Impressive HDMI 1.3 Demo

Here’s an interesting demo showing the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit color (that's 10 bits per primary or 30 bits total). One of the Sony LCD sets was modified to operate at 10-bit while the other was stock. The whole point of the demo was to show the improvements possible with HDMI 1.3, which is required for 10-bit color to be delivered to the display. I expected and saw a much smoother grayscale without visible transitions, especially at the dark end and a complete elimination of false contouring. I didn’t expect the not so subtle difference in color. Though I was told the color space of set number 2 wasn’t altered and saturation was identical, each color appeared deeper and richer. 10-bit allows a far greater color depth and it shows. While a number of display technologies run at 10 bits or higher, there has never been a way to deliver that from the source, plus the source material (even HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and current video games) aren't 10 bit yet. The HDMI group is hoping that manufacturers will take advantage of 1.3's greatly increased capability and improve their sources accordingly.

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