Database Develop

[Q] Milestone: limited color display abilities?

Lately I've noticed that my Milestone has some problems with displaying colors.
I have attached the screenshot of my home, where you can see terrible transitions between similar hues.
lso, there is wallpaper file attached, which seems to be okay to me.
Is it common with those screens or it's just my Milestone?

my milestone does the same :/ could it be that it does not have 16 million colors?

24 bit images on a 16 bit display will cause the banding you see.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App

fivefour said:
24 bit images on a 16 bit display will cause the banding you see.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App
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i find it weird that no reviews mentions this or even the specifications sheet, :/ the desire has an 24 bit display?

That's what I thought, pretty much.
Still, it being not mentioned is strange, as it seems to be fairly serious issue. Unless it's possible to convert images with no quality loss visible on the screen.

The proper term is dither, in cyanogen you can enable surface dithering in cyanogen mod settings > performance which should improve image quality at the cost of performance. Not sure about other roms.
Sent from my Droid using XDA App

im curious to know about the display used in the droid 2 and droid x, the htc desire, are they using a 24 bit display now?

The Droid/Milestone does have a 24-bit display: http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm
In fact, the Droid 2 uses the same LCD.
That gradient problem with your image is probably caused by several problems:
1. The picture is not a true 24-bit image.
2. Google's Gallery is limited to 16-bit!
The Milestone/Droid has one of the finest LCDs on the market, and if it had not been so expensive when it was first released in Canada ($600!), I would have bought it in a heartbeat, despite the locked bootloader.
EDIT: I've just examined the photo on my 24-bit Aquos, and it looks perfectly smooth, so the problem is being caused by Android 2.1. FroYo's Gallery is also limited to 16-bit.

So what gallery could I use to put wallpapers on?
Flikie does pretty much the same, as it uses Froyo gallery.

Well, it seems that application named Wallpaper Set and Save (find it in market, it's free) is the easy way out.
This app lets you set the 24-bit wallpaper keeping the desired quality, more or less.
Though, it may make Launcher Pro FC a couple of times right after setting the new wallpaper, then it works flawlessly.

applebook said:
The Droid/Milestone does have a 24-bit display: http://www.displaymate.com/Motorola_Droid_ShootOut.htm
In fact, the Droid 2 uses the same LCD.
That gradient problem with your image is probably caused by several problems:
1. The picture is not a true 24-bit image.
2. Google's Gallery is limited to 16-bit!
The Milestone/Droid has one of the finest LCDs on the market, and if it had not been so expensive when it was first released in Canada ($600!), I would have bought it in a heartbeat, despite the locked bootloader.
EDIT: I've just examined the photo on my 24-bit Aquos, and it looks perfectly smooth, so the problem is being caused by Android 2.1. FroYo's Gallery is also limited to 16-bit.
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if the 16 bit problem is androids fault how could google not fix this in 2.2? so thats why a lot of of phones use a different gallery than the stock, im surprised this isnt mentioned more often

This link should be a sticky http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362605,00.asp

jackeh070 said:
Well, it seems that application named Wallpaper Set and Save (find it in market, it's free) is the easy way out.
This app lets you set the 24-bit wallpaper keeping the desired quality, more or less.
Though, it may make Launcher Pro FC a couple of times right after setting the new wallpaper, then it works flawlessly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i searched for it and it says it only works in 1.x not in 2.x but it works... weird

Chad_Petree said:
if the 16 bit problem is androids fault how could google not fix this in 2.2? so thats why a lot of of phones use a different gallery than the stock, im surprised this isnt mentioned more often
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Yeah, I agree. Apparently, Samsung's Galaxy S Gallery is a bit better. Not truly 24-bit, but the Galaxy S adds improved dithering. The Galaxy S, with all of the hype about SAMOLED, is not even a real 24-bit display You Milestone/Droid/Droid 2 folks have the best Android screen, IMO.

Chad_Petree said:
This link should be a sticky http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362605,00.asp
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Click to collapse
True.
Google is not eager to tell you the answer if you don't exactly know what you are looking for. And for non-technical people it may be hard to guess.

Chad_Petree said:
im curious to know about the display used in the droid 2 and droid x, the htc desire, are they using a 24 bit display now?
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i dont know what the droid screen was like but i got a milestone 2(droid 2) yesterday and the screen looks awful on it, nothing but dull colours, i just made a post about it here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10401973#post10401973

Easy question about wallpaper size

whats the size for 3 home screens in launcher pro, thanks!

rsx19 said:
whats the size for 3 home screens in launcher pro, thanks!
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There is a setting in launcher pro that you can keep the wallpaper centered. Its in appearance settings > disable wallpaper scrolling. This way you can make a wallpaper for the res of a single screen

Im trying to make a wallpaper so its optimized for 3 screens
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Well take the screen resolution of the captivate 480x800 and then just triple width. Adjust as needed as you test. Pretty simple math.

sparker366 said:
Well take the screen resolution of the captivate 480x800 and then just triple width. Adjust as needed as you test. Pretty simple math.
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Its definitely not 3x the width, anyone else know.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Well just try something and then see the results and then adjust accordingly

it's be awesome if you could change the shape of the crop piece in the wallpaper picker
then you could have 3 different backgrounds.

I have found that an image of 960 x 800 pix is the best resolution for the wallpaper cropping tool no matter how many home screens l am using. my guess is you wil want to play with your image until it looks right at that resolution on three home screens.

Number of Screens Does Not Matter
It is my understanding that the number of screens you have has no effect on the resolution of the wallpaper.
The only thing that changes is the rate of scrolling. The more screens you have, the slower the scroll rate, fewer screens increases the scroll rate.
That said, there is no specific resolution for a 3 screen layout vs. any other number of screens.
The phone's (general) optimum resolution for wallpaper is about 960 x 800. So any photo or picture will fit best on the phone if you pre-configure it to that size.
Of course it's best to start with a photo that is larger than that and then either crop it down or resize it to the smaller 960 x 800 dimensions. Increasing the size of, or zooming, a smaller photo up to the optimum 960 x 800, will usually degrade the quality (and clarity) of it.
While 960 x 800 is considered optimum, you can put other sizes on the phone too...you'll just lose a small portion of it, or blank space will be added depending on how you use the wallpaper crop box.

ozone777 said:
It is my understanding that the number of screens you have has no effect on the resolution of the wallpaper.
The only thing that changes is the rate of scrolling. The more screens you have, the slower the scroll rate, fewer screens increases the scroll rate.
That said, there is no specific resolution for a 3 screen layout vs. any other number of screens.
The phone's (general) optimum resolution for wallpaper is about 960 x 800. So any photo or picture will fit best on the phone if you pre-configure it to that size.
Of course it's best to start with a photo that is larger than that and then either crop it down or resize it to the smaller 960 x 800 dimensions. Increasing the size of, or zooming, a smaller photo up to the optimum 960 x 800, will usually degrade the quality (and clarity) of it.
perfect answer, 960x800 here i come
While 960 x 800 is considered optimum, you can put other sizes on the phone too...you'll just lose a small portion of it, or blank space will be added depending on how you use the wallpaper crop box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
perfect answer, 960x800 here i come

[Q] Why is text not crisp on the NC?

I read somewhere that although the LCD screen of the nookColor is 1024x600, the graphics chip is actually outputting at a much lower resolution and it is being scaled/interpolated to fit the 1024x600 screen. Is this why small text is hard to read and not as crisp as like on my EVO? This is especially noticable on widgets and icons like SwitchPro battery indicator. It's near impossible to read the battery percentage.
If this is something I can disable (font smoothing or something), I'd definitely do it.

I've never seen this problem on any of the nooks I've used?

Mine is crisp and clear.

really? it looks like microsoft ClearType is cranked way up. All the letters are fuzzy instead of crisp and clean edges like on a PC or an EVO. I've noticed it on every nook I've picked up.

This is the first complaint I've seen of fuzzy text. Did they have some kind of matte screen protector or something over the display?
I can't imagine a dedicated bookstore making a (supposedly) dedicated ereader without ensuring it had crisp text.

are you sure the app isnt upscaling, and designed for a small screen?
if they arent using vector images then they would blur in upscaling.
otherwise, i havent experienced anything at all like what you explain

Found where I read about the video output:
GPU Processor: PowerVR SGX530 Graphics Rendering: Open GLES1.1/2.0 Hardware Scaling: 854x480 scaled to 1024x600 Video Formats: .3GP, .MP4, .3G2 ** Video Codecs: H.263, H.264, MPEG-4, ON2 VP7 ** Image Formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP ** (same GPU as Droid 2 and Droid X)
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from: http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook-color-technical/3483-nookcolor-full-specifications.html

I agree about the text, depending on what you are reading I do see a fuzz around the letters.
Sometimes its poor pdf quality.
I also think the video quality is kind of washed out and not as sharp as it seems it should be.

Glad I'm not the only one who is bothered by this. I certainly never noticed it on my wife's iPad and the nook should be crisper considering the dpi. UNLESS we are actually seeing an 854x480 output interpolated to 1024x600 instead of native like other devices.

wy1d said:
Found where I read about the video output:
from: http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/nook-color-technical/3483-nookcolor-full-specifications.html
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From what I've read this applies purely to video decoding. Anything the OS renders from apps to text does not have this problem. That being said mine is incredibly crisp.

For those who say theirs is crisp, what are you comparing to? For example, the text on the xda app on my EVO is much much easier to read than the xda app on the nook.

wy1d said:
For those who say theirs is crisp, what are you comparing to? For example, the text on the xda app on my EVO is much much easier to read than the xda app on the nook.
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AMOLED HTC Incredible with CM7.
I just made a close-up side-by-side comparison of it with the NC. The NC's text is actually smoother around the edges of the letters than the Inc's, while the interior of the letters looks more "solid" on the Inc, probably due to the physically larger pixel-grid on the NC's display. Note that this was from a viewing distance of about two inches.
To me, it's a wash. At a normal viewing distance, they appear about equal and both look great.
This isn't in any particular app, though. I have some of the same widgets and apps on my home screens, so I was comparing the widget text and icon labels.

wy1d said:
For those who say theirs is crisp, what are you comparing to? For example, the text on the xda app on my EVO is much much easier to read than the xda app on the nook.
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Not really comparing it to anything. My iPhone4 is more crisp but it has a much higher ppi. It's just good overall, I mean your evo probably has more ppi(idk the evo specs) so I doubt the text would appear as crisp to that. I mean the text isn't blurry at all so I guess I'd say it's just as good as a book and better than a newspaper

wy1d said:
For those who say theirs is crisp, what are you comparing to? For example, the text on the xda app on my EVO is much much easier to read than the xda app on the nook.
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Click to collapse
That is not the nook's fault. What you are referring to is pixel density.
If you have a phone with a small screen at 840x480 versus a screen more than double the size only scaling a 1024x600, the pixel density ill be lower on that device.
Our pixel density on the nook is about 169
ipad is about 133
iphone 4 is over 300 which is why that screen looks so sharp

Anybody who says that the display is being generated at 854x480 and upscaled to 1024x600 is, well, wrong. First of all, 854x480 is not the same aspect ratio as 1024x600(the equivalent would be 820x480, which nothing renders in), so those claims are completely made up.
More conclusively, even a smidgen of playing about with any pixel-related app(Multitouch Visualizer shows distance between touches) will plainly show that the screen is, in fact, 1024x600. You can also look up the LCD panel type(see the teardown thread), or ask ANYBODY that is doing hardware dev on the thing.
"Blurriness" can result from poorly-coded apps doing a bad upscale on their graphics, or from you needing to buy glasses. But the device itself is 1024x600, and looks just fine to me.

What you have posted there are video upscaling stats. The nook hardware cannot process video above 852 pixels wide so upscales to 1024. With that said the nook color has been reviewed to have a higher pixel density than the iPad and I have never seen anything less than sharp text.

MattJ951 said:
From what I've read this applies purely to video decoding. Anything the OS renders from apps to text does not have this problem. That being said mine is incredibly crisp.
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I think this is correct, I looked at a list of 16x9 resolutions and this is what I see:
WVGA 854 × 480 ~16:9 1.783 410,880 total Pixels.
and
Used in many netbooks 1024 × 600 128:75 1.707 614,400 Total Pixels
I think the 848 (close to 854) by 480 is their attempt to render 16x9 or close to it for video. But that is just my guess.
Posted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions
Also, if you are not aware of it, there is a way to change font size when reading... I have never noticed any fuzzy text on the NC screen. Try a few different things and find your happy place.
migrax

I edited my build.prop and changed lcd density to 150. Everything looks much crisper. I snapped some macro photos of it before. Will post tomorrow.

Wallpaper resolution?

I tried to set my Macbook wallpaper (1280x800) on the Xoom and it turned out very badly and it didn't fill the entire screen, when it asked me to corp.
I was wondering what is the res and the ppi.

I think it's full HD : 1920*1080

I was wondering if anyone know what is the resolution of the system wallpapers...
I'm trying to find them but couldn't locate it under the launcher2.apk
Did they change this in v3?

In launcher2.apk
res\drawable-mdpi\
res\drawable-xlarge-nodpi\
The nodpi has 1920x1080 images in and include the City Default Wallpaper
That's where the wallpaper's are from what I can see.

strifejester said:
In launcher2.apk
res\drawable-mdpi\
res\drawable-xlarge-nodpi\
The nodpi has 1920x1080 images in and include the City Default Wallpaper
That's where the wallpaper's are from what I can see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can't be 1920x1080 because it fits the wallpaper crop perfectly. Where as my 1080 picture has too much width.
Thanks for the path anyways, I'll mail the pictures to myself and see what is the res of it.

Wo this is driving me crazy....
The resolution of the system wallpaper in 1980x1280... now the images look good
but, the top and bottom parts are cut off... I added 100 pixels on top and bottom...
Still about 250 pxls get cut from both end.
aarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh

I found that if you get a 2560 x 1600 wide wallpapes it fits perfectly and its clear as well. You can get some 2560 x 1600 wide wallpapers at bestwallpapersite.com. Let me know if this works for you.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

1920x1408 works perfectly.

lasphyxial said:
1920x1408 works perfectly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes 1920x1408 crops fits perfectly but still about 250 pxls are cut on either end
This happens on the default wallpapers too... look at the android flower wallpaper...
but the images are sharp now... but still if you have a vertical target in the picture... their head and feet are cut.

eyan15 said:
... but still if you have a vertical target in the picture... their head and feet are cut.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't personally own a Xoom, so I might be way off here, but aren't the images a little "taller" than the screen because when you open the app window it scrolls up a little? I'm guessing it would scroll down at some point as well. I seem to remember it doing that when I messed with my friends yesterday. Not sure if that is why, just a thought.

SevenInchScrew said:
I don't personally own a Xoom, so I might be way off here, but aren't the images a little "taller" than the screen because when you open the app window it scrolls up a little? I'm guessing it would scroll down at some point as well. I seem to remember it doing that when I messed with my friends yesterday. Not sure if that is why, just a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your correct. This exactly why, I got the 2560 x 1600 picture, that way when the menu crops the wallpaper is still clear due to the picture being bigger than normal resolution, so when you zoom in to the picture it still clear. It work fine for me so it should for you also. When you crop the picture it fits the way you want it to as well.

I use 1920 x 1200 and it fits perfectly.

sunnyd119 said:
Your correct. This exactly why, I got the 2560 x 1600 picture, that way when the menu crops the wallpaper is still clear due to the picture being bigger than normal resolution, so when you zoom in to the picture it still clear. It work fine for me so it should for you also. When you crop the picture it fits the way you want it to as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does everything in the square (when you set a wallpaper) fills the screen?
I tried 1280x800, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1920x1408 and 2560x1600...
in these only 1920x1408 fits the 'wallpaper square' perfectly but still the picture in zoomed and top and bottom cut...
Can you do me a fav and post your wallpaper and the screen grab with it set as wallpaper?
thanks a ton

Wrote up a guide on a trick I found to making wallpapers fit perfectly on the Xoom. Check it out here: http://www.xoomforums.com/forum/motorola-xoom-wallpapers/320-getting-wallpapers-fit-just-right.html

czonin said:
Wrote up a guide on a trick I found to making wallpapers fit perfectly on the Xoom. Check it out here: http://www.xoomforums.com/forum/motorola-xoom-wallpapers/320-getting-wallpapers-fit-just-right.html
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Click to collapse
Great guide...thanks for sharing.
Seems to me they would have thought of an easier way to apply custom wallpaper without needing to go through all of this.

While all of these hints will help, they are still not the actual resolution of the wallpaper. I played around in photoshop until I found the actual demintions.
Have a look at my post here for a template PDF file.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=974883

ritalin said:
While all of these hints will help, they are still not the actual resolution of the wallpaper. I played around in photoshop until I found the actual demintions.
Have a look at my post here for a template PDF file.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=974883
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Click to collapse
you are a godsend, yes every other tip here makes the wallpaper crispier but they are still cropped.
You don't notice this if you set a abstract wallpaper.
What you posted is dead on the spot. Thanks a million

Need photoshop help...

So its been a while ive been using adobe photoshop cs5 and ive done few wallpapers however i can never get them to look high quality when they are set as a wallpaper ?
Any tip? Anything wrong i am doing ?...
Once i fix this issue ill open a thread and take request for wallpapers make sure to check that out
Hopefully not wrong section if so, Sorry Mods :S
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.

I found out the issue is for example i download an image off the net and i do some modification on it and i save it shows like 45kb while originally it was 1mb...
How can i turn off the compression ?
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.

This question has nothing to do with Android.
Thread moved to off-topic.

Either save it as a PNG or when you save it as a JPG make sure you set the quality up to 12(Max).

Yeah, I save all my wallpapers as the highest quality PNG possible.

If it's just for wallpapers save it as a 24-bit PNG, rather than a JPEG. Same bit size, yeah, but no compression with a PNG. And you don't need to save it as a 32-bit png as you don't need the alpha layer (which is the 4th 8 bits) for wallpaper.

Archer said:
If it's just for wallpapers save it as a 24-bit PNG, rather than a JPEG. Same bit size, yeah, but no compression with a PNG. And you don't need to save it as a 32-bit png as you don't need the alpha layer (which is the 4th 8 bits) for wallpaper.
Click to expand...
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Will try this ASAP basicly im quite good whit photoshop and all but every damn wallpaper i did they loose a whole lot of quality ..
I have a Qhd device whit a resolution of 960x540 and when i do a new wallpaper i set the grid size in pixels does that matter ?
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.

shahkam said:
Will try this ASAP basicly im quite good whit photoshop and all but every damn wallpaper i did they loose a whole lot of quality ..
I have a Qhd device whit a resolution of 960x540 and when i do a new wallpaper i set the grid size in pixels does that matter ?
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No - that's correct. If it's exactly the right size for your device then unless it's doing some stupid compression on your phone you shouldn't lose any quality.

Ok almost 2 am gonna get some sleep and try tomorrow reports ASAP
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.

I think i fixed the quality issue i just had to put 1080x960 canva size.. tested on 1 wallpaper will try on others and report again..
Sent From My Sexy Sensation.