encoded as YCrCb, wide gamut is compared against Rec. 2020, and you're not looking at the right review sites

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. TV's, not monitors by guruevi · · Score: 4, Informative

    TV's actually have quite a different color space and are also a lot brighter than the professional monitors which would make the settings for the AdobeRGB or sRGB ratings kind of moot since nobody uses a TV at 35-40% of the brightness (to get to the 160 cd/sqm).

    You really don't want an "HDR TV" as a monitor and vice versa, hence the ratings are pointless.

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    1. Re:TV's, not monitors by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Informative

      You really don't want an "HDR TV" as a monitor and vice versa, hence the ratings are pointless.

      Uh, yeah, I do. I've been using 4K TVs for a couple of years now as my main desktop monitor and I couldn't be happier.

      Right now I have a 48" Vizio and a 49" LG. Neither cost more than $500, both do 4:4:4 just fine, and use a standard HD connection to my laptop. The laptop's a few years old so I only get 30Hz, but I can handle that.

      I have 10 terminals and a couple of web browsers up. So I can program, multiple files at a time, plus consoles, database command line, dev web server log, documentation, and web output up all without anything being occluded.

      I started programming on a 256x192 screen with 28x24 characters. It's awesome to have this much real estate and has raised my productivity noticeably.

  3. Dynamic Range != Color Gamut by Octorian · · Score: 5, Informative

    Achem... Stop confusing terminology... AdobeRGB and sRGB coverage are the "color gamut" spec. While its valid to ask why these aren't promoted in TV specs, "dynamic range" is a completely different spec item.

  4. Re:Quote-on-quote by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 4, Informative

    dryriver, for the record, for a single word you want to include in "quotes" some people say "quote-unquote" meaning "begin quote then end immediately".

    It is best in a reading medium to use actual quotation marks, and elsewhere use it not at all, or sparingly if you hate people and want them to hate you equally.

    I'm thinking now of a movie with Katharine Hepburn and Mae West which likely does not exist, and should very much.

  5. Crummy wled backlighting? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's the first place I'd look for an explanation. When you actually run a display in HDR mode it drives backlighting to the max and sucks power like crazy. They have to trade flux for colors at least partially to work around the atrocious starting spectrum of backlighting. The only way to do that without eroding contrast is cranking up the volume.

    Personally I would much prefer color space not become a selling point unless the metric used explicitly considers power consumption. HDR isn't worth it.