GENOA Color Technologies | Technology | Current TV Disadvantages

Current TV Disadvantages

The gamut of TVs does not match the colors of the world around us
The color gamut found in today's TVs bears little relation to the color gamut naturally found in the world around us. Defined by the
need to get sufficient brightness and brightness efficiency, as well as a commercially viable cost, an appropriate balanced white
point and more, standard color space is a compromise. Two commonly accepted benchmarks of "true" color are the color gamut of movie film in a cinema, and Pointer's study of real world surface color. When comparing standard TV color space to both these benchmarks, the shortcomings of TV color are abundantly clear. This phenomenon is illustrated in the following diagrams:

The NTSC color standard - the LCD industry's common measure of color - lacks areas of color coverage of both film and Pointer, especially yellow and orange, as illustrated below:

Colors are not all equally important - the actual colors displayed are more important than % NTSC
Today, the LCD industry commonly uses % NTSC as a measure of color. The % NTSC of a display is a numerical ratio that is not synonymous with image quality. Since the NTSC index compares the areas of two triangles (and not the coordinates), it is ironic
that a display specified to have a gamut of 100% NTSC might not display all the colors of the NTSC standard!

Not all colors are equally important, and therefore the coverage of perceptually critical colors is far more important than the
numerical NTSC index. In particular, saturated yellows and bright orange colors are very important to color perception. A
3-primary display must necessarily trade-off yellows with turquoises - also a significant color. Moving the green point to the right or
left can capture more yellow or turquoise, but not both. As a result, not only may two displays with an equal NTSC index have
very different color quality, but in certain cases a display with a much larger index may be inferior to a display with a smaller index.

The solution: Multi-Primary Color
By adding additional primary colors to the basic RGB primaries, it is possible to display most or all of the colors that are required to enhance the viewing experience. It is possible to increase the "width" of the color gamut, by the addition of yellow and/or cyan primaries - see schematically in figure below.

The gamut area is only one of the many parameters that influence image appearance. Brightness, white point and three
dimensional color distribution have equal importance. In addition, the design has to be technically feasible and cost effective.

In the following pages we will describe in some details the design, implementation and effectiveness methodology and trade-offs.