Recently I had occassion to go to an audio/video store, which is usually painful for me--but I went to help a friend purchase a new TV. I saw the new RGBY, note the added Y in that statement. Sharp has a new unit, (others I'm sure to come) that has Red, Blue, Green, AND YELLOW! The difference at first, until my eyes adjusted to the store and the 'millions' of other TV's seemed notable, but not revolutionary. WRONG! After about 15 minutes of comparing others TVs as my buddy wasn't going to jump and pay more--I focused, (no pun) on the RGBY. WTF!!!! Man this set is really something. Colors such as rich browns, and coral colors, and even the infield grass at the Ky Oaks was brilliantly better. Anyone else seen this???
Back to my first love now, AUDIO and WOMEN... (Not usually in that order)lololol
Everyone will think I'm crazy if they see the RGBY under the conditions I saw it at Best Buys. Usually they do a decent job, (OK at the Louisville, KY store). But I took a friend in, and the sets were set up poorly, with color adjustments varying wildly. At HH Gregg, the sets were all perfectly adjusted, moreover they were set 'the same' as one another, making heads up comparison easy.
05-05-10: Chadnliz So whats this do to HDMI? And will it carry full 1080P?
It probably wouldn't change the requirements for HDMI transmission. It receives a standard digital RGB via HDMI and remaps the incoming 3-color signal into a 4-color array to assign colors to the pixels in the display.
Just as Dolby ProLogic could matrix out 5.1 surround from 2-channel, the RGBY TV probably extrapolates the yellow signal from within the RGB transmission received. Another illustration of the principle is the various tricks applied to 16/44.1 KHz digital to increase playback resolution via upconverting and bitmapping.
Typical logic had me believing that the additional yellow would produce an Enhanced RGB. Printing CMYK, whether on press or some digital output device is commonly augmented with special colors to enhance areas where the standard 4-colors go flat.
Generally, I see reflective color (printing/painting) as very lossy in color purity. Additive color (light) can exist in a much more loss-less environment. I have a lamp that use 4 halogen "guns", three are dichroic filtered to produce pure RGB and the fourth unfiltered White light. Each of the RGB and White can be individually intensity controlled. To cut to the chase, if I added a Yellow lamp to the RGB mix, the colors produced would be altered or pushed in a direction. I am assuming I could readjust the RGB mix to repeat the original color prior to the addition of yellow. So theoretically, I am not necessarily improving the color, just changing the hue.
In the case of RGBY in a matrix, I think the fields of color can be positively enhanced at the glass. The processing would be more complex to properly incorporate the yellow push, but the addition of a specialized color could theoretically improve the richness of hues.
The question is not whether three RGB lights with variable intensity and backlight can produce yellow. They obviously can. The question is whether or not adding a fourth light in the way Sharp does produces a better picture. The newest large-screen RBG LCD TVs look better than the first RPTVs which came out but it is still the same RBG. The goal is a better perceived picture, not satisfying purists' theoretic ideals.
Anyone who has ever painted knows that you can use the three basic colors and white to get to everything, but I have known any number of painters over the years and none of them starts a painting with only four tubes of paint in the box.
First off, pigments are a completely different conversation than the RGB light spectrum.
The reason I say the extra yellow color is marketing bulls#t is because RBG are the primary colors of the entire spectrum of light that our eyes can see. You get every other color in the spectrum by mixing them together. When we see the color yellow, we're actually seeing a mixture of pure red and pure green. That's what yellow IS. They can't add and extra yellow color because it's still red and green mixed together.
Well, someone said 'total marketing bull*hit', that may be true of many things retail, but the 'color shading difference' sans marketing on this unit, calls for it to produce 256 colors plus one more factor of 256 making the total of shades, not in the millions, but into the >1Trillion color shades. I, without knowing somehow fealt that the colors were more approximation and not the full range of color that is shown by sunlight or a halogen, and that is apparently true, if we're to believe that the shades of color reproduction have increased by such an order of magnitude. I only know that there WERE more colors, and that sublte 'combinations' of others were rendered with more subtle shadings. My eyes, like my ears didn't lie to me.
I was under the impression that the addition of yellow was motivated by upcoming new energy efficiency regulations. The addition of yellow permits a brighter picture while using less energy. Currently brightness unto itself isn't much of problem for most typical applications. Meeting the new energy regulations and maintaining desired brightness might be problem.
some of you are confusing the mixing of pigments to produce color, and spectra of light. They are not the same thing and do not work the same way. Mix all the colors on your palette, you get a dark, dirty gray. All the colors in the spectra combined equals white, clear light.
Most monitors reproduce only about 70% of the color spectrum in an NTSC signal. The best ones (e.g., Sony Qualia) produce the whole enchilada. You don't know what you're missing until you see it done right, as apparenly Larry did.
Johnny is correct. In art school they will have you buy a couple of extra tubes of color as the three cannot produce all of the colors without some additions. I can understand why this might work on a screen as well.
05-03-10: Ericjcabrera shouldn't be cmyk? (cyan magenta yellow black) Ericjcabrera
No. Cyan/magenta/yellow are the primary pigments--the primary colors of *reflected* light. Red/green/blue are the primary colors of direct light.
05-03-10: Ryanmartinson The TV might look great, but as far as adding yellow, it's gotta be pure marketing bullsh#t. The RGB spectrum already has yellow (it's just not in the acronym), so they're not adding anything.
Ryan
The division of red/green/blue is arbitrary and the lowest number of colors possible to *approximately* cover all of them. This method takes the visible light spectrum and divides it equally into three parts; the visible products are red, green, and blue. But if you look at a lot of TVs and even after you adjust them, you'll find that some favor greens, some are redder, and some, no matter how you twiddle the knobs, just can't do neutral grey shadows or believable skin tones. Or sometimes there's a persistent green tint that--by the time you adjust it out--goes straight into overly red.
This is because the 3 color system works, but it isn't perfect. Lithographers have known this for nearly 200 years. I have hanging in my living room a limited edition litho of a pair of Siamese cats. Standard color printing requires 4 colors of ink--magenta, cyan, yellow, and black. This litho used 6 colors--the standard four plus specially mixed inks of blue and green to more accurately capture the color of the cats' eyes and the foliage surrounding them as depicted in the original watercolor painting. The lithographer wouldn't have gone to that trouble if the standard 4 inks would have sufficed.
One could create an entirely different color system by dividing the visible light spectrum into (for example) six segments. Then there would be six different colors than the three primaries we're accustomed to. Color renditions would be more accurate as well.
As humans, among other critters are trichromatic beings, meaning we perceive color by subjective appraisal of differences between long medium and short wave light, including yellow now should add to the overall color schemes we might see.
Green and blue are close to one another in the light wave bandwidth, with Red and yellow being more diverse. Longer, and shorter, respectively.
Red yellow and Blue are the basic colors I recall being taught about in school. having less diversity in the basic colors chosen for projection by using two similar ones and only one more different type always bugged me.
Too bad they waited till now to include more diversity by adding yellow.
All that said, it comes down to the rods and cones in our own eyes, so in the end, I suspect some will be quite taken by this new application and some will not be quite so gladly affected.
As stunning as is what can be gained from using only 3 or 4 primary portions of the light spectrum itself, just think what could be if six colors in all should comprise the basic format from which the image is derived. Allowing for a still greater and more even and naturally displayed image.
Two from the long end, two from the middle and two from the shorter end of the light wave span itself.
The TV might look great, but as far as adding yellow, it's gotta be pure marketing bullsh#t. The RGB spectrum already has yellow (it's just not in the acronym), so they're not adding anything.
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