pctechguide.com

  • Home
  • Guides
  • Tutorials
  • Articles
  • Reviews
  • Glossary
  • Contact

Creating Colour in LCD Displays

In order to create the shades required for a full-colour display, there have to be some intermediate levels of brightness between all-light and no-light passing through. The varying levels of brightness required to create a full-colour display is achieved by changing the strength of the voltage applied to the crystals. The liquid crystals in fact untwist at a speed directly proportional to the strength of the voltage, thereby allowing the amount of light passing through to be controlled.

In practice, though, the voltage variation of LCDs can only be achieved at a slow speed, perhaps as slow as 25ms. This may be adequate for mainly static screen applications such as office or web browsing, but leads to motion blurring on videos and games. To combat this, manufacturers reduce the screen colours from 8 bits to 6 bits per colour per pixel – from 24 bit true colour to 18 bit colour. Although this might not seem like much, it’s actually a massive drop in the number of colours that can be accurately represented on a screen.

In a true-colour monitor there are 24 bits of colour data per pixel, divided into three groups of 8 bits each giving 256 possible colour shades for the colours red, green and blue. This is known as RGB colouring, the basis of a large part of computer colour theory and practice. When blended together this system gives an enormous colour range, with 256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 possible colours per pixel. If, on the other hand, the colour depth is reduced to 18 bits, with only 6-bits for the red, green and blue hues, there are now only 64 different possible shades per element. This results in 6 bit colour LCDs delivering a maximum of 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 colours, a massive loss of around sixteen and a half million colours!

However, there are two major advantages to losing all these colours is a much increased response time, considerably reducing motion blur. The colours that are lost are imitated through a form of dithering, and also a technique called Frame Rate Control (FRC) which displays alternate shades on successive frame refreshes to average to the desired colour in the human eye. This can produce adequate colour information for perception to be fooled, except where the difference is too great as flicker may then be seen. The second advantage is simply cost: 6 bit LCD monitors are far cheaper to produce.

As multimedia applications have become more widespread the lack of true 24-bit colour on LCD monitors remains an issue. More businesses and home users are using more demanding colour applications involving photographic or video work, CAD or DTP, so they have demanded more from their monitors.

The screen response times in LCD monitors has come down considerably, to a great extent relieving many of the ghosting and motion trail issues. However, true 8 bit colour in flat panel monitors remains hugely expensive, and only available in very high end LCD monitors. On the next page, we’ll see how TFT LCD monitors made a considerable difference to colour representation in affordable LCD monitors.

  • VA – Vertically Aligned LCD Monitors
  • What in the LCD is IPS!?
  • ThinCRT Flat Panels
  • TFT LCD Monitors
  • LCD Resolutions and Picture Scaling
  • Liquid Crystal Light Polarisation in LCD Monitors
  • Polysilicon Flat Panels
  • Plasma Flat Panels
  • PALCD Flat Panels
  • OLED Flat Panels
  • MVA – Multi-domain Vertical Alignment in LCD Monitors
  • LEP Flat Panels
  • LED Flat Panels
  • LCD – Liquid Crystal Displays
  • IPS – In-Plane Switching LCD Monitors
  • HAD Flat Panels
  • Flat Panel Feature Comparisons
  • FED Flat Panels
  • Digital Flat Panels
  • DSTN LCD monitors
  • Creating Colour in LCD Displays
  • Flat Panel ALiS Technology

Filed Under: Flat Panel Displays Tagged With: 6 bit colour dithering, how do LCD monitors create colour, LCD colour depth, LCD true colour

Latest Articles

audials tunebite

Audials Tunebite Software

OVERVIEW: Audials Tunebite is a multi-use Copy, Record and Conversion software program for both audio and video. The Premium version will not convert video. Only the platinum version and above will convert video. Video Recording: With Audials Tunebite you will be able to record video and … [Read More...]

DRAM – Dynamic Random Access Memory

DRAM chips are large, rectangular arrays of memory cells with support logic that is used for reading and writing data in the arrays, and refresh circuitry to maintain the integrity of stored data. Memory arrays are arranged in rows and columns of memory cells called wordlines and … [Read More...]

CD-ROM TrueX Technology

Based on the aim of enabling users to run application direct from CD without first cacheing to the hard disk drive, Zen Research's TrueX technology takes a different route to increasing the performance of CD-ROM drives - addressing data … [Read More...]

Why Cross-Chain Trading Is the Future of Crypto Investing?

The rapid growth and evolution of the cryptocurrency market have opened up exciting opportunities for investors. Within this dynamic landscape, … [Read More...]

Revolutionize Your Internet Experience with Orbi 960 – The Ultimate WiFi System

In a world where seamless connectivity is essential, slow and unreliable internet connections are a major problem. Whether you are running a business, … [Read More...]

Do You Need a VPN When Trading Cryptocurrency?

There’s no doubt that the biggest global industries in 2023 are tech-driven, while there remains a significant crossover between many of these … [Read More...]

Goodbye Bitcoin: the 3 alternative cryptocurrencies that have great upside potential, according to experts

Bitcoin has been a very lucrative investment for people that got into it early. One report from The Motley Fool pointed out that $10 of bitcoin … [Read More...]

Self-driving cars face their Achilles’ heel and may be targets of hackers

The market for self-driving cars is booming. Customers spent $22.22 billion on these autonomous vehicles in 2021 and they will likely spend more in … [Read More...]

How to avoid scams with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies got a bad reputation when scams multiplied like ants on a piece of cake. Even today many people associate bitcoin and other … [Read More...]

Guides

  • Computer Communications
  • Mobile Computing
  • PC Components
  • PC Data Storage
  • PC Input-Output
  • PC Multimedia
  • Processors (CPUs)

Recent Posts

Reduce Inbox Clutter With These Inbox Rules

If you have never experienced the feeling of drowning in emails, then you are an exception. If this has never happened to you, publish your email … [Read More...]

Intel 820 Chipset

Test - Originally scheduled to be available concurrently with the Pentium III processor in the spring of 1999, Intel's much delayed 820 chipset … [Read More...]

Transparent Language-French

[starreviewmulti id=3 tpl=20] PROS: French language lessons from beginner to advanced conversations. CONS: Immature video and graphics … [Read More...]

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2023 About | Privacy | Contact Information | Wrtie For Us | Disclaimer | Copyright License | Authors