There is a story that is brewing on the web that is about to explode, and unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday I reported on the story of Apple being sued over the quality of their notebook displays. In a nutshell, some people were complaining about the “graininess” of the display which led others to discover that the panels used in the MacBook and MacBook pro are 6 bits per channel, not 8 bits which is required to give the advertised 16.7m colors. This has sparked a massive debate on forums decrying the quality of Apple’s displays and demanding someone’s head. It seemed odd to me that Apple would use such sub standard parts in it’s systems so I did a little digging.
First and foremost, the panels do seem to be 6bit. But here’s the catch. So are the panels on the older powerbooks, and no one ever had a problem with those. More importantly, I spent several hours searching for information on LCD panels used by other manufacturers in notebooks and all that I have found so far that many use 6 bit panels. (I don’t have the resources to check all the panels made by every manufacturer). From what I can tell, most of those with true 16 million colors are low resolution panels. Some also try to hide the 6 bit ness in their documentation by claiming they are 24 bit (8 bit per channel) but in the small print you find it is 6bit with dithering.
So the problem is industry wide and has been for some time. Apple will undoubtedly bear the brunt of this as they are a lawsuit magnet right now, but it is unfair to lay the blame solely at Apple’s feet. The fact is people have been using notebooks advertised as “capable” of 16million colors for years which only had 6 bit panels (which give 262,000 colors) and until this law suit started no one cared. All over forums, people who never had an issue with their display are suddenly claiming it is sub standard. Unfortunately they are not sub standard, its just that everyone misled about what the standard was. It should be noted though, that this is not that big a secret. There is lots of information out there about LCD panels and dithering, but it is the way laptop manufacturers are representing the capabilities of their displays that may end up causing grief.
I suspect this will have far reaching implications for the whole industry once the usual period of blaming Apple for the whole mess has passed. In a way it is similar to the what happened with the way hard drives are advertised. Manufacturers used to quote the unformatted capacity of a hard drive as the actual size, and after a high profile law suit, that now has to be qualified with the disclaimer that the size quoted is “unformatted capacity” and that actual size may be lower. The solution to this display issue will undoubtedly be something similar, with manufacturers having to quote the native panel color depth as well as what it shows via dithering.
What seems staggering to me is that no one brought this up before now. This is clearly not a new thing. My three year old powerbook was advertised as being capable of 16.7million colors but only has a 6 bit panel, and no one ever brought this up. I certainly don’t think manufacturers should be let off the hook though. The advertising of panels needs to be clarified for consumers, but I equally don’t think some of the comments about Apple that have been thrown around are fair either. What ever the outcome, this story is only just beginning.
Resources:
Ars Technica on the Issue
PDF Library of LCD Panel Specs
Colorblind mac book Pros
Article Explaining the Difference between 6bit and 8bit Displays
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You are right about the fact that most vendors mislead the public and it’s unfortunate that Apple is at the center of this. However, I see that with this lawsuit, that the industry is made aware that the public will not tolerate deception for very long. Apple just happened to be the company that was targeted and for good reason. They still own the graphics production market.
I have owned Apple laptops since the 170. My last Powerbook 17″ had a better screen than my 1 year old Macbook Pro 17″. The problem in my opinion, is that these new screens aren’t backlit properly and can cause a lot of issues when color correcting.
Hopefully, Apple will fix this by going to led backlighting.
Are you sure the marketing really says 16.7m colors or just “millions of colors” and people just assume the millions means 8 bit and, thus, 16.7m colors? Going from 262k to 1m is a bit (pun intended and about 2/3 of a bit/channel) than going from 262k to 16.7m.
No – dithering gives the appearance of 16.7 million or depending on the manufacturers data 16.2 million. Read the last link above, it explains how the dithering works. It’s techie but its good
My point is that with ‘millions of colors’ (i.e. exactly 1,000,000 colors) you might still see some banding that you would not see with 16.7m colors. Thus, all Apple would have to prove is that there is no noticeable difference between dithered 262k colors and 1m colors, _not_ that there is no difference between dithered 262k colors and 16.7m colors. In fact, all the literature I found on Apple’s site says ‘millions of colors’, not 16.7 million colors. I think equivalence of millions to 16.7 million is an assumption we all (and Apple likely expected us to) make.