How Colour Depth Affects Image Quality as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2014-05-07
·
927 words · ~4 min read
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everyone knows hd and retina they
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marketing terms that mean better image quality but they're only about the
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resolution or the fineness of the image
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see that right there that mess you're looking at is a high resolution hd image
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but with very low color depth color depth is incredibly important if you
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want to experience your content the way the creator intended color depth refers
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to the amount of data that can be used to indicate the color of each dot or
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pixel on your display one bit would be black and white two bit would be shades
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of gray and 8 bit allows a 256 color
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palette in short more bits of color depth bring translations into more colors that
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can be displayed so on the bits well there are challenges processing
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power on cpus and graphics cards used to be a bottleneck and while today they're
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fine for a high quality image every link
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of the chain needs to be high quality challenge number one is data storage and
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internet bandwidth Digital files with high color depth are really big to save
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space and bandwidth usually they get compressed websites like youtube
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streaming services like netflix and even your cable tv provider are all serving
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highly compressed video which negatively affects color fidelity you will often
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easily detect where the approximations are being made where the creator
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intended for the colors to blend smoothly together but instead you see
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blocks or bands of the same color
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because to save on infrastructure costs much of the data has been lost challenge
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number two is display let's say you py up for a blay of your favorite movie and
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then watch it on a cheap tv or tn panel monitor in this case the data is all
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there but your display is not capable of reproducing all those colors so you'll
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see the same block and color banding as before where the display is just
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approximating the as best it can right
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let me straight telling my su when i
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was perfectly happy with it before and then you're following up by telling me
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there's basically nothing i can do about it without spending ach money anyway are you trying to make me unhappy no i'm not i
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know all of this and i'm still perfectly happy in you know canada here with my
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canadian internet connection and you know canadian netflix it especially
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doesn't bother me on small screens like on a phone or a tablet and in vibrant
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scenes with many varied colors it only really bugs me in dark scenes with many
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similar colors i mean see that right there the block and lack of detail in
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the bunny when he covered by the shadows is a perfect example of what we're
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talking about and just because we're aware of this and understand it better
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doesn't mean we have to change anything i just wanted to cover this topic for a
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while so that i can explain to folks way why their ht image doesn't look that
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great if they always look that great do want to do something about it they'll know what to
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do look for content that uses high quality codex and is encoded at higher
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bit rates the higher the bit rate or the amount of data per second in the
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video stream the higher the color depth is likely to be try higher quality
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content first before upgrading your display and use shadows as a quick and
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easy benchmark to see if it's making a noticeable difference and if it doesn't
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make a difference to you then that's great because there is a limit to what
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your eyes can see anyway before More color depth really doesn't make any
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difference speaking of shadows our
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featured audiobook from audible.com today is into the darkest corner by
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elizabeth haes you can get it or something else for free by going to
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audible.com quicky linked in the video description and signing up for a new
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account it's an editor pick on audible it won amazon's book of the year award
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in 2011 so it ain't the newest thing out there but it's not like i was going to
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go through all 150,000 audiobooks they have to find
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another one that had shadows or darkness in the title for my segway now was i i
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mean i guess i could have gone with like heart of darkness or like book of
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shadows actually don't know if there's a real book of shadows it's just
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something that's in like every fantasy novel ever there's always like a book of
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shadows anyway i seem to have lost track of what i was talking about make sure
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when you sign up you go audible.com tech quicky so they don't cut me off then the
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only content i'd be able to afford to make for you guys would be low color
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depth you gross anyway like the video if
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