Thread: 65000 colors is enough for a multimedia device ?

Hy

Im really interested on Xperia , I think is a very interesting device, but I have serious dudes about multimedia capacity specially showing smoth transitions on web pages or multimedia aplications , waching movies on it or webs with video stream support .


24 bit color is almost perfect for my on a small device , but I dont know really if 65000 colors is a hardware limitation or a windows mobile limitation .


I was an iphone user and the only thing that really impress me of it its de color deepth of that device , perfect for multimedia .

Any coments ???

THx


Sorry for my poore english .

Originally Posted by Guillermo M.P

Hy

Im really interested on Xperia , I think is a very interesting device, but I have serious dudes about multimedia capacity specially showing smoth transitions on web pages or multimedia aplications , waching movies on it or webs with video stream support .


24 bit color is almost perfect for my on a small device , but I dont know really if 65000 colors is a hardware limitation or a windows mobile limitation .


I was an iphone user and the only thing that really impress me of it its de color deepth of that device , perfect for multimedia .

Any coments ???

THx


Sorry for my poore english .

Guillermo,
Resolution is the number of pixels ("Dots") on the screen. It is the most important factor for a clear sharp picture.
The number of possible colors in a dot is also important but it is second.
Let me explain:
Xperia has 96898 dots per square inch
iPhone has 26995 dots per square inch

Question for you: Which one has the most detail and sharper picture per sq in?
Right! you got it.

Now, every dot in the Xperia can be of anyone of 65536 colors, That means the computer needs only 2 bytes (16 bits) to change the color of one DOT.
The iPhone DOTS can be of anyone of 16,777,216 colors and it needs 4 bytes (24 bits for color. and 8 bits wasted) to display 1 DOT.

Question: Which one can do it faster and smoother?
Right!! you got the answer again.

16 million color has more depth than 65000. But you can not say "the only thing that really impress me" because color depth without detail is not high qualilty.
Example: Because the Xperia has 4 times mores dots per inch than the iPhone that means that for a picture of the same size of the same size the Xperia shows 4 dots while the iPhone can show only 1 dot.
Corolary:Xperia will show 4 DIFFERENT colors simultaneausly and the iPhone only 1 color.
Which one has more depth?
Correct! YOU PAST THE TEST.

CONCLUSION:
The Xperia has:
1- More detail
2- More speed
3- More depth.

Last question: I am confused. Why 16 million colors is not better than 65000?
Good question. If the iPhone had the resolution of the Xperia, their screen would be PHENOMENAL!!!!!

So why the resolution is not like the Xperia?
Because the technology and hardware for mobiles, capable to move enormous quantities of megabytes at high speed and smoothly, does not exist yet. (hopefully soon)

I hope this helps you.

Note: If you want to learn more about displays, read one of my post from about a 3 or 4 weeks ago. Sorry I don't remember exactly when but if you can find it, let me know and I look for it.

Xperia and THC HD are 800x400 , ultra sharp devices .

If you have more video info you need stronger machine to move that data , thats right but its not an user problem , user just enjoy resolts of a nice hardware designed machine , I dont care how engineers solve that.

"color depth without detail is not high qualilty" , we can reverse this sentence too.
Detail without color depth is not high quality . the best example is that nobody now makes pictures at 65000 colors , neither at 65000x4 colors .


I dont want to have a multimedia mobile without a proper multimedia screen , I would love to see xperia working to erase all my doubts about display possibilities.

Conclusion : I must see working Xperia before purchase it .


THx for your coments.

Hi Guillermo M.P and welcome to the forums, the 65K colour is a windows mobile limitation.

I do not honestly know if the screen is capable of doing more but even if it could it would be pointless as it would be limited by the OS.

I do not know but i am assuming that WM7 will be able to process more colours.

However this being said the X1 "only" having a colour depth of 65k is not really an issue for me and shouldn't be for most people, most monitors by default are set at 16bit colour depth (65536 colours) even though they are capable of 24bit (16 777 216 colours) or even 32bit (4 294 967 296 colours) why? because 99% of the time the other colours aren't either used or required.

Although we do not actually know how many different colours the eye can see (or the brain differentiate) it is widely believed to be less than 32 Bit and if we are honest with ourselves, if we did put two colours beside each other, 5 shade apart in 24 bit mode I bet you could not see the difference in them.

Also the full colour spectrums are rarely used due to image compression, when an image is optimised into say a JPEG format, two things are mainly changed, the size of the pixel and the number of different colours.

A great example of this is the N95, since you are using the iphone as an example, the N95 will be another good one, I have it and I love it, I encode a lot of my DVD's onto it, the N95 is capable of displaying 16 million colours as well but when I encode my DVD it doesn't even do it in 65K colours (I did a lot of working out a few months ago when I was bored) why? because it is limited by bit-rate, the higher the bit rate, the more stuttering and pixelisation I got at really busy scenes so to compensate for overall enjoyment both the colour depth and pixel size were greatly reduced.

Finally we are dealing with a 3 inch screen here, it is not a 24" monitor, we will not be using the X1 for any major graphical desktop application such as photoshop and so most images will be optimised as explained above.

So in conclusion, 65K is OS limited but there will be very few times that this should be any issue at all.

Minor P.S. Although I am buying mine without a personal preview (I have met a few who have actually played it and gave me the thumbs up) I think anyone who can get a chance, SHOULD try before you buy anything, not just the X1.

@Norseman,
Thank you that is a great follow up, complete and to the point.

@Guillermo.
Everything you say and want is there in desktops. but in mobiles not yet, size and technology have some limitations. Not there yet.

But I am sure, when you get an Xperia in your hands you will decide and I dare to say as of today there is not other mobile display better than the Xperia. IMHO.
.

Just a quick update, apparently it can do more, I'm not 100% how much more, the value 232 000 has floated around but it is a wierd number, 232k colours is not even 18 bit (262 144), 20 bit colour would be 1 048 576 colours

but it is a moot point since WM can only do 65k

Originally Posted by norseman

Just a quick update, apparently it can do 20 bit colour depth (about 230k colours) but due to WM limitations it doesn't.

18 bits is 262144 colors (256k colors)
I'm not sure if 64K is an ABSOLUTE limit of WM. I better believe it is still a problem of speed for the graphic library of WM. There are quite a few mobiles with 256K colors but none of them (that I know) are using WM. Also all of them with a significant smaller screen and/or lower density of pixels than the Xperia. so...??

The processor handle 16 bits and 32 bits with easy. but 32 bit is more demanding because the more complex calculations adn larger amounts of memory to handle.

This is the situation with 18 bits or 256K colors- The cpu grabs 16 bits and that is not enough for one pixel. So it needs a second fetch to get the 2 bits missing. The leftover 14 bits go for the second pixel but still is not enough and so on and on. This process is demanding for the CPU.

I will look for an article a read somewhere from a developer who using direct code actually programmed the screen to split in 64K and 256K color palette. Not a real life practice use but to test and analyse the visuals and the speed. If I find it I will post it here.

I know a little bit about, because in the dawn of personal pc and video games we had to use machine code to manually move data into the graphics buffer frame. It was the only way to achieve speed for games in machines with CPUs of only 3 Khz clocks.

Anyway your post was excellent from the point of view of the regular user.

Thank you so much Pinguino1 for the compliment and you caught my post before I realised and corrected the error!

To me it just seems daft that there are some colour standards that dont fall into the full byte (8 bits) or even a nibble (4 bits) whats half a nibble? a taste?

Originally Posted by Guillermo M.P

Xperia and THC HD are 800x400 , ultra sharp devices .

If you have more video info you need stronger machine to move that data , thats right but its not an user problem , user just enjoy resolts of a nice hardware designed machine , I dont care how engineers solve that.

"color depth without detail is not high qualilty" , we can reverse this sentence too.
Detail without color depth is not high quality . the best example is that nobody now makes pictures at 65000 colors , neither at 65000x4 colors .


I dont want to have a multimedia mobile without a proper multimedia screen , I would love to see xperia working to erase all my doubts about display possibilities.

Conclusion : I must see working Xperia before purchase it .


THx for your coments.

And users should not need to care how many colours and pixels there are in the device, so long as the pictures are clear and sharp, colours are bright and vivid, videos are smooth and jerk free, audio is clear, loud and distortion free.

When you find an Xperia X1, try it and test it before you buy. Trust your eyes and ears.