well.. not really. 16,777,216 colours - 262,144 colours = 16,515,072 colours. which is still in the millions, so its not really false advertising.
You've got that backwards.
A 6-bit display means there are 18-bits of color depth per pixel (6 per component). This is 262,144 total combinations, not 262,144 fewer than an 8-bit display.
That being said, this lawsuit is insane. The Apple ad that's cited says that the new displays "look stunning", not "can display every possible color that the video card can send to the LCD panel". Whether or not you think the display is good enough for precision photo work, Apple's statement is hardly something you can sue them over.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peruchito
maybe someone knows but how many colours can the human eye actually see? i remember in school the teachers saying after a certain point, the average human can't tell the difference.
A human eye definitely can't distinguish all colors in the full 24-bit space, but it is more sensitive to some components (blue, IIRC) than to others, so you may well be able to notice the difference between a 6-bit-per-channel display and an 8-bit-per-channel display.
Of course, as one columnist mentioned, professional editors often work with images that have more than 8 bits per channel. Photoshop supports up to 16 bits per channel. So these people are either using very expensive professional displays, or they are already settling for some amount of dithering with 8-bit displays. This makes the problem much less extreme than the plaintiffs would have you believe.
I find that very hard to believe. The 20" Cinema Displays use an S-IPS panel, while the iMac uses a TN. As someone who just went through monitor hell this week buying the latest and greatest 24" from Dell because it was $450 CAN less than the 23" Cinema Display, I can tell you first hand that there is no comparison. The S-IPS technology has vastly superior colour even on the oldest 20" aluminum Cinema Display. On the Dell, even the type was bugging my eyes out. Anyway, new 23 Cinema Displays are ordered. They're damn expensive, but a great value.
Believe it. Unless the original 20" aluminum's had a different LCD than the current one. Also note that both 20" imacs and my cinema have all been calibrated with a usb screen calibrator.
That being said, this lawsuit is insane. The Apple ad that's cited says that the new displays "look stunning", not "can display every possible color that the video card can send to the LCD panel".
Actually, apple's website claims "millions of colors" for those monitors. While I think most of the suits against apple have been laughable, if apple is claiming millions of colors and not delivering, that sure sounds like legitimate grounds for a suit.
Really, would it be so hard for apple to either keep the quality of their monitors up or even just be honest in their claims?
I find that very hard to believe. The 20" Cinema Displays use an S-IPS panel, while the iMac uses a TN. As someone who just went through monitor hell this week buying the latest and greatest 24" from Dell because it was $450 CAN less than the 23" Cinema Display, I can tell you first hand that there is no comparison. The S-IPS technology has vastly superior colour even on the oldest 20" aluminum Cinema Display. On the Dell, even the type was bugging my eyes out. Anyway, new 23 Cinema Displays are ordered. They're damn expensive, but a great value.
Dell's Ultrasharp line is supposed to be using the exact same panel technology as the Cinema Display. Apple's 23" is an oddball, but IIRC, the 20" and 30" displays both use the same model panel. If you bought an Ultrasharp, you should be able to calibrate it. They use a different gamma and they probably don't have any sort of calibration going on. The ACDs seem to be calibrated at the factory, which should be the main reason they look better. Once equally calibrated though, they've been shown to have the same image quality.
Wow the 24" imac can display 16,777,216 colors, but they 20" can only display 262,144?! That's ridiculous how many colors can the Macbook, MacBook pro 15", MacBook Pro 17", and all the cinima display show?
I just love how the LCD Panel Industry has flooded the market with cheap TN displays and if you want a quality S-IPS or even MVA you are paying a hefty price to upgrade.
The standard monitor of today is the TN and they are simply POS.
By the way, the 24" iMac uses the H-IPS panel.
Hell I'd take an S-MVA but I'm not interested in the price tag for still not being S-IPS quality.
6 bit + 2x2 dithering (half-toning) or 6 bit FRC or 6 bit + Hi-FRC should all do "millions" with some artifacting.
16.2M? That's bit of a marketing statistic for FRC but with 3 tones it's (256-3)^3=16.2M which is where that number comes from. I don't know how they officially count 2x2 dithering or even if all of Apple's TN panels use 2x2 dithering or some might do FRC or Hi-FRC.
Interestingly Hi-FRC claims 16.7M colors because of the way it does mapping of the lower bits. I think lower bits anyway. It's been a while since I read about it but it does mean even when you see that 16.7M number you may not be getting a 8-bit panel.
Not that it matters that much if it is a TN panel anyway. They ARE (typically) faster but the trade is generally with color repro. And, of course, S-IPS panels are a heck a lot more expensive.
So, do 6-bit panels do "millions of colors"? Yes, with spatial or temporal dithering. Many folks won't notice the difference without a higher quality panel next to it as a reference.
They sure as heck would with a 6-bit panel that only did 262K colors.
PS For the person with issue with Dell monitors, typically you want the UltraSharp models that I believe were largely S-IPS and way more expensive...or were when I was looking at it a while ago. YMMV today since panel usage varies from year to year or even within years. The 30" HC is pretty nice. The 24" is S-PVA though but 8-bit.
Capable of millions of colours like the tech specs state.
Vinea states that 6-bit panels can produce millions of colours, but is this defined as millions from the panel or millions percieved through dithering. Is there industry defined terms that make the lawsuit viable? Does anyone else advertise in this way? I believe Apple settled on the other lawsuit.
I think I will abstain from this "millions of colors" thread. I am still annoyed from last time.
I will say this though: When it comes to using technology indetectable by humans - be it microscopic engraving, super-fast framrates w/ temporal dithering, or what-have-you - we are at the mercy of manufactures to tell us the truth about what we're getting. If they tell us we're getting the best when in reality we're getting the worst, only a handful may notice... but we are being lied to regardless.
I dragged my sorry gluteus maximus into PC World a while back and they had the pre-aluminium 20' and 24' intel iMacs , the current 20' and 24' iMacs all lined up in a row, with the older versions all on sale. The differences between the 24' displays was very obvious to the naked eye. The older display looked really poor, the colours seemed very dull and the text in the menu bar had fuzzy edges. The new 24' looked fantastic but there was no way I was going to buy it even though I wanted it. The glossy screen just wasn't to my liking and I am very happy with my current 20' Imac PPC display.
Now with the new 20' iMac sitting next to the old 20' model I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Surely this is a mistake I thought. How can the new iMac display look worse than the old one? I messed around with the display settings and that didn't improve matters.
The iMac I have now the 20' PPC is the only Mac I have ever bought, costing me around £1300 in May 2005. I expect at that price for it to last me another 2-3 years before I consider buying another one. I guess if Apple never offer a non-glossy screen then it will have to last me until it says "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"
"is a corporation that takes advantage of its customers"
Wow... Now there is a first! Considering the extreme customer loyalty and satisfaction of Apple, it might occur to this chap that other corporations just might be doing such unthinkable things to more extreme levels.
While i agree that 20" inch display is a POS, available LCDs actually display very few colors.
For an 8-bit LCD display: 8 levels of red, 8 levels of green, and 8 levels of blue, and black(ish).
Which equals 25 colors for an eight-bit display! (19 colors for a six-bit display!) Our retinas/brains just perceive the combinations as millions of colors (if you're sitting back from the display!)
So all the computer / display manufacturers are lying!
The issue about the number of colours is a load of rubbish. Properly calibrated, the display will be just fine for the tasks they're talking about.
However the issue about the screen quality on the 20" iMac isn't - it isn't as good as the previous model. I don't blame Apple for cost reducing here, it would have been nice to have a display type option when you purchase, but the fact is the 20" iMac moved into the budget price slot, and gained the budget iMac's display type, albeit 3" bigger.
In addition, every PC with a 20" or 22" LCD will come with a TN panel. The okay Dell E226, which I have at work, for example.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. I am a bit pissed at this with Apple. I got some of these iMacs and put some of them in our Photography Department of our newspaper. We went through a complete colour calibration overhaul and brought in experts in the field. Guys who do this with newspapers for a living. Even with calibration the screens in both the 24 and 20 inch versions do not give true colour accuracy. It's true, when compared side by side with the "proper" Apple standalone displays there are differences.
If I had have known that this was the case with the iMacs I would not have bought them and simply got Mac Pro's and the accompanying quality displays. So care to give us the real world example where you claim this is rubbish?
Obviously a display is capable of really only showing some shade of the three colors red, green and blue. It's only through an optical effect that they appear as these other "millions" of colors.
The bottom of the line iMac has always had a TN panel so I do not know why people is surprised that the 20" panel in the current iMac is TN.
If you go back and read the original article, you will see that previous 20" iMac had higher quality 8-bit (per channel) LCD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobertoq
how many colors can the Macbook, MacBook pro 15", MacBook Pro 17", and all the cinima display show?
As far as I know, all MacBooks and 20" iMac are 6-bit TN. Rest are 8-bit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by schmidm77
Obviously a display is capable of really only showing some shade of the three colors red, green and blue. It's only through an optical effect that they appear as these other "millions" of colors.
This whole series of lawsuits is silly.
Not entirely true. Since individual pixel is made off of 3 subpixels (red, green, and blue), when each subpixel is capable of varying 8 levels of brightness, they combine to form 16.7 million colors.
Comments
http://axofiber.no-ip.org/inside/monitor.lcd.panels.htm
well.. not really. 16,777,216 colours - 262,144 colours = 16,515,072 colours. which is still in the millions, so its not really false advertising.
You read that wrong. Not 262,144 less: 262,144 total. The article is ambiguously worded, though.
well.. not really. 16,777,216 colours - 262,144 colours = 16,515,072 colours. which is still in the millions, so its not really false advertising.
You've got that backwards.
A 6-bit display means there are 18-bits of color depth per pixel (6 per component). This is 262,144 total combinations, not 262,144 fewer than an 8-bit display.
That being said, this lawsuit is insane. The Apple ad that's cited says that the new displays "look stunning", not "can display every possible color that the video card can send to the LCD panel". Whether or not you think the display is good enough for precision photo work, Apple's statement is hardly something you can sue them over.
maybe someone knows but how many colours can the human eye actually see? i remember in school the teachers saying after a certain point, the average human can't tell the difference.
A human eye definitely can't distinguish all colors in the full 24-bit space, but it is more sensitive to some components (blue, IIRC) than to others, so you may well be able to notice the difference between a 6-bit-per-channel display and an 8-bit-per-channel display.
Of course, as one columnist mentioned, professional editors often work with images that have more than 8 bits per channel. Photoshop supports up to 16 bits per channel. So these people are either using very expensive professional displays, or they are already settling for some amount of dithering with 8-bit displays. This makes the problem much less extreme than the plaintiffs would have you believe.
I find that very hard to believe. The 20" Cinema Displays use an S-IPS panel, while the iMac uses a TN. As someone who just went through monitor hell this week buying the latest and greatest 24" from Dell because it was $450 CAN less than the 23" Cinema Display, I can tell you first hand that there is no comparison. The S-IPS technology has vastly superior colour even on the oldest 20" aluminum Cinema Display. On the Dell, even the type was bugging my eyes out. Anyway, new 23 Cinema Displays are ordered. They're damn expensive, but a great value.
Believe it. Unless the original 20" aluminum's had a different LCD than the current one. Also note that both 20" imacs and my cinema have all been calibrated with a usb screen calibrator.
That being said, this lawsuit is insane. The Apple ad that's cited says that the new displays "look stunning", not "can display every possible color that the video card can send to the LCD panel".
Actually, apple's website claims "millions of colors" for those monitors. While I think most of the suits against apple have been laughable, if apple is claiming millions of colors and not delivering, that sure sounds like legitimate grounds for a suit.
Really, would it be so hard for apple to either keep the quality of their monitors up or even just be honest in their claims?
This is one lawsuit I agree with. Anyone know how much more it would cost Apple to use a proper display?
Define: Proper Display.
I find that very hard to believe. The 20" Cinema Displays use an S-IPS panel, while the iMac uses a TN. As someone who just went through monitor hell this week buying the latest and greatest 24" from Dell because it was $450 CAN less than the 23" Cinema Display, I can tell you first hand that there is no comparison. The S-IPS technology has vastly superior colour even on the oldest 20" aluminum Cinema Display. On the Dell, even the type was bugging my eyes out. Anyway, new 23 Cinema Displays are ordered. They're damn expensive, but a great value.
Dell's Ultrasharp line is supposed to be using the exact same panel technology as the Cinema Display. Apple's 23" is an oddball, but IIRC, the 20" and 30" displays both use the same model panel. If you bought an Ultrasharp, you should be able to calibrate it. They use a different gamma and they probably don't have any sort of calibration going on. The ACDs seem to be calibrated at the factory, which should be the main reason they look better. Once equally calibrated though, they've been shown to have the same image quality.
The standard monitor of today is the TN and they are simply POS.
By the way, the 24" iMac uses the H-IPS panel.
Hell I'd take an S-MVA but I'm not interested in the price tag for still not being S-IPS quality.
They are milking the LCD R&D like they did RAM.
16.2M? That's bit of a marketing statistic for FRC but with 3 tones it's (256-3)^3=16.2M which is where that number comes from. I don't know how they officially count 2x2 dithering or even if all of Apple's TN panels use 2x2 dithering or some might do FRC or Hi-FRC.
Interestingly Hi-FRC claims 16.7M colors because of the way it does mapping of the lower bits. I think lower bits anyway. It's been a while since I read about it but it does mean even when you see that 16.7M number you may not be getting a 8-bit panel.
Not that it matters that much if it is a TN panel anyway. They ARE (typically) faster but the trade is generally with color repro. And, of course, S-IPS panels are a heck a lot more expensive.
So, do 6-bit panels do "millions of colors"? Yes, with spatial or temporal dithering. Many folks won't notice the difference without a higher quality panel next to it as a reference.
They sure as heck would with a 6-bit panel that only did 262K colors.
PS For the person with issue with Dell monitors, typically you want the UltraSharp models that I believe were largely S-IPS and way more expensive...or were when I was looking at it a while ago. YMMV today since panel usage varies from year to year or even within years. The 30" HC is pretty nice. The 24" is S-PVA though but 8-bit.
Define: Proper Display.
Capable of millions of colours like the tech specs state.
Vinea states that 6-bit panels can produce millions of colours, but is this defined as millions from the panel or millions percieved through dithering. Is there industry defined terms that make the lawsuit viable? Does anyone else advertise in this way? I believe Apple settled on the other lawsuit.
I will say this though: When it comes to using technology indetectable by humans - be it microscopic engraving, super-fast framrates w/ temporal dithering, or what-have-you - we are at the mercy of manufactures to tell us the truth about what we're getting. If they tell us we're getting the best when in reality we're getting the worst, only a handful may notice... but we are being lied to regardless.
-Clive
Now with the new 20' iMac sitting next to the old 20' model I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Surely this is a mistake I thought. How can the new iMac display look worse than the old one? I messed around with the display settings and that didn't improve matters.
The iMac I have now the 20' PPC is the only Mac I have ever bought, costing me around £1300 in May 2005. I expect at that price for it to last me another 2-3 years before I consider buying another one. I guess if Apple never offer a non-glossy screen then it will have to last me until it says "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"
Wow... Now there is a first! Considering the extreme customer loyalty and satisfaction of Apple, it might occur to this chap that other corporations just might be doing such unthinkable things to more extreme levels.
While i agree that 20" inch display is a POS, available LCDs actually display very few colors.
For an 8-bit LCD display: 8 levels of red, 8 levels of green, and 8 levels of blue, and black(ish).
Which equals 25 colors for an eight-bit display! (19 colors for a six-bit display!) Our retinas/brains just perceive the combinations as millions of colors (if you're sitting back from the display!)
So all the computer / display manufacturers are lying!
The issue about the number of colours is a load of rubbish. Properly calibrated, the display will be just fine for the tasks they're talking about.
However the issue about the screen quality on the 20" iMac isn't - it isn't as good as the previous model. I don't blame Apple for cost reducing here, it would have been nice to have a display type option when you purchase, but the fact is the 20" iMac moved into the budget price slot, and gained the budget iMac's display type, albeit 3" bigger.
In addition, every PC with a 20" or 22" LCD will come with a TN panel. The okay Dell E226, which I have at work, for example.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. I am a bit pissed at this with Apple. I got some of these iMacs and put some of them in our Photography Department of our newspaper. We went through a complete colour calibration overhaul and brought in experts in the field. Guys who do this with newspapers for a living. Even with calibration the screens in both the 24 and 20 inch versions do not give true colour accuracy. It's true, when compared side by side with the "proper" Apple standalone displays there are differences.
If I had have known that this was the case with the iMacs I would not have bought them and simply got Mac Pro's and the accompanying quality displays. So care to give us the real world example where you claim this is rubbish?
This whole series of lawsuits is silly.
The bottom of the line iMac has always had a TN panel so I do not know why people is surprised that the 20" panel in the current iMac is TN.
If you go back and read the original article, you will see that previous 20" iMac had higher quality 8-bit (per channel) LCD.
how many colors can the Macbook, MacBook pro 15", MacBook Pro 17", and all the cinima display show?
As far as I know, all MacBooks and 20" iMac are 6-bit TN. Rest are 8-bit.
Obviously a display is capable of really only showing some shade of the three colors red, green and blue. It's only through an optical effect that they appear as these other "millions" of colors.
This whole series of lawsuits is silly.
Not entirely true. Since individual pixel is made off of 3 subpixels (red, green, and blue), when each subpixel is capable of varying 8 levels of brightness, they combine to form 16.7 million colors.