Loading ...What a wonderful - HDMI 1.3 - world
By Joaquim P. Menezes
Remember Louis Armstrong belting out in that gruff voice: “I see trees of green…red roses too…”
“I see skies of blue….. clouds of white…” “The colours of the rainbow…so pretty in the sky…”
Were Armstrong around today - and if he owned a High Definition Multimedia (HDMI) 1.3 compliant device and media - he would be able to see all those colours and objects – green trees, blue skies, white clouds, resplendent rainbows – with amazing vividness, all their subtle tonal variations, and intricate nuances.
What’s so hot about HDMI version 1.3 – the specification that was released in June 2006?
Most of the hype surrounding this spec relates to its support of what in technical terms is referred to as “Deep Colour.”
Essentially, Deep Colour does away with previous interface-related restrictions on colour selection. So the interface no longer forces all content within a limited colour range.
So – theoretically at least – HDTVs and other high-definition displays will have the potential to go from millions to billions of colours.
What this means is that taking advantage of HDMI 1.3 manufacturers are able to create devices that represent any colour in nature, displaying an incredible range of tonal transitions and extremely subtle variations in detail – all making for a tremendous viewing experience.
If this sounds too good to be true, you’re probably right – at present it is!
Theoretically, while the presence of an HDMI 1.3 port in certain players (such as the Samsung Blu-Ray BD-P1200) could exponentially expand the colour spectrum, it’s going to be a while before this happens in practice.
That’s because to experience the benefits of deep colour, the capability has to be present not only in the player, but also on the display and on the media – for instance, the Blu-Ray disks themselves.
As of now, to my knowledge, so far there aren’t any disks or displays that offer deep colour.
So I guess the most we could say for now is that players such as the BD-P1200 are “deep colour” ready.
Posted on September 10th, 2007 by Joaquim Menezes and filed under Computer Science |