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I was admiring the Nexus specs recently and noticed that with the resolution specs it had "colors" at 65k. To get perspective I checked some other new Android phones and they were all 65k colors. Then I checked the iphone 3gs and it was 16million colors.
This seems like an outrageous disparity.
It has peaked my interest so can anybody explain what "colors" means and how 65k differs from 16m? Also, what does it have to do with the resolution, in other words, the iphone and nexus both have similar resolution (although the nexus is capable of much higher) so why would the less capable one have so much more "colors"?
Basically when google made the nexus one, they made sure not to include all those whimpy weak colors such as peach and pink. Thats all i've got =(
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/09/07/462187.aspx
I know, I know, Windows Mobile versus Android, etc...but definitely good material and I think it answers your question reasonably well.
ChillRays said:
Basically when google made the nexus one, they made sure not to include all those whimpy weak colors such as peach and pink. Thats all i've got =(
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I second that.
Now seriously it has to do with the color depth a device can display. I believe 65K colors means that the color of each pixel on your screen isdefined by 16 bits, or 65535 different levels of colors (2^16=65535) - or a 16bit color depth. 16M colors means your pixels have a 24 bit color depth (2^24=16777216, or each of the Red Green and Blue values of the color can go from 0 to 255) that is said to be the maximum that the human eye can discern.
Now, this said, in the golden age of computing, when PC were not powerful enough to handle 16M colors all together, I used a 16bit color depth on my win98 desktop in order to have a snappier computer without sacrificing any quality (I couldn't tell the difference between 65K and 16M color desktops).
So in conclusion, to me, the difference is more theoretical thans practical, and I agree that having 65k colors on a mobile device is enough, especially because the usage conditions are different from a PC (i.e. direct sunlight and generally speaking on the go) especially when performances are important over eye candy.
So let the iPhone folks play with their wimpy pea greens and peach pinks, and be happy with your functional no frills 65k color availability.
MaximReapage said:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/09/07/462187.aspx
I know, I know, Windows Mobile versus Android, etc...but definitely good material and I think it answers your question reasonably well.
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Mh, just skimmed through this, I'm sorry, didn't read it before posting my previous... It's got all the info and then some...
thanks for the replies. I definitely want the best of the best to be available on my device but i guess in this case it wont be a big deal.
But I have noticed that when i download a movie, it looks awesome on my computer but when i put it on my phone I can see tons of squares (pixels?) when theres moderate or greater motion, which really makes the picture look pretty crappy. This is a different issue no? And is it common to all devices because of relatively small screen size or do phones like, say, the HD2 not experience this?
That, has to do with the compression. The more you compress a movie the more you will see those "squares"...
In a way I don't get it because the resolution on this phone looks a gazillion times better than the whyphone
Where did you see 65k? The nexus one has 16million colours.
The iphone actually has 18bit while the nexus has a 24bit colour depth
This info was taken from some site:
The number of bits used on the iPhone to display a single pixel of color is 18 bits, with 6 bits used for each of the Red, Green, and Blue primary colors. 18 bits can provide a maximum of 262,144 colors (2^18).
The iphone uses dithering to then emulate 24bit.
The standard on PC displays is True Color, using 8 bits for each of the primary colors, for a total of 24 bits per pixel. 24 bits can provide a maximum of 16,777,216 colors (2^24).
behelit said:
Where did you see 65k? The nexus one has 16million colours.
The iphone actually has 18bit while the nexus has a 24bit colour depth
This info was taken from some site:
The number of bits used on the iPhone to display a single pixel of color is 18 bits, with 6 bits used for each of the Red, Green, and Blue primary colors. 18 bits can provide a maximum of 262,144 colors (2^18).
The iphone uses dithering to then emulate 24bit.
The standard on PC displays is True Color, using 8 bits for each of the primary colors, for a total of 24 bits per pixel. 24 bits can provide a maximum of 16,777,216 colors (2^24).
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As a new member I'm not allowed to post links but I know I saw it on phonescoop among others. I couldn't find colors specs on HTC or Google so reliability of the other sites I read 65k on is admittedly questionable.
AndroidPerson said:
As a new member I'm not allowed to post links but I know I saw it on phonescoop among others. I couldn't find colors specs on HTC or Google so reliability of the other sites I read 65k on is admittedly questionable.
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Post the links with spaces instead of periods after the www and before the com
64k = 64,000
16m = 16,000,000
If a phone has a display of 64K colors, then you will only notice 64,000 different kinds of colors; the rest or the 15,936,000 colors will be converted into a 'matching color'.
If you view that in a phone with 256K color display, same rule applies. Except this time, 256,000 colors will be unique while the rest will be 'matching colors' like different shades of blue can be changed to the nearest matching blue that the phone can suppport.
If a phone has 16M color display, then all the colors in the color spectrum can be viewed in it generating a very vibrant and clear picture.
But this is not the only judging criteria as pixel density plays a huge role. Two phone with 16M colors but resolutions of 480x800 and 320x480 will vary in display. The image in the latter phone will appear to be washed out as there are not sufficient pixels to reproduce the colors on to the screen.
This is a very old post but I thought of just sharing the info...
AndroidPerson said:
I was admiring the Nexus specs recently and noticed that with the resolution specs it had "colors" at 65k. To get perspective I checked some other new Android phones and they were all 65k colors. Then I checked the iphone 3gs and it was 16million colors.
This seems like an outrageous disparity.
It has peaked my interest so can anybody explain what "colors" means and how 65k differs from 16m? Also, what does it have to do with the resolution, in other words, the iphone and nexus both have similar resolution (although the nexus is capable of much higher) so why would the less capable one have so much more "colors"?
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Hi guys, I'm thinking about buying the Samsung Vibrant (That's the US Tmobile version of the Galaxy S for clarification) and I noticed that it can play 720P and it has a WVGA screen. These days, a lot of phones are capable of technically "playing" 720P video but none, even including the almighty retina display, have hd capable screens. But I was just wondering, besides being able to play its own recordings, what is the point of watching HD videos on a screen that really can only play 450P (keeping to true wide screen aspect ratio of course)? It just uses more battery and system resources to decode the higher res video when the end result is identical. Watching 720P on a WVGA screen is tantamount to hooking up a Bluray player to a non-HD screen. What's the point?
And yes, I'm well aware of the phone's DLNA capabilities.
Beats re-encoding right?
I think because the screen is so small and the resolution is high, it gives you the illusion of watching something in HD. If you compare a DVD rip to a 720p video on Galaxy, you'll definitely notice a difference. And the Super AMOLED screen helps too
Yeah, I can see how it's more convenient to just throw it on there raw but it seems like I'd rather take the effort to make it a lower resolution to save space on the phone if it looks the same either way?
And is there really that noticeable of a difference? I'd love it if someone could show a comparison picture between the same scene of a video in 720p and 480p on the galaxy screen to see if it's significant. Also, it might be possible that android is using sub-pixel interpolation to emulate the higher resolution.
Well the screen is a tiny bit wider than the 720 pixels you get from a DVD. Better to downsize than upsize, especially on such a sharp screen! I find that when watching DVD quality videos on a laptop, you notice the artefacts and low quality less than on the phone.
Robin.B said:
Well the screen is a tiny bit wider than the 720 pixels you get from a DVD. Better to downsize than upsize, especially on such a sharp screen! I find that when watching DVD quality videos on a laptop, you notice the artefacts and low quality less than on the phone.
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720p is actually 1280x720 pixels, the phone has 800x480, there should be no difference to your eyes from viewing a high quality 480p video or a 720p.... People are probably comparing a low quality 480p DVDrip with a high quality 720p video, and that's why they are seeing a difference (color quality and sharpness play a big roll here). It makes no sense to watch HD content on the phone, a good 480p will look just as good and will take less processing power...
Thank you!
aeo087 said:
720p is actually 1280x720 pixels, the phone has 800x480, there should be no difference to your eyes from viewing a high quality 480p video or a 720p.... People are probably comparing a low quality 480p DVDrip with a high quality 720p video, and that's why they are seeing a difference (color quality and sharpness play a big roll here). It makes no sense to watch HD content on the phone, a good 480p will look just as good and will take less processing power...
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That is exactly what I've been saying this entire time! And since true 480p is actually 848 x 480, I've been encoding all my videos to 800 x 450 because my hd2's screen just can't take proper advantage of hd. Somewhat ironic considering its name. It requires less processing power and with good encoding, you lose very little quality compared to the original video. This whole 720P playback seems to be just another marketing ploy like the megapixel battle was. Just another bullet to throw on the spec sheet.
Update: If anyone reading this would like to test the quality difference between video resolutions on their respective HD capable device, here's a great test clip in several resolutions: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/
Yes, it's ideal to reencode to maximize size usage if you're gonna keep the video on the memory for a period of time.
However, for those HD videos that you've downloaded, and you have no wish to dl a SD version of it just for portable viewing, and it's something that you're gonna watch once and delete, that's where the functionality to view HD media comes in handy.
In short, it's more convenient to have the ability than to do without it.
kenkiller said:
Yes, it's ideal to reencode to maximize size usage if you're gonna keep the video on the memory for a period of time.
However, for those HD videos that you've downloaded, and you have no wish to dl a SD version of it just for portable viewing, and it's something that you're gonna watch once and delete, that's where the functionality to view HD media comes in handy.
In short, it's more convenient to have the ability than to do without it.
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Hmmm good point. I suppose I'll just chalk it up to "convenient but not very practical." Thanks for all the great replies!
Very true and i believe the 720p which actually is for the video output..i just got the Nokia CA75-U cable and the 720p video playback is amazing on big screen TV.
tony800708 said:
Very true and i believe the 720p which actually is for the video output..i just got the Nokia CA75-U cable and the 720p video playback is amazing on big screen TV.
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That's not 720p, it's standard definition tv.
aeo087 said:
720p is actually 1280x720 pixels, the phone has 800x480, there should be no difference to your eyes from viewing a high quality 480p video or a 720p.... People are probably comparing a low quality 480p DVDrip with a high quality 720p video, and that's why they are seeing a difference (color quality and sharpness play a big roll here). It makes no sense to watch HD content on the phone, a good 480p will look just as good and will take less processing power...
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Yes, but I meant DVD resolution which has 720 pixels in width.
Besides, my entire collection is in 720p HD.. So when I'm going out and want a movie/series with me for boring times when travelling, it's nice to not have to convert them/re-download a lesser quality rip.
I also think I see a difference, tested with a SD-rip of Top Gear vs HD-rip of it. But might just be in my mind Seems sharper though.
You kow, videos encodings are at different resolutions for luminance and chrominance data.
Color data is often half or quarter the resolution of the actual video resolution.
A properly encoded 1280x720 video will look better than the same encoded at 840x480.
Considering the processing power, when video decoding and scaling are done by hardware, power consumption will be almost identical.
tundra84 said:
Hmmm good point. I suppose I'll just chalk it up to "convenient but not very practical." Thanks for all the great replies!
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Not practical only for you maybe, but different people have different needs. Don't assume that you can decide for the whole world.
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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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.
Hello all ,
I've got a Note for a week now and altough it's an amoled screen , i've tried every kind of video from avi to mkv ( 720 p quality ) and even reencoded files to mp4 or h264. But black aren't deep black and more dark grey , sometimes even pixelated ( blocks ). I even got the impression that this was also sometimes the case with some games ( for instance the opening sequence in Asphalt 6 HD ).
Is this normal with Samsung devices and is there a way to improve this.
Thanks
SEE?
Gnote has same specs as the galaxy s2!
just 200 more hz on CPU.
Should play all those files man!
if no worky on note byt works on SGS2 then u have somekinda fail version manufacture thing!
try getting it replaced if it does not play avi or any files!!
it really should work! try some file on sgs2 if its ok there then u phone deff a bad batch!
get it replaced! u have good Reasons to get it fixed?
helped?
He didn't say anything about the files not running, he mentioned a complaint about graphics performance due to non-AMOLED-style deep blacks.
Ffs...
Thanks
Hello ,
I probably didn't express myself completly correctly.
The Note can play al those video file and even mkv without any lag , the problem consist in the fact that the blacks in the video are not realy black but more greish , like if the contrast was not calibrated right.I even got blocks in the black part of the video.I don't have that problem with photos.
It's also like there is oversaturation , i have tried the stock video player , act video and mx player , all give me the same result.
BerreZ said:
Hello ,
I probably didn't express myself completly correctly.
The Note can play al those video file and even mkv without any lag , the problem consist in the fact that the blacks in the video are not realy black but more greish , like if the contrast was not calibrated right.I even got blocks in the black part of the video.I don't have that problem with photos.
It's also like there is oversaturation , i have tried the stock video player , act video and mx player , all give me the same result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks to me like its video quality issue. If you run video provided by samsung "lightness & slimmess", you can check whether black colour is properly displayed (skip to 0:55 for the best result).
Thanks
I have done what you said and the black of this video are completely black.
This is a 1080p hd video.Does that mean that only hd videos work propely, I hope not.
The video with the problems could be played flawless on my Htc Sensation or on my Asus Eee pad transformer both with a slower processor.
Sounds like the OP's video bitrates are too low, since he is describing black crush. Higher bitrate videos do not exhibit those problems.
Thanks
This is propably the reason , but what do you mean by "OP's" .
Thanks
OP = Original Poster.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
Niuseek said:
It looks to me like its video quality issue. If you run video provided by samsung "lightness & slimmess", you can check whether black colour is properly displayed (skip to 0:55 for the best result).
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Click to collapse
Here endeth the lesson!
Mine does this too. the samsung video plays fine but most other blacks are purplish and blocky. This happened in the green lantern film downloaded from the market, the first part of it is very dark and was unwatchable. It happens to a lesser extent in 1080p trailers downloaded from the net. When I use a black screen for my lockscreen it is the same. Even the starry background during the orbiting planet part in quadrant benchmark is a blocky purple mess. It is not even constant. Occasionally it seems OK. I am going to send mine back.
seepage said:
Mine does this too. the samsung video plays fine but most other blacks are purplish and blocky. This happened in the green lantern film downloaded from the market, the first part of it is very dark and was unwatchable. It happens to a lesser extent in 1080p trailers downloaded from the net. When I use a black screen for my lockscreen it is the same. Even the starry background during the orbiting planet part in quadrant benchmark is a blocky purple mess. It is not even constant. Occasionally it seems OK. I am going to send mine back.
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If the Samsung video plays fine, and other videos play fine, like MKV's in Diceplayer then it must be the videos you are looking at.
Good luck finding a device that plays back crap videos in perfect quality.
If you do find a device that makes these videos look good, I would question the bit depth of that device.
What is the point in getting a device with a HD screen and watching videos in sd or HD with low bitrate? It's like trying to watch VHS videos on a LED.. yes it will be pixelated. I suggest watching higher quality videos. Either MKV or xH264 mp4 with larger file size and bitrates of at least over 3mbps.
I think this whole issue can be explained by the technology in place here.
Super AMOLED does not light up black pixels at all, so when slightly gray/dark gray colors appear in the black, they tend to stand out much more than they do on different screen technologies.
Solution: higher bitrate videos, and/or deal with it
i have been doing some testing and i know exactly what the op is talking about as I'm suffering the same issue. i have a galaxy s2 and the note side by side, with the same video and the s2 renders correctly but the note is blocky and not rendered right.
I'll post a side by side photo when i get home tonight, but there is definitely a problem.even using high bitrate videos. i tried to even the playing field eg set brightness to max, adjusting the colour to normal, warm or even cool but it does NOT render correctly. it almost looks like the old days of 16 bit vs 32 bit colour on a pc. side by side with my s2 and s1 it is very obvious.
YUP. Am observing this too.
The initial Galaxy S (first) had a pentile matrix screen too so it would be useful to compare a video exhibiting the blockiness on a Galaxy S side by side with the Note.
It definitely does seem like it is rendering at 16bit, sometimes even 8bit.
Also I have observed this in the general OS too i.e Icons, pictures etc...
Am note sure what to think...
I am wondering whether Sammy reduced the bit depth throughout the OS to keep the frame rate as high as possible due to the higher resolution of the screen...?
---------- Post added at 12:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:26 AM ----------
ballfire said:
i have been doing some testing and i know exactly what the op is talking about as I'm suffering the same issue. i have a galaxy s2 and the note side by side, with the same video and the s2 renders correctly but the note is blocky and not rendered right.
I'll post a side by side photo when i get home tonight, but there is definitely a problem.even using high bitrate videos. i tried to even the playing field eg set brightness to max, adjusting the colour to normal, warm or even cool but it does NOT render correctly. it almost looks like the old days of 16 bit vs 32 bit colour on a pc. side by side with my s2 and s1 it is very obvious.
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Oh wait - you tested the Galaxy s1 as well which has a pentile matrix AMOLED and your test video rendered correctly???
yeah the s1 renders correctly. i tried do a screen capture of the video on my phone but it didn't seem that you can't do a screen capture of video running i tried the default video player, mobo player and mx player. none render correctly nor can do screen capture of the video still
I'm curious to know what he means by 'rendered correctly' on the S1. I think its more likely that the S1 resolution just isn't good enough to expose the weaknesses in the video encoding - the Note has nearly three times as many pixels as the S1 and the screen size is considerably larger so the 'faults' being described here are IMO the screen being good enough to expose weak video. Like someone mentioned earlier, it like watching an SD video in a lossy format on an SDTV and then an HDTV...
BerreZ said:
Hello all ,
I've got a Note for a week now and altough it's an amoled screen , i've tried every kind of video from avi to mkv ( 720 p quality ) and even reencoded files to mp4 or h264. But black aren't deep black and more dark grey , sometimes even pixelated ( blocks ). I even got the impression that this was also sometimes the case with some games ( for instance the opening sequence in Asphalt 6 HD ).
Is this normal with Samsung devices and is there a way to improve this.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are describing video with "bad" gamma. It is not the screen or the device it is your source material.
The "blocks" you see are compression artifacts. Most video you will get that is compressed will have this effect. If the demo video doesn't show these artifacts then it can't be the device. That of course doesn't rule out a dodgy video player app included with the device. Maybe that is sub par and has crappy coding of the codecs and makes bad video worse?
The reason you see them better on the note is because OLED screens will show shadow detail very well. A few stages above pure black will show up. Videos these days are calibrated, made and tweaked to look good on an LCD as it is the dominant tech and that is what the video makers are looking at while they adjust their settings. This means that colors and black levels adjusted to look good on an LCD may look like crap on an OLED.
On LCDs the backlight haze will often wash out these shadow details and crush the blacks so you won't see these artifacts as much.
You problem is that your screen is TOO good!
There lies a fault with the video player. There should be a gamma adjustment to be able to pull these "grays" closer to black.
NZtechfreak said:
I'm curious to know what he means by 'rendered correctly' on the S1. I think its more likely that the S1 resolution just isn't good enough to expose the weaknesses in the video encoding - the Note has nearly three times as many pixels as the S1 and the screen size is considerably larger so the 'faults' being described here are IMO the screen being good enough to expose weak video. Like someone mentioned earlier, it like watching an SD video in a lossy format on an SDTV and then an HDTV...
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what i mean is, i have the note, s2 and a s1.
lined up side by side playing the same video, the note's video in some parts is grainy, blocky, pixelated, the colors not correct compared to the s1, s2.
and this is with screen brightness set on max on all phones, display all set to standard, using the default samsung video player. but it makes not difference if you use moboplayer, mx player it is still bad.
like i said i'll post a picture when i get home later. i'm hoping it is a fixable with a software upgrade as i watch a lot of shows on my phone and so far i'm not impressed with what i'm seeing. even using 4gig 720p videos.
i've checked the video on my monitor and the video is perfect so it is just not getting rendered correctly on screen.
i hooked up the note using my s2 samsung mhl cable and in the lounge the video on the 55in 1080p tv is obviously inferior to the s2
Seriously can't work this one out, do I get my screen changed or not?
Should I wait to see if ICS makes it any better?
This phone is perfect for me except this issue with the blacks / greys. Even when i zoom in on dark parts of pictures taken with the phones camera it turns into a pixelated mess, so this is defiantly not a low quality source issue, its hardware or software related, but which?
Advice please guys. Many thanks!
I know! Right?
The screen Is freaking awesome, simply the best on any smartphone, but why those blacks haven't been fixed yet???
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk
I really am at a loss to what you guys are complaining about. I'm either not that fussy, or deluded to the fact that what I think I am seeing as 'bad' I pass off as something else.
From what I've read around the forums, what should be a shaded series of greys/blacks in an area are appearing as blocks of black/darkgrey instead of a gradual change.
I've always thought this was down to how videos/images where compressed or decompressed and displayed - which would almost certainly be software and not hardware?
davexeno said:
I really am at a loss to what you guys are complaining about. I'm either not that fussy, or deluded to the fact that what I think I am seeing as 'bad' I pass off as something else.
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Same here. My blacks look fine most of the time. When I do get grey blockiness I'm pretty sure it's due to poor compression in the video file, because other videos, large black areas look fine.
Can anyone give a link to a video available online in which this problem occurs (and the point in the video we should be looking at).
Maybe then we can get some objective testing with everyone using the same source file.
Maybe even have people doing screenshots to compare screens.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1366014&page=4
I'm rarely using my phone in dark enough conditions to notice.
ICS should improve gradients, but won't fix the black crush if it is indeed a problem with the screen hardware.
I am probably going to regret this, as my Note was perfect except for this black crush issue, but I sent mine back to be replaced. And the issue was not just on videos for me so poor quality encodes are not the problem, I was getting it even with pictures taken with the phones camera. Said pictures taken with the Note displayed fine on my pc and my wifes Galaxy s 2, so it is deffo a problem with the device.
Please lets not turn this into another "who cares" or "its not that noticeable" debate like the other threads, all I am aiming at with this thread from now is to find out if there are any Notes in existence that do not have this issue!
Thanks.
I refuse to look for a problem that is not there.....
There is no phone or portable device in existence that is color accurate, either tonally or temperature or gamma correct out of the box, and to expect such is to be, well, expecting quite a bit too much.
Why do i make that statement?.. Well, given that a monitor or TV at ANY price are not accurately calibrated.
To get an accurately calibrated monitor requires a display worth using, then a color tone/temperature/gamma calibration system (which is ~$200 & up) and software that can use the resulting calibration profiles...
The SGN is a phone... tbh there is no "fault" or "problem" here, other than unrealistic customer expectations...
Would a settings app that could set globally set color temp & gamma be helpful? sure.. there is enough color temp variation in the spread of production tolerances in phone to make this useful... stop a ll the pink white /blue white issues
But will it make the SGN a color accurate display?.. no.
So... lets wave a magic wand and make it so... whats the point? the camera does not justify it, the movies you watch are overly compressed and not color accurate (never mind compression artifacts of banding, blocking and shading), youtube videos have no quality controls.. online TV, website videos and stills have major color saturation issues.. so what content will you access that is going to be useable on a color accurate display?..
well, 4 beers down and 2c more spent..
Mystic38 said:
I refuse to look for a problem that is not there.....
There is no phone or portable device in existence that is color accurate, either tonally or temperature or gamma correct out of the box, and to expect such is to be, well, expecting quite a bit too much.
Why do i make that statement?.. Well, given that a monitor or TV at ANY price are not accurately calibrated.
To get an accurately calibrated monitor requires a display worth using, then a color tone/temperature/gamma calibration system (which is ~$200 & up) and software that can use the resulting calibration profiles...
The SGN is a phone... tbh there is no "fault" or "problem" here, other than unrealistic customer expectations...
Would a settings app that could set globally set color temp & gamma be helpful? sure.. there is enough color temp variation in the spread of production tolerances in phone to make this useful... stop a ll the pink white /blue white issues
But will it make the SGN a color accurate display?.. no.
So... lets wave a magic wand and make it so... whats the point? the camera does not justify it, the movies you watch are overly compressed and not color accurate (never mind compression artifacts of banding, blocking and shading), youtube videos have no quality controls.. online TV, website videos and stills have major color saturation issues.. so what content will you access that is going to be useable on a color accurate display?..
well, 4 beers down and 2c more spent..
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Dude, my pc plays / displays these movies and images fine with no artifacts, as does my tv, as does my partners Galaxy s 2, as does my Nexus s, so how can you say that there is no problem?
Anyway, I just had a look at my cousins Galaxy Note and that one is playing these movies fine, and is displaying the pictures taken with my Note without the chess board effect, so if you are happy to pay over £400 for a defective device thats up to you, but many of us expect to get what we paid for.
I just found this on you tube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a8aIGeLERg many people find this a problem.
CONTACTMC said:
I just found this on you tube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a8aIGeLERg many people find this a problem.
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I agree with you it is a problem and even supercurio has been on it and he is a developer so someting isnt right so lets hope it gets fixed cause many people suffer with it
CONTACTMC said:
I just found this on you tube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a8aIGeLERg many people find this a problem.
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The problem is clear enough to see there, but it's not one I've ever noticed on my Note. I just tried playing this YouTube clip on my Note....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syxd2n8S4AE
and could see nothing wrong with the video performance in a darkened (curtains drawn during daytime) room. I wonder how well this clip plays for other people on the Note.
I made a video of the Note playing this clip and I'm uploading it at the moment. It will take a while (81 minutes remaining at the moment) as I shot in 1080p. I'll post a link when it's ready.
FWIW I'm on the latest official ROM and my phone was sourced from Germany in early November. From my perspective there is no problem, which might make it quite hard for Samsung to fix.
My Note is running on ICS (CM9) and the color rendering is substantially improved over stock GB. Gradients are smoother and blacks are rendered cleaner.
My video is up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl0SKxnqa2I
tdodd said:
My video is up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl0SKxnqa2I
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I've played the same clip on my Note and it looks exactly like yours, no banding/crushing/clipping whatsoever.
I've tried a lot of Youtube clips and movie trailers but in only one of them I could see obvious artefacts during a fade out. I played the same clip on my pc and saw the same thing happen there so that's probably just lousy encoding.
Thanks for putting that video up, I hope my replacement looks like yours, its due tomorrow.
I got me new note, this one is set to uk language instead of german like the one I returned. It has the exact same issue, drops from 4 grey to 3 complete black and i am still getting the clipping, bloody Samsung, this was meant to be an upgrade from my nexus s, but most stuff looks better on that! Not gonna excahnge again, I will wait for ICS and see if Samsung actually acknowledge the issue.
@Mystic38. Whilst I agree with you that most consumer devices don't come calibrated to industry standards and that most consumer devices lack the essential settings found on the most basic of professional displays, I fail to see how any colour, contrast, hue, gamma or brightness calibration would affect the overall appearance, unless of course you are cranking the settings beyond anything useful and crushing the dynamics intentionally.
It's difficult to introduce visual banding or blocking in high BIT rate video or lightly compressed images by tweaking settings and calibration by a couple of percent alone, as there are near on 17 million colours. This leaves thousands of grey levels to play with and the human eye shouldn't notice banding or blocking with that many greys.
This presumably points to an issue with the way that video is presented to the screen driver or how the screen driver drives the screen. There's probably an issue with crushing where the hardware converts the digital signal to electronic levels of each AMOLED element. I have seen this problem on other devices, not just phones and most of the time it was rectified after a software upgrade.
Another thing to remember is that companies like Samsung are fully aware and accommodating of the fact that a lot of people now use these types of phones as monitors for photography and video production as I do. I use DSLR Controller and have no problem with crushing. Using the phone as a monitor has been extremely helpful and negated the expense of something which would have cost over 10 times the price.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
I just got round to trying the ,png gamma test file on my Note. It fails the test. Everything below 4 is black and as you go through the numbers from 4 and above there are bands grouping four levels into one tone. Worse still, the tones alternate from greenish to purple instead of being shades of grey. Interestingly if I perform a screen capture the capture is a true reflection of what I see, which implies to me that the Note is actually sending bad values to the screen rather than a hardware problem, because surely the screen capture only cares about the data, not the physical appearance produced.
Looking at the same file on my laptop everything is presented correctly, so obviously the file is not the problem.
Yet despite failing this test I have never noticed a problem with the Note to cause me concern in normal every day use.
tdodd said:
I just got round to trying the ,png gamma test file on my Note. It fails the test. Everything below 4 is black and as you go through the numbers from 4 and above there are bands grouping four levels into one tone. Worse still, the tones alternate from greenish to purple instead of being shades of grey. Interestingly if I perform a screen capture the capture is a true reflection of what I see, which implies to me that the Note is actually sending bad values to the screen rather than a hardware problem, because surely the screen capture only cares about the data, not the physical appearance produced.
Looking at the same file on my laptop everything is presented correctly, so obviously the file is not the problem.
Yet despite failing this test I have never noticed a problem with the Note to cause me concern in normal every day use.
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Have you viewed it in the gallery or in a browser? With my Note everything below 4 is crushed in the stock ICS browser but I can see everything in the gallery.
pboesboes said:
Have you viewed it in the gallery or in a browser? With my Note everything below 4 is crushed in the stock ICS browser but I can see everything in the gallery.
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I think the gallery uses a different color gradient and temperature than the stock ICS browser, much as if you view a rich encoded black contrast video on the stock video player and on a custom app video player like MX player... you get varying results...
I think this issue is a mix of both a hardware and software one, and though the Official ICS upgrade "might" alleviate this problem, I surely believe also that since this is a combination of a hardware problem, the clippings are still there but perhaps not quite noticeable anymore....