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I know there are video cards that display True Color (24 bit color), but are there any video cards that display Deep Color (30, 36 and 48 bit color)?

Further-more are there any display devices that can handle Deep Color?

quack quixote
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1 Answers1

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The ATI FireGL™ 3D Workstation Graphics Accelerators support 16-bit per RGB channel (48-bit color). "Beyond true color" video is typically used for HDRI applications (high dynamic range imaging).

Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 if you have a video card that supports 48-bit color and a monitor that supports 48-bit color using hdmi 1.3.

Here are a few articles I found about monitors supporting HDR and 48-bit images:

Sunnybrook HDR displays 40,000:1 resolution

BrightSide DR37-P HDR display

SIM2 Solar Series HDR LCD Monitor

Robert Cartaino
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  • Just curious, roughly how many bits per channel is the Mark I eyeball good for? – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Aug 06 '09 at 02:41
  • I thought it was in the *range* of 32-bits (+/- a few billion colors). We'll see if 48-bit makes a difference or if it is going to be the next "resolution war." – Robert Cartaino Aug 06 '09 at 03:16
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    I was always taught that the human eye can only reliably discern roughly 24-bit color; however we can still see "banding" of similar, but slightly different -- notably in very large, very subtle gradients where 24-bit isn't sufficient to get all the variance between the start and end shades. I think the 48-bit color will help with that issue. John Carmack wrote up something about that a few years back. – John Rudy Aug 06 '09 at 13:35
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    I think the 8 extra bits in "32-bit" color are actually for alpha transparency. Since 2^32 is about 4.3 billion (only a few, itself), "+/- a few billion" could widen your range to anywhere from 0 to 8 billion or more. ;) – rob Jan 29 '10 at 21:20
  • It's also worth noting that some people are tetrachromatic, and can see more colors than the rest of us. – rob Jan 29 '10 at 21:22
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    @JohnRudy You should be able to see it easily _when the color change involves a step of +/-1 in more than one channel. [Example: long gray gradient](http://i.stack.imgur.com/NqTsz.png) (or _graydient_!) – bobobobo Jul 04 '12 at 19:34
  • @bobobobo: In 2010, I would have stood by my comment. Working as much in photography with 14-bit RAW files and 16-bit PSDs as I currently do, I would now tend to agree with both the desire for deep color monitors and your statement about its visibility. It'd be nice to be able to see the full color data present in the image visually, instead of relying on Aperture and Photoshop to bring it out to me. – John Rudy Aug 20 '12 at 23:57