No BS Podcast #147: Too Cool for Callsigns

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Dick Motorman

July 24, 2010 at 1:27pm

http://dl.maximumpc.com/maxpc_148_20100722.mp3

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Markitzero

July 23, 2010 at 11:21pm

Chrome goes alittle faster then FF but FF does alittle better with my web cache server because I use a web Cache server for cacheable content on webpages because I am on dial-up

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Michael Ellis

July 20, 2010 at 2:47pm

Google Chrome isn't the next geek browser. Internet explorer 9 Platform Review 1.9.7874.6000 is!

HP Pavilion Elite e9280t  AW020AV-ABA

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Bigfoot

July 19, 2010 at 4:16pm

I knew you could not go one podcast without saying Apple. You are all closet Apple Fanboys!

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BloOdymAN666

July 19, 2010 at 12:59pm

I was commenting on the article they ran about monitors in the last issue and that since every monitor uses ITU-R BT.709 for color reproduction the only way to improve perceived color is to consider the origination and/or the delivery format.

There are a number of different HD video acquisition formats and each has a different color sampling rate.  This has nothing to do with Blu-ray or streaming video or whatever.  You can't add color information anywhere down the viewing pipeline and its important for consumers to understand this.

 

Fighting with your monitors ugly-fying menu controls is troubling for all consumers and is the real problem in monitor tech. 

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Luthorcrow

July 18, 2010 at 4:16pm

During your response to the caller "Rich" from Washington question about his monitor colors, you once again got your facts completely wrong on how monitor gamuts work and impact displaying of content. This is one issue that most tech sites just get completely wrong.

Most of the color issues are not caused by the source.  Almost all source content for the web, broadcast television, DVD and BluRay are designed to be displayed in the sRGB gamut.  The problem is most new monitors are wide gamut. The result is the colors are mapped incorrectly resulting what could be described as "over-saturated" images.  Your hardware does have an impact on the colors of displayed content.  A pretty huge impact.

 The fact is that except for some photographers wide gamut is actually a big negative for the average and power consumer.  This will continue to be an issue until we move to next standard scRGB which actually exceeds the human eye's range of color perception.

As for monitor calibration, that will not fix the problem.  The only fix is either a monitor that has an accurate sRGB mode that can be calibrated like the Dell U2711 or U2410 or it could be fixed by Microsoft with a simple patch that would make sRGB gamut the default color space for Windows.

Apple on the other hand is not impacted because they limit their monitors to sRGB probably because of market forces (too many designers and graphics people use their stuff). 

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shutout5591

July 19, 2010 at 6:07am

Thanks for youre response, it was fascinating to read, especially since the new monitor I purchased suffers from this issue. Its a big pain.

 However, I was researching more, and I cam across this page: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/default.mspx, which states: "sRGB Color Space Profile. sRGB is the default color space in
Windows, based on the IEC 61966-2-1 standard. An sRGB-compliant device
does not have to provide a profile or other support for color management
to work well"

 

Can you explain yourself further?

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Luthorcrow

August 03, 2010 at 11:29pm

Yes, exactly. That is the heart of the problem with most modern wide gamut monitors.  They are not sRGB compliant devices.

As you quoted and as you dig farther you will find IEC 61966 was picked to match broadcast television content in anticipation of HD content.  Pretty much 99% of content for the PC or your for your television is designed to be displayed in the sRGB color space.  The only monitors that will do this natively are the 72% gamut monitors. 

What happens when you display PC content on a wide gamut monitor is all of your RGB color values are matched to the wrong shade of each color.  The shift will be greater the wider the gamut of the monitor is. A 92% will be about 20%, 110% will be 30% off, etc.   Why?  For example why isn't the same shade of red for example 206, 29, 29 the same shade in say 115% gamut?  Two reasons.  One because all displays are limited by a 8 bit video path (TN panels are even lower at 6bits) which means you have the same exact number of colors in a 72% gamut monitor as you do a 115% monitor.  The only difference the same number of colors values have spread across a wider spectrum of color (one reason why wide gamut monitors can have problems with banding).  The second reason is none of these wider gamuts monitors correspond to any standard color space.  Hence they do not match any color standard.  The result is 206, 29, 29 is a very different shade of red on a 72% gamut monitor vs a 92% vs 115%.

What this looks like is your colors will look over-saturated. You can simulate this effect in Photoshop by displaying content designed for sRGB in aRGB color space. Often people will think they are seeing "better" colors or "more" colors but in fact they are just seeing the wrong colors. So far monitor companies have gotten away with this because the gamuts have only been so wide but as monitors start to push towards 110% gamuts the effect will start to become less pleasing and more cartoonish.

The editors at Maximum PC make the same mistake most tech magazines and websites make when reviewing monitors.  They simply don't understand the tech they are reviewing and guilty of spreading misinformation and manufacture hype.

What Can You Do About

1) Microsoft could patch windows to make sRGB the default color space for windows.  This would have zero impact on color managed programs like Photoshop which would one of the few scenarios where wider gamut would have a benefit for a small set of users.

2) But a monitor that is 72% gamut. Your choices are pretty limited. Apple LCDs and the NEC 2490 are the only really good monitors that are defualt sRGB.  There maybe a few TN panels but I don't know which ones.

3) Get a monitor that has a good sRGB emulation mode.  These are really rare but the new Dell U2410 and U2711 both do this very well and one of the monitors with emulation modes that can be profiled with a color calibrator.  The U2711 is what I am using and I vouch for it not only being a very good monitor but in the sRGB mode after profiling a very accurate, default sRGB devices.

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Pureoverclocking

July 16, 2010 at 1:30pm

if i beat someone in a game and the person know my real name for sure i carry gun just in case.

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Strongbad536

July 15, 2010 at 8:25pm

i'd love to hear about the oil rigs that don't explode and pour thousands of gallons of oil into the gulf

hahahaha 

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erks

July 14, 2010 at 8:27pm

Good podcast

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No0b-0-rAmA

July 13, 2010 at 6:40pm

What was bleeped out that Nathan said?

That beggening was hilarious!

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Arrowdodger

July 26, 2010 at 8:27pm

Republicans. They fully censored the first mention, but missed the first half the the first syllable and the last half of the last syllable the 2nd time.

 

Freaking weak man.

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nedwards

July 16, 2010 at 4:37pm

I'll never tell!

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