Tag Archives: hdtv broadcast

Introducing Wide Gamut Wednesdays

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This week I’m kicking off a new series of posts that set out to answer a simple question:

“Can an HDTV accurately reproduce these colors?”

I’m calling the new weekly feature “Wide Color Gamut Wednesday” or #WideColorWednesday in social media speak. Each week we will analyze a new wide color gamut image and post the results to our @dot_color Twitter feed.

In the process, I think we’ll find that “wide gamut” colors – colors that fall outside the BT.709 color gamut used by HDTVs – are actually fairly common beyond classic examples like Brazilian tree frogs or Coca Cola cans. In fact, in our first test, we found a simple image of spring flowers, taken in Rochester, NY, contained mostly colors that fall outside the BT.709 gamut.

Wide Color Gamut image analysis

62.5% of the colors in this springtime flowers image fall outside the BT.709 color gamut used by HDTVs #WideGamutWednesday

I thought it would be helpful to write up the first #WideColorWednesday image as a blog post with some background on the process used to create these images.

Continue reading →

Google claims new Nexus 7 delivers 30% wider range of colors – what do they mean?

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Google announced an updated version of their Nexus 7 tablet this morning. Central to Google’s pitch was the improved display with both more pixels and more color. The device does feature an impressively high resolution, packing 2.3 million pixels into a 7″ form factor. But, I’m more interested in the color performance and, on this point, Google was vague offering only that the display, “has a 30% wider range of colors.”

What do they mean by that?

It depends on their frame of reference- what color space they are using and what color gamut standard they are comparing against. Since Google talked about the accuracy of HD video at their event, let’s assume that they are referring to the HDTV broadcast standard (rec.709) and using the common CIE 1976 (u’ v’) color space.

When I measured last year’s Nexus 7, I found it could only reproduce about 82%* of the colors found in the rec.709 standard. Color reproduction was not accurate and a little bit undersaturated on this device:

Color gamut of Google's Nexus 7 versus the HDTV broadcast standard (rec.709). Plotted in CIE 1976 (u' v').

Color gamut of Google’s previous generation Nexus 7 versus the HDTV broadcast standard (rec.709). Plotted in CIE 1976 (u’ v’).

With just a simple calculation, increasing 82% by 30%, you’d get about 106% coverage of the HDTV broadcast standard. While that’s actually a slightly wider color gamut than the standard, it is not uncommon for device makers to use a wider color gamut in order to guarantee the color spec across all devices with some room for manufacturing tolerances. This means video and web content should be displayed accurately and it could make for a great looking display.

We’ll order and measure one as soon as they are available to verify so stay tuned…

* note: I always measure coverage of broadcast standards, not simply total area since that can be misleading. However, in this case, coverage and area are nearly the same since the Nexus 7’s gamut is smaller than rec.709.