Thread: 5.0 color banding

Do any of the 5.0 OS's solve the color banding issue?

I believe teh 191 does, but do not quote me on that.

yes most of the color banding is gone on 5.0

Originally Posted by blachance75

Do any of the 5.0 OS's solve the color banding issue?

Its much better in 5.0. Still not completely gone though.

Any OS from 4.7.0.151 on up pretty much eliminate the "color banding" issue. There's still a minor amount if you really look for it, but such are the limitations of a 16-bit screen. Most of the images we display on the screen are either 24 bit or 32 bit; so there are ALOT of missing colors.

Can you see the Color Band? Nah not that much... A Single color yet different gradient changes are in the wallpaper... Back in 4.7 you could see splotches while it changes... Although so far no OS has removed color band completely and will not since the screen isn't made to a high BIT of color depth, so far this is the best we got... But if you really want to see color band go ahead and go to (under 5.0) Options>Advanced Options>Accessibility>Color Contrast - Set it to Greyscale....

Then you will see the Wallpaper true gradient changes just like this:



So although 5.0 still has small color band issues... It still is the most dominate on clearing this up... I doubt we will see better since the hardware isnt that up to par for visual images unlike the Ipod/Iphone/Zune Device which sports great color depth... If you notice the "BlackHawk" patent in earlier posts there is talks about "OLED" ... This will fix any color band issue forever haha OLED is what DSL/Cable is to 56k

Well hope this clears things up and gives some people something to play with...

Thanks for the post yourfriendwayand...very helpful in displaying the differences of color banding.

Excelent post thanks.

Always here to help!

Originally Posted by yourfriendwayned

Always here to help!

Nice Wayne, thanks!

Originally Posted by yourfriendwayned

So although 5.0 still has small color band issues... It still is the most dominate on clearing this up... I doubt we will see better since the hardware isnt that up to par for visual images unlike the Ipod/Iphone/Zune Device which sports great color depth... If you notice the "BlackHawk" patent in earlier posts there is talks about "OLED" ... This will fix any color band issue forever haha OLED is what DSL/Cable is to 56k
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You are 100% correct. The reasons for the display weaknesses in the Storm are a combination of hardware and software; but what it boils down to is that RIM used a cheaper 16-bit LCD panel in the Storm, which limits it to 65,536 possible colors.

Unfortunately, most images with gradients are designed to be shown on a 24-bit display at minimum, as they are comprised of 16.8 million possible colors. While there is no possible way for totally compensating for the vast amount of missing colors, some dithering algorithms are better at smoothing things out than others. It's obvious that RIM is improving this, but there's no possible way to completely eliminate it.

The iPhone has an 18-bit display (262,144 possible colors) so it is easy to see why it has less color banding visible to the naked eye. This is STILL way lacking compared to modern PC displays (24/32 bit) so there will STILL be color banding on some images, just none that is visible to the naked eye on a small screen.

As for technologies such as AMOLED and OLED, they will virtually eliminate this problem, as they are capable of 16.8 million colors, thus no dithering algorithm is necessary.

NOTE: Cheaper PC displays exhibit color banding issues as well. The reason for this is that some of them use a less expensive panel that causes images to be dithered. Very few LCD monitors display true 24-bit color anyways, one needs an old-school CRT for that.

Excellent post Dave!

Not to change the subject but does anyone know what the Storm 2 will have? as far as if it's going to b 16bit or more?

Originally Posted by Dave12308

You are 100% correct. The reasons for the display weaknesses in the Storm are a combination of hardware and software; but what it boils down to is that RIM used a cheaper 16-bit LCD panel in the Storm, which limits it to 65,536 possible colors.

Unfortunately, most images with gradients are designed to be shown on a 24-bit display at minimum, as they are comprised of 16.8 million possible colors. While there is no possible way for totally compensating for the vast amount of missing colors, some dithering algorithms are better at smoothing things out than others. It's obvious that RIM is improving this, but there's no possible way to completely eliminate it.

The iPhone has an 18-bit display (262,144 possible colors) so it is easy to see why it has less color banding visible to the naked eye. This is STILL way lacking compared to modern PC displays (24/32 bit) so there will STILL be color banding on some images, just none that is visible to the naked eye on a small screen.

As for technologies such as AMOLED and OLED, they will virtually eliminate this problem, as they are capable of 16.8 million colors, thus no dithering algorithm is necessary.

NOTE: Cheaper PC displays exhibit color banding issues as well. The reason for this is that some of them use a less expensive panel that causes images to be dithered. Very few LCD monitors display true 24-bit color anyways, one needs an old-school CRT for that.

i hate smart people :evil:

Originally Posted by quiet1

Not to change the subject but does anyone know what the Storm 2 will have? as far as if it's going to b 16bit or more?

Not 100% sure, but the spec list on pdadb.net says it has a transmissive LCD with 65536 "scales", so that translates to 16-bit.