Apple Sued Over 'Lacking' Macbook Display

qu1j0t3 writes "Business 2.0 reports that two MacBook owners have filed a class action lawsuit charging Apple with deceptive advertising, as well as misrepresentation and unfair competition over the use of the phrase 'millions of colors' to describe the capability of the LCD displays in MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. The article likens the complaint to an an angry forum thread, and is more than a little bit skeptical of the plaintiff's motives. Perhaps it's their uncanny attention to detail. From the filing: 'The reality is that notwithstanding Apple's misrepresentations and suggestions that its MacBook and MacBook Pro display millions of colors, the displays are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as dithering, which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.'

Macs for artists

[Turn-X Alphonse]

It sounds dodgy but I can see some logic in this. If macs are sold as artistic machines (Apple sure tries to pull this off with the PC and Mac adverts) then shouldn't the monitors be as high quality and accurate as possible? I mean illusions are fun and all but you want the real thing if you're working on important art peices or photos

Re:

[noewun]

Since your eyes can only detect about 16,000 colors, it's a moot point, made all the mooter that even the best calibrated monitor can't show you low percentages of cyan or yellow. A well-calibrated monitor's best aspect is good gray balance, which tells you at a glance how much contrast is in your shot and whether or not you're losing detail in the highlights. Other than that, it's all about Photoshop's info palette, boys and girls.

Hmm. . . maybe I should sue God for making these substandard eyes!

Re:Macs for artists

[aussie_a]

Hmm. . . maybe I should sue God for making these substandard eyes!

Make sure its new testament god (or a non-christian/judaic/islamic god) otherwise you'll be smited!

Re:Macs for artists

[noewun]

Maybe I should sue in India. All those gods. . .

Re:Macs for artists

[pytheron]

Careful.. with all those hands, Ganesh could give you a good slapping !

Re:

[__aapspi39]

those gods were/are not thought to have more than one pair of hands; the depictions portray them as multi-limbed to convey their different aspects.
namaste.

What a BOGUS suit on its face!

[Archeopteryx]

NO computer screen displays more than THREE colors. Red, Green, and Blue. All colors on the display are made by three subpixels that vary in intensity of those colors. If I make a color on the screen by extending that technique into pixel space that is no different than the RGB subpixels.

I hate stupid people and their lawyers.

not "smited"

[DJCacophony]

Today's conjugation of the day: smite.

God is a smiter.
God is about to smite Bob.
God is smiting Bob.
God has smote Bob.
Bob has been smitten.

Incorrect

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

Nitpick, and you shall be nitpicked yourself:

God is a smiter.
God is about to smite Bob.
God is smiting Bob.
God smote Bob.
God has smitten Bob.
Bob has been smitten.

The adjective is always the past participle.

Re:Incorrect

[untaken_name]

Did you mean, "Learn to talk n00b," as in a command to go out and find out how to speak a language called n00b, or did you mean, "Learn to talk, n00b," as in a command to a n00b to learn how to talk?
Punctuation: the Rodney Dangerfield of grammar.

Re:not "smited"

[Haeleth]

I love ignorant people who try to correct others' grammar, and only end up displaying how bad their own is.

To demonstrate a conjugation, you should use the active sense of the verb in nonconditional cases, rather than the passive form for each case.

How fortunate that he only used one passive, and no conditionals.

(By the way, who made you king and gave you the power to decree how conjugations shall be demonstrated, yea, even unto the end of time?)

2. God is about to smite Bob. - This is a conditional use, so at least your passive sense is correct;

There is no conditional in "God is about to smite Bob". There is also no passive there.

however, you shouldn't use two prepositions in a row (even if one is part of the verb "to smite"): try "God will smite Bob."

There is nothing wrong with using two prepositions in a row. Furthermore, "God will smite Bob" does not mean the same thing as "God is about to smite Bob" - the latter implies that the smiting will happen in the very near future, while the former merely implies that it will happen at some point in the future.

3. God is smiting Bob. - This is an action: the verb + participle makes it passive.

Um, no, it doesn't. There is no passive involved. You don't actually know what a passive is, do you?

If you're giving a conjugation lesson, conjugate the verb, don't turn it into a modifier: "God smites Bob."

He did conjugate the verb, and he didn't turn it into a modifier. And "God smites Bob" does not mean the same thing as "God is smiting Bob": the latter emphasises the fact that the smiting is an ongoing action at the present moment, while the former merely specifies that it happens without making any real statement as to when (are you saying "God smites Bob every Thursday", or "Here is God. God smites Bob. See God smite"?)

4. God has smote Bob. - This is a passive use

No, it is not a passive.

which means that, again, you're not conjugating "smite."

Where do you get these ideas?

5. Bob has been smitten. - This is acceptable; however, I might avoid the passive use altogether: you don't give an active agent: by whom was Bob smitten?

Congratulations! You have successfully identified a real passive. That's one out of four, which I'm afraid is not a pass mark round here.

(BTW, the question of who smote Bob can generally be inferred from context: something like "God is on a rampage. Bob has been smitten, and so has Fred" is sometimes better style than "God is on a rampage. He has smitten Bob, and Fred too".)

In the future, please remember to ensure correct use when fixating upon the errors of others.

The irony is killing me.

(Cue half a dozen posts telling me that I'm misusing the word "irony". Come on, don't disappoint me here!)

Re:Macs for artists

[Lumpy]

really? funny how I can see color banding when you look at photographs of blue skies on a 16,000 color display but you dont see the color banding when you go to a 24 bit color display.

you eye CAN see more than 16,000 colors. espically when it is looking at 3-4 colors all next to each other to show off color banding.

Re:Macs for artists

[noewun]

D'oh! I got teh numbers wrong: the human eye can discern about 350,000 [berkeley.edu] colors (warning: MS Word file).

My point, though, was that it's a silly lawsuit. As someone who spends hours in Photoshop doing color correction I know the monitor is, at best, a blunt instrument. That's why we have matchprints and digital color proofs and the like.

Re:Macs for artists

[springbox]

It would be better if they had made the exact specs of the panels available, then people would have known it was 6-bit + dithering instead of 8-bit. Viewsonic does the same thing. Take a look at their web site (the US one anyway) claims most of their displays, which happen to use cheap 6-bit panels with FRC, can display "16.7 million colors." This gives the impression of an 8-bit panel.

Take a look at the huge difference between the specs on the same displays from their US site [viewsonic.com] and European site [viewsoniceurope.com]. The European site has the actual specs listed. Apparently something about false advertising was preventing from misrepresenting what they were trying to sell. (The European site doesn't even attempt to mention "16.7 million colors" for some of the displays!)

Re:Macs for artists

[slackmaster2000]

It can be very difficult to tell if an LCD monitor has a 6 or 8 bit panel, and there are several variations of each. Often times 6 bit panels are labeled as "16.2" million colors, so that's one indication. Otherwise they often use some kind of fishy wording, like "16.7 million color support" which simply means that you can set your display settings to 16.7, even though you're not seeing 8 bit color. Another sign of a 6 bit panel is a super fast response time, like 2ms. Finally, the most important thing to look at is price. On the low side an 8 bit panel is going to start at around $250-300 (19 - 20.1"). A good LCD monitor for graphics work is still going to set a person back a fair amount.

I went through the nightmare of trying to find a low cost 8 bit panel recently. I'm very familiar with the Viewsonic documents you posted, and I remember being quite frustrated with their literature. I'm not sure that they're trying to pull a fast one though. I've never seen so much contradictory literature, from a variety of companies!

For instance, I ended up getting a pair of Samsung SyncMaster 204BW monitors. Check this out:

- According to the *manual* that came with the monitor, it is a 16.7 M Colors (8bit + RGB) a-si TFT active matrix panel. It specifically says "8bit + RGB" in the manual.

- According to most online stores currently selling it, it is a 6 bit panel supporting 16.2M colorand is thus a 6 bit panel. (this has actually changed since I bought it. the store I bought it from at the time listed it as 16.7, and has since changed the spec to 16.2)

- According to some guy in a forum who claims to have called Samsung about this monitor, it is 8 bit.

- According to Samsung online, it is an 6 bit panel.

- According to Samsung online in canada, it is an 8 bit panel.

I think it's very possible that manufacturers choose different components for their models over time, even critical components like the panel in an LCD monitor. Perhaps the 204BW monitors I'm running are 8 bit, and the ones for sale now are 6 bit. I honestly don't know for sure.

The good news is that even if these are 6 bit panels, I think that they look great. I use them for quite a bit of work in Photoshop and Illustrator. No complaints whatsoever. They outperform my old CRTs in terms of color accuracy and contrast, which surprised me (although viewing angle is important with an LCD...which can either be a hindrance or be used as an advantage).

As far as TFA goes, I on one hand don't think these guys have a chance. Cheap LCD panels are nothing new, and they've gotten so good that the average user is none the wiser about them being 6 bit. If the eye is fooled then the eye is fooled. Macintosh certainly didn't invent 6 bit panels, nor do I believe that they intentionally use them to dupe customers. The reason that LCDs have gotten so cheap is not because manufacturing high quality panels has become that much cheaper, it's because the new cheap LCDs use cheaper 6 bit panels! Plus it cracks me up that guys who spend $2500 for Macbooks actually think they're getting the highest quality hardware. (is there a notebook offered today with an 8 bit panel?)

On the other hand, it would be nice if this thing could lead to manufacturers being more consistent in their labeling.

Re:

[MojoStan]

Plus it cracks me up that guys who spend $2500 for Macbooks actually think they're getting the highest quality hardware. (is there a notebook offered today with an 8 bit panel?)

Lenovo/IBM ThinkPads with FlexView panels (like this T60p [ibm.com]) have 8-bit IPS LCDs. Most notebooks are 6-bit, though.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/TFT_display#Flexview _.28IPS.29 [thinkwiki.org]

How 16.2M is determined

[ultor]

The method of arriving at 16.2 million colors is actually simple.

On a true 8-bit display, the value range for each component is from 0-255. Because the 6-bit display can only display 1/4 of those numbers (0-63), it must dither for the rest in the form of (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 ...). The interpolation method is usually capable of representing 3 values between each color, but because the numbers on the end (... 244, 248, 252) are missing the final value, 255, there is no final value to dither in. So those final 3 values (253, 254, 255) are missing. Thus, you only have 253 values for each dithered component (since we include 0). 253 * 253 * 253 = 16194277 ~= 16.2M.

It's really stupid. Just say 262144 colors.

Re:Macs for artists

[noewun]

but if you were a true professional

Look, if you want to get all big-dick-swinging about this, send me your client list, a link to your portfolio (including samples from all of the international ad campaigns you've worked on and the awards you've won) and your fee list and we can see who's the biggest, baddest, most calibratingest knowingest motherfucker of them all. If you don't want to do that, just try to be less of a dick when you post.

I've been doing this since Photoshop 1.0 (and PageMaker and Illustrator 88. . .) so I am sure of where I speak. Am I the bestest retoucher in the universe? No, because no matter how good you are, there's always someone better. The best guy I've ever worked with was a portrait painter in a former life (he painted the portrait of Reagan which hangs in the White House) and working next to him was a revelation: he could paint photorealistic images in Photoshop with the same effort I take to tie my shoes.

That aside, no monitor in the world will accurately show you low values of yellow and cyan. Sure, something will be on the screen, but to really check and make sure your whitest areas are 2/2/2/0 (or 5/5/5/0 or whatever standard the shop you work in uses for non-specular highlights) you need to use both the info palette and a matchprint/high end digital color proof. That's just the way it is, and all of the people I've worked with in all of the years will say the same thing. Trusting the monitor--any monitor--is asking for a surprise when things come off the press. It's just the nature of conversion from additive to subtractive color models.

Re:

[syphax]

You win.

Re:Macs for artists

[noewun]

TV production is NOT the same as print production: you're using two completely different color models and two different methods of color reproduction. TV color isn't nearly as critical as color for print production because there's no readily discernible standard for the end product. That is to say, while there are standards, you have no control what people will see on their own TVs or monitors, which are relatively low resolution devices compared to a 2,400 dpi/175 line screen printing job.

Print production, on the other hand, has very exacting specs, and when the client asks for a particular four (or five or six) color mix, the client expects (with good reason) that the specified color will be exact over the length of the print run. Matching and reproducing color for print is a much harder job, which is why we have $1,800 monitors and $250,000 digital matchprint machines.

Re:

[gfxguy]

I don't understand your reply. What difference does it make? I RTFA, I didn't see where it said they were "professional" anything; we were having a discussion about how "professionals" require a different standard of monitor; it doesn't matter whether we're talking about print or video.

Re:

[gobbo]

TV color isn't nearly as critical as color for print production because there's no readily discernible standard for the end product. That is to say, while there are standards, you have no control what people will see on their own TVs or monitors, which are relatively low resolution devices compared to a 2,400 dpi/175 line screen printing job.

Took me a while to figure this out, moving from print to video production. Sure, it was nice to work on a $8K well-calibrated reference video monitor doing colour correction, but after editing in the field with a laptop and a crappy portable LCD monitor, and on low-end workstations with old commodore64 thrift-shop specials for reference, I realized that having both a nice reference and a worst-case-scenario monitor is valuable. People's TV sets vary hugely; if it looks good on a crappy monitor, you're hal

Re:

[noewun]

The more I look, the more values I find. I think we can agree on three things:

1) My original quote of 16,000 was wrong;

2) The human eye can see many more colors, between a range of 350,000 and several million;

3) Only the Flying Spaghetti Monster knows what the real number is.

Re:Macs for artists

[Stephen H-B]

Although the condition is not universally acknowledged, some women are reported to have four colour receptors in their retina, rather than the regular three. The condition is analogous to male colour blindness (now called colour deficiency since you can be colour deficient and 20/20). Since women have a backup of the gene (the allele is X-linked, thus why males predominate colour blindness), they can see blue, green, reddish-orange and red.

Search Wikipedia for 'tetrachromatism' for more info.

tetrachromat

[Gary W. Longsine]

for your clicking convenience...

The human is a blocked tetrachromat [4colorvision.com]
Tetrachromacy [wikipedia.org]

Re:Macs for artists

[UbuntuDupe]

So there's a setting I can change to fix this?

Like, some menu that's like:

(X) Crappy color
( ) NCC (non-crappy color)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

Ph.D. Neuroscientist here. I've done lots of work on the eye. You are entirely wrong. It's in the millions.

Re:

[anaesthetica]

Thanks, Essjay.

Re:Macs for artists

[erroneus]

Actually, that's not entirely true. Part of the value of having a range of values beyond the discrete perception of the human eye is that it leaves much room for enhancement and tweaking of images. Consider that it is possible to take a very large image and scale it down to something smaller. You don't notice any decrease in quality, usually, and sometimes it even seems to improve. However, if you attempt to scale up an image, you will definitely notice a decrease in image quality.

The same effect happens when manipulating and shifting colors in an image. You have seen images with "oil painting" or even "water color" splotches of color. Often this is the unintentional consequence of reducing colors in an attempt to get more compression out of the image. This is also caused by other activities as well. But these effects can be controlled by a skilled and experienced user when manipulating and shifting colors in an image. This ability is hampered, however, when a display that is purported to be capable of something upon which a user depends, is actually incapable of that quality.

I'd say they have a case. Interlacing and blending are no substitute.

And the bottom line is if the user cannot duplicate the image quality of what appears on the screen onto print, which does maintain those standards, then there's a mismatch in quality that the user does not expect to experience when he has been assured [lied to, deceived] that a display is capable of faithfully rendering. If there is an effective fix, then Apple is responsible for delivering such a fix not withstanding exclusions in their EULA that a judge might rule as acceptable.

Re:Macs for artists

[iangoldby]

Parent poster describes how with a restricted number of colours, though the human eye can't see banding in the original, if you then process that image the quantisation of colours in the original can lead to banding in the processed version.

Yes, but that has nothing at all to do with this story.

There would be an issue if a 24-bit image was downsampled to 16-bit (for example) in order to display it on a 16-bit screen and then resaved (or processed) at the lower bit-depth. But it's not. Any transformations done in the image editing program are at the bit depth of the image, not of the display.

So if the eye can't see the deficiencies of the display before manipulating the image, it won't see them afterwards either.

Re:

[bynary]

I'm not sure what a sparklilly is, but it sounds intriguing. Is it some sort of incendiary variety of flower?

Re:

[somersault]

It's an amature artestec term... but anyway I'd tend to give lower SIDs the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have dyslexia rather than that they're dumb :P

Re:Macs for artists

[Lars T.]

Since your eyes can only detect about 16,000 colors, it's a moot point,

I recall reading an article in nature about trained visual artists being able to detect many times that number. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Hell, women can already see 7428 different shades of white.

Re:

[eclectic4]

"the Apple monitors would be counterproductive at best."

You mean the notebook monitors, right? Because the Apple Cinema Displays are quite good [apple.com] and are even SWOP certified for your soft proofing needs. For LCD's this is pretty damned good, but you do pay for it...

Re:Macs for artists

[gravis777]

I work in a Fortune 500 advertising company, and we use Macs almost exclusively for creative work. Now, you do need to calibrate the display if you are doing something that intensive, and chances are, in our company at least, you will not be doing creative work on a laptop. But when you are creating 40 foot by 10 foot billboards, you want to be sure that your colors are exact. The majority of Apple's clients are creatives, and if you are marketing your product to this market, you better be sure you can deliver what you are advertising

Re:

[TheGavster]

VGA and DVI claim to deliver 8 bits of precision per channel; these Apple LCDs are only capable of displaying 6 bits of precision. Yes, there is loss in any computer display due to the nature of color triad-based pixels. This problem goes beyond that, and introduces unexpected dithering artifacts into the image. It is entirely possible to create images that look great at 6 bits per channel, but since the downsampling is done at the display rather than by the system, and because the user was not expecting th

Err...

[aussie_a]

I'm not Apple's biggest fan (like it more then Microsoft, less then Windows), and I hate false advertising. However.....

The reality is that notwithstanding Apple's misrepresentations and suggestions that its MacBook and MacBook Pro display millions of colors, the displays are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as dithering, which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.

Isn't that going to get laughed right out of the courtroom? I mean sure that level of pedanticism is tolerated in some forums, but this is a court of law. Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."

Re:Err...

[cs02rm0]

Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."

And stop dithering!

Re:

[Short Circuit]

Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."

Sadly, you know a hell of a lot more abot monitors than the judge likely will.

Re:

[aussie_a]

Which is sad as I know next to nothing. Hopefully they'll get the right expert and the judge will listen.

Re:Err...

[mdwh2]

I mean sure that level of pedanticism is tolerated in some forums, but this is a court of law.

I'd say the other way round - being pedantic is more important in legal matters and advertising, than it is on a forum.

And this isn't being pedantic - surely it's long established that "number of colours" refers to the number of possible colours an individual pixel can display, and not using tricks like dithering? Otherwise, back in the 80s/90s when computers only had 256 colours or less, why didn't we see manufacturers claiming they could actually display thousands of colours? Why weren't the computers which could display thousands of colours back then advertised as displaying millions? And maybe the original black and white classic Macs should actually be greyscale, because you could dither the black and white pixels?

I'm curious, as I thought 24 bit displays had been standard on computers for well over a decade now - is it common for laptops to have an 18 bit display, or is it only Apple that have decided to take us back to the 1990s?

Re:Err...

[UnknowingFool]

Apple is not the only manufacturer to do this. All other laptop manufacturers do it too as the issue is with the LCD itself. Apple like Lenovo, HP, etc, do not directly manufacture their own LCD screens like they don't make their own HDs, memory, CPUs, batteries, etc.

Re:Err...

[Solandri]

And this isn't being pedantic - surely it's long established that "number of colours" refers to the number of possible colours an individual pixel can display, and not using tricks like dithering? Otherwise, back in the 80s/90s when computers only had 256 colours or less, why didn't we see manufacturers claiming they could actually display thousands of colours?

The dithering done on 6-bit LCD panels is in the time domain. A pixel will flicker between two different shades at a frequency high enough to be almost invisible, creating the illusion of a shade in between. (I say "almost" because some people can see the flickering, including me. It's easier to see if your eye is moving around the screen instead of staring at a point.) The 256-color displays of days gone by dithered in the spatial domain, so their dithering was always visible. The only way it created the illusion of continuity was if you sat far enough back that you couldn't see the individual pixels.

It's an interesting distinction that I'm not sure how it would hold up in court. I should point out however that many light sources we think of as continuous do the exact same thing to produce the illusion of continuous light output. Fluorescent lights, lights on some new cars, the backlights on many cell phones and PDAs, all of them flicker.

I'm curious, as I thought 24 bit displays had been standard on computers for well over a decade now - is it common for laptops to have an 18 bit display, or is it only Apple that have decided to take us back to the 1990s?

The vast majority of LCD panels are 6-bit, and use dithering to generate 16.2 million colors. True 8-bit panels are usually fairly expensive, and only used on high end LCDs designed for graphics work. The fact that you hadn't noticed this is a pretty good argument that this type of dithering isn't really false advertising.

Agreed

[purduephotog]

I'm in the same boat. We constantly test LCDs at work to recommend to various customers which ones to go with for their next massive purchase. Several displays have been 'hot' for doing temporal dithering. Problem is... I see the noise patterns it produces, and it gives me a rather nasty headache. Statistically we are under-represented, but the customer will more than likely have a greater percentage of these younger, well-visioned individuals, so this becomes a problem.

We also work with manufacturers t

Re:Err...

[springbox]

The dithering done on 6-bit LCD panels is in the time domain.

This is not the case of all 6-bit panels. Some use actual dithering while others use FRC (Frame Rate Control), which is what you described.

At what resolution?

[tgibbs]

This is not the case of all 6-bit panels. Some use actual dithering while others use FRC (Frame Rate Control), which is what you described.

This could turn out to be a crucial point. Apple advertises millions of colors; they don't say how they do it, and it could reasonably be argued that no LCD panel is capable of producing more than 256 colors at a given point, anyway, so a combinatorial approach to producing a larger number of colors is an accepted practice.

But they also advertise a particular resolution.

Virtually no laptop LCD can display 16.7M colors

[demon driver]

From one of the comments below TFA: "Out of 28 notebook LCDs manufactured by Samsung, only 2 can display 16.7M colors natively, a 15.4-inch panel with a lowish resolution of 1,280 x 800 (part number LTN154X5) and a 19-inch panel (part number LTN190W1). The rest, 26 LCDs, are 6-bit and can display 262,144 colors natively, without dithering, and millions of colors with dithering. [...] At LG.Philips, all of the 15 notebook LCDs are 6-bit and can display 262,144 colors natively, without dithering, and millions of colors with dithering."

So it seems virtually no laptop LCD can display 16.7M colors without dithering. It's a problem which affects the whole industry, and all laptop manufacturers seem to be, well, somewhat "optimistic" in their advertising claims.

Which doesn't make it better that Apple does so, too, and as far as I'm concerned, the suit is well justified.

Re:

[mapmaker]

surely it's long established that "number of colours" refers to the number of possible colours an individual pixel can display

But if you want to be pedantic, then what is the definition of "display"? I would say that "display" means to present information in a form perceivable by the human eye. If the dithering technique used by these LCDs is perceived by the human eye as millions of colors, then it is in fact "displaying" millions of colors.

Re:

[Lehk228]

no, a CRT uses variable intensity for each of the three colors, and each pixel can be one of ~infinite colors on an analog display

That's pretty much the point

[Space cowboy]

EVERY manufacturer who advertises 16.2 million colours uses a 6-bit display and dithering. Apple has a setting of "millions of colours" in their preferences, and they stuck with that description when they used a 6-bit display.

The point is that this is temporal dithering, not spacial dithering. There's no point in saying "my eye can see the difference when there's dithering in an image" because that's not what's taking place.

Consider a nominally 1-bit system, a single red LED. Apply zero power, and it's black. Apply constant 5v (with appropriate resistors :-) and it's bright-red. Now apply a pulse-wave-modulation [wikipedia.org] to that LED, and you will be able to *see* a smoothly-varying intensity between 0 and 1 (black and bright-red) even though the LED is only switching fully on or fully off. The pulse-train is controllable by a digital system, so you can electronically vary the effective brightness of this 1-bit system.

In this, the 1-bit output is temporally dithering its on/off state to give the illusion of a multi-bit system. Scale this up to a 6-bit system, and it's easy to generate the illusion of an 8-bit system. To the human eye there is no difference, we don't have the refresh-rate to catch the LED off or on, we just see the aggregated results of very fast controlled flickering.

Simon

Re:Err...

[Just Some Guy]

History, repeat thyself [com.com]. Honestly, there's a legitimate point to that. If the advertised specs say that it can display "millions of colors", then there's a reasonable expectation that a given pixel will be able to represent over 1 million colors (most likely 16MiColors, but who's counting?). Yeah, this might seem a little silly, but if you can't deliver then don't promise it.

I can imagine a graphics geek being pretty legitimately pissed about seeing gradients where he shouldn't, in the same way that if they advertised a 128-bit FPU, a programmer might be a little annoyed to find that it was really "32-bit but we cleverly fake the rest".

Re:

[jimstapleton]

But dithering only works well at minimum distances, and it can still create problems with gradient lines, if the algorithm is of sub-par quality or the picture happens to have something in it's nature that doesn't quite dither properly.

Dithering can add a 'blur' factor, since it's not an exact representation, which also causes a loss in image accuracy.

and as a counter point to all my previous points...
Aren't all images on computers dithered anyway, since each "pixel" is actually 3 sub-pixels, each with a di

Re:

[Bob-taro]

mod parent -1 "whiney".

just post your comment and take your negative mod points like a man!

Re:Err...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think it's going to be laughed out of court? Apple have, according to the suit, marketed their machines as suitable for graphic designers and photographers etc., and that their monitors can display "millions of colors". If it turns out that "millions of colors" is really "thousands of colors that are made to appear like millions with dithering techniques", he very much has a case. Apple must not advertise that a product is suitable for purpose X when it is obvious that it is lacking in the most fundamental ways. The questions are: what does "millions of colors" imply, why is it misleading to Apple's target customers, and why does this cause harm Apple's target customers? And: can Apple be blamed for this?
 
I don't think this is going to get "laughed out of court".

Re:Err...

[dave420]

Hmm... dithered images are not true-colour, so they don't display millions of colours any more than a newspaper displays more than 4 (CMYK). It gives the illusion of more, but it's not actually giving more. This is far from a laughable claim. The whole 10^6/2^20 discrepancy is laughable, this is clearly a case of false advertising. And, fyi, courts of law are by definition the most pedantic out there, as they're dealing with really important things, and so have to get to the bottom of even the most ridiculous claim. The American Idol panel is the least pedantic example I can think of :)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Err...

[cyphercell]

Most manufacturers do not list the color depth of their display. Even fewer will list the actual per-color depth. If the manufacturer lists the color as 16.7 million colors, it should be assumed that the display is 8-bit per-color. If the colors are listed as being 16.2 million or 16 million, consumers should assume that it uses a 6-bit per-color depth. If no color depths is listed, it should be assumed that monitors of 12ms or faster will be 6-bit and the 20ms and slower panels are 8-bit.

http://compreviews.about.com/od/multimedia/a/LCDCo lor.htm [about.com]

I would think so considering Apple offers their Macbooks as "millions of colors" rather than 16.7 million, who knows though if the color/response time is a big enough issue they may be required to state whether theirs is 6-bit or 8-bit. Then again, if your producing videos or print, you damn well ought to understand the problems inherent in selecting your tools.

Re:

[ronadams]

So, do we sue HP, Cannon, Brother, Epson, etc. next for selling us scanners that scan at "2400x2400", when they really only do so through dithering?

Re:Err...

[suv4x4]

The displays are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as dithering, which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.

Isn't that going to get laughed right out of the courtroom? I mean sure that level of pedanticism is tolerated in some forums, but this is a court of law. Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."

Check this image:

squares [fmethod.com]

Imagine you're told your new expensive laptop, by *Apple* (a brand mostly known as going for component quality since designers work with it), will have have display quality like the second square.

But instead you see display quality like the first square.

If you think it's a laughing matter, I want to see you persuade those unfortunate Mac owners join the laugh.

But the squares look different on my MacBook...

[rickkas7]

On my MacBook, which should have a 6-bit display, the left and right squares look quite different to me. I believe that's a good indication that the time-based "dithering" used on the MacBook is not nearly as bad as space-based dithering, at least for people who are unable to see flicker significantly above 60 Hz.

Re:Err...

[greg_barton]

Imagine you're told your new expensive laptop, by *Apple* (a brand mostly known as going for component quality since designers work with it), will have have display quality like the second square.

The left square has banding, the right square does not.

This is on my MacBook Pro display, btw.

Re:

[iangoldby]

On my MacBook Pro, both squares initially looked smooth.
But when I started dragging the window around, I noticed that there was clear banding on the left square, and very slight banding on the right square. The banding on the left square flickered while I was moving the window. The right square did not flicker.

Well, on blowing up the images, I see that the first one is dithered with a crude regular spatial dither. The second uses no dithering. I guess that means that my MacBook Pro display is doing some dit

Re:

[slughead]

Isn't that going to get laughed right out of the courtroom? I mean sure that level of pedanticism is tolerated in some forums, but this is a court of law. Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."

The display can only show about a quarter million colors. This is not millions. Therefore, when Apple promised "millions", they were lying.

The reason dithering is bad is because many people (including myself) can see dithering quite easily and it l

Well great

[cyphercell]

Now all we will have is three color displays, and we won't have any numbers to guage them with.

Dirty lies!

[Romwell]

Let's take it to the extreme: there are only tree colors (R,G and B). And there is no spoon.

Obscure reference, anyone?

[psicic]

There are FIVE lights.

Re:

[Tack]

Captain Picard's response to a Cardassian's question of how many light he could see.

Actually, his response was that there were four lights. However I don't know what the episode name is, so there's still a chance that I might get laid some day.

if this goes through

[gEvil (beta)]

If this goes through then it opens the door to lawsuits against nearly all LCD manufacturers, since most displays these days (except for the highest end ones) are 6-bit with dithering...

Re:if this goes through

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It's not that simple. I've seen this discussed in other forums, most monitors that are 6-bit are usually not advertised using such stretched language as Apple did. Apple even claims that their displays are higher in quality than can be found in any competing product, which is simply not true.

Re:if this goes through

[gEvil (beta)]

There is a way to tell by looking at the spec sheet of a monitor. If it says 16.7 million, it's an 8-bit display. If it says 16.2 million, it's 6-bits with dithering.

Wait what?

[WarlockD]

So...they going to sue Paramount because its not "moving pictures" but 24 still images a second?

Why aren't they going after LCD manufactures?

Technically, they're right.

[Short Circuit]

Your average display can only show 768 unique colors. However, our eyes blend them so that you see white instead of a combination of red, green and blue. Some displays support 16-bit shading, but I don't know if that's available in an RGB format or just a black-and-white format.

And while "dithering" is usually used to refer to pixels, as opposed to subpixels, the same principle applies.

This result of this case will have less to do with the technical merits of the display, and more to do with common practi

Re:

[mwvdlee]

768 unique colors... wait... are you just adding together three 256-level RGB subpixels?
So I guess eight (a byte) 2-levels (a bit) make for only 16 possible combinations?

I'd Be Mad

[MBCook]

I've got a PowerBook G4. I can tell you that I expect it has millions of colors on the screen (it was advertized as such). If I upgraded and spent $2-$3k on new MacBook Pro and found it could only display 262k colors, I would be REALLY mad. I'd jump on this suit. I really like Apple, but this really surprises me if it's true. I'd be surprised if it was Dell or Lenovo or Gateway, but I'd never guess Apple would do this.

I hope they get cleared, or get whats comming to them for this.

Re:I'd Be Mad

[mosch]

I have bad news for you. Your Powerbook has 262k colors.

The MacBook displays weren't a regression in quality, they were a continuation of an exceptionally long-standing practice.

Maybe we'll see 8-bit displays in some future revision, but until now, it's been a cost issue, and Apple was smart enough to realize that if the entire industry is using 6-bit displays, they can do it too.

Ummmm....

[morgan_greywolf]

Ummmm....What???

Okay, great, you win! We all have 3-color displays!

What's next? Are they going to sue Taco Bell because they don't actually sell Mexican food?

On Apple Terminology

[bill_mcgonigle]

Okay, great, you win! We all have 3-color displays!

You beat me to it. ;)

For the audience: Anybody who's been using Apple gear since the early 90's (late 80's?) knows that in Apple-speak, Thousands means 16-bit color and Millions means 24-bit color signal.

See, in the old days, your Monitors control panel had Black & White, 4, 16 and 256 [apple.com] Colors as your options. When they added 16, then 24-bit color support, instead of listing 2048 and 16,667,242 (or whatever), they did something very Apple and called th

TrueColor

[koh]

I don't get it. Surely the Mac uses a TrueColor visual for rendering, i.e. 8 bit per RGB component per pixel plus 8 bit alpha. Assuming differences in the alpha channel do not pertain to the number of colors, it nonetheless leaves 2^24 (16777216) different displayable colors. 16777216 > 1000000 and 16777216/1000000 = 16.78, so it really is millions of colors...

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

You're focusing on the software end. It's the hardware that isn't capable of displaying 16.7 million colors, although you'd be very hard-pressed to tell (I can only see slight banding in very specific cases on my 6-bit LG monitor).

More lawyer bullshit

[Electric Eye]

As always, the only ones who will benefit from any ruling against Apple will be for the scumbag attorneys who make a killing of filing these bullshit class action lawsuits. These douchebags try to find the smallest things to generate millions of dollars through manipulating the legal system. I got a letter for a class action suit against some consumer products company a few months ago. In the letter, it stated that I agreed with the legal fees the attorneys were charging which amounted to roughly $10 million. How much did I stand to make? About $5, if that.

This is just another in a lonnnnnnnnnng line of legal extortion that our court systems propagate.

The point

[Z0mb1eman]

How about providing the IMPORTANT part from the article in the summary, hmmm?

"At the heart of the case is plaintiff's claim that rather than delivering 16,777,216 colors with an 8-bit LCD, Apple chose a cheaper route, delivering the illusion of millions of colors using a 6-bit LCD and dithering."

2^24 = 16,777,216
2^18 = 262,144

Nothing wrong with 6-bit LCDs, but they shouldn't be advertised as 8-bit...

*gets ready to be torn apart by rabid mac fans*

Re:The point

[gnasher719]

6 bit panels are in fact not advertised as 8 bit.

What most of the industry does is quite sneaky: If it is an 8 bit panel, then each pixel can display 256 x 256 x 256 different colors, that is about 16.7 million colors.

If it is a 6 bit panel, then you can use dithering with four pixels to achieve 253 different values in each color component (that is 253, not 256), so you can display 253 x 253 x 253 different colors using dithering, that makes 16.2 million colors. 16.2 million, not 16.7 million. Check the specs on any LCD monitor that you see, and you won't find any advertising 262,000 colors but plenty advertising 16.2 millions.

Well, Apple claims "millions" which is completely in line with industry practice both for 6 bit and 8 bit panels.

Re:The point

[djmurdoch]

If you read the actual complaint [e42.us], paragraphs 9 and 21.k, you'll see that part of it is that MacOSX isn't even doing the dithering as well as it should: the same laptop running Windows does a better job of displaying the colours.

Re:The point

[Penguin's Advocate]

The dithering is done entirely by the LCD itself. It is not done by the graphics chip and it is certainly not done by the OS. Any disparity in the appearance of different OS on the same LCD cannot, by reality, be a result of this issue.

Re:

[springbox]

6 bit panels are in fact not advertised as 8 bit.

Apparently you have not tried evaluating Viewsonic displays. Check these spec sheets out: one from their US site [viewsonic.com] and one from their European site [viewsoniceurope.com]. Notice that the same displays which claim to support, according to the specs from the US site, "16.7 million colors" are shown to be 6-bit panels with FRC on the specs from the European site.

Re:

[Goobermunch]

Here's the interesting legal twist, though:

One of the factors courts look at in determining whether you got what you paid for is "usage in the trade." Thus, if the entire LCD manufacturing industry's custom is to refer to 6-bit LCDs as "capable of displaying millions of colors," then Apple has provided what they've promised to provide. The law assumes that the public will go out and do a little research to determine what they're buying.

--AC

Sue your eyes

[Bullfish]

Even your eyes process colours through a small spectrum into what we see as a full vibrant spectrum. Functionally, for a computer display (don't get all philosophical on me), what is the difference between dithered and actually displayed if all the colours are present and rendered faithfully. All monitors do this, or rather all monitors and video cards. Do they sue the video card manufacturers as that's the other half of the equation...

This is just another symptom of an overly-litigious society with an over-population of lawyers.

Bad colours

[tsa]

I was always surprised how bad the colours on my MBP look compared to the same colours on my 19" CRT. Now I know why they look so bad. Here [appleinsider.com] is a better article about this case. Both articles don't mention iBooks and Powerbooks. Do they use 'normal' screens? I had an iBook once and I always thought the iBook had a (much) better screen than the MBP.

Hmmm ...

[boccaccio's hamster]

Isn't this the equivalent of suing Lens Crafters for claiming to make your eyesight better when in fact, glasses give your brain the "illusion" that your eyesight is better.

eyeballs

[CheeseTroll]

I'd like to sue the manufacturer of my retinas and/or brain, because my retinas are only capable of Trichromatic vision, but my brain keeps tricking me into thinking I'm seeing millions of variations.

And don't get me started on those so-called "color printer" things. I only see 3 colors of ink/toner going into those.

Next up

[raddan]

NASA sued for false color images. Dichromats sue trichromats. Red sues green. News at 11.

What's "Support" mean?

[dschuetz]

I just checked the MacBook specs, and saw this under display: "13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy widescreen TFT display with support for millions of colors"

What exactly does "support for millions of colors" mean, anyway? In the world of (E|H)DTV monitors, "supports 1080i" generally means "can display a 1080 image, but only at 768" or somesuch. I look for words like "native resolution" to figure out what something is technically, actually, capable of.

And if Apple can show that EVERYONE in the industry is doing exactly the same thing, with similar advertising language, then it's probably not going to go anywhere. It's sort of a visual equivalent to the silly GB vs GiB argument, though at least in that case hard drive manufacturers have started better explaining their side of the equation....

Far more interesting: Better under Windows?

[Animaether]

From the PDF ( http://www.engadget.com/videos/PDF/apple_macbook_l awsuit.pdf [engadget.com] ) :

''The extent to which a particular make of computer is capable of "dithering" is a function of the sophistication of the programming of the software. For example, in the case of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, because of the uniqueness of these computers to be able to run both Apple's OS operating system, and the PC's Microsoft Windows operating system, it is possible to compare the quality of the display between the two operating systems. In the case of the display that the MacBook and the MacBook Pro produces using the Microsoft Windows operating system at all resolution levels is superior to the display that those same computers display using Apple's OS operating system.''

Some nasty grammar in there, but in summary: no such problem when running Windows on the same machine?

If that is true, then it is indeed an Apple software problem. Note that software shouldn't be in charge of this sort of thing in the first place. LCD displays themselves handle incoming 8bit values on a 6bit displays in one of three ways:
A. 'as is', 91 becomes 92.
B. 'dither', 3 out of 4 pixels are 92, the other one is 88, averaging to 91
C. 'frame rate control', 3 out of 4 refreshes it draws the pixel as 92, the other one is 88, averaging to 91.

B&C are both common, and both have pros/cons. But either way, the software shouldn't be doing anything there (arguably, a driver might - i.e. if the monitor specifically allows you to specify which method to use, what dithering pattern, etc. by means of driver control).

Re:Better under Windows?

[spitzak]

Though it seems hard to believe, there is some chance that Apple does have a serious mistake. There is an explanation as to why it might be "better under Windows" and it is not good for Apple. A sure way to compare would be to take a screen shot from one system and display it on the other, so that differences in graphics and font rendering do not enter into it.

Apple has had a history of using a gamma correction table, which was always a mistake. I thought they eradicated this in OS/X but perhaps it lives on. Some ill-informed people actually think this makes the image better but it is always a bad idea on current hardware.

The reason is that the hardware interface to the monitor is 8 bits (per channel). If you have an 8-bit-per-channel image, and the gamma correction table is anything other than 1:1, then two or more different 8-bit shades are going to get mapped to the same 8 bit number sent to the monitor, due to the pigeonhole principle. It also means some possible 8-bit outputs are not going to get produced. It is possible the diterhing of the LCD is amplifying this effect. For instance if many of the "pure" values are the missing ones, then there is going to be far more dithering.

Both Windows and Linux just dump the 8 bit images you send to the graphics api to the screen buffer with no change. Though this sounds more primitive, it turns out it is the right thing to do. Color correction and profiling has to be done by software, not by hardware and drivers.

Re:Better under Windows?

[stewbacca]

I'm curious to what your explanation is for calling Apple's gamma correction "a mistake". Back in 1988-1993 I worked for a design firm that was all Mac based, solely for the way Macs correctly display images, colors and typefonts. It seems most creative industries still prefer the Mac platform (although Windows has improved), and most consider images to be "more correct" on a Mac than on a PC (without some serious calibration).

Skeptical skepticism.

[delire]

more than a little bit skeptical of the plaintiff's motives

Eh? Why does anyone sue? To hurt the defendant's feelings? Would the plaintiffs be happy if the Judge said "fair enough" and somehow awarded them MBP's with better screens? Of course not.

Suing is an entrepreneurs game. It has nothing to do with fairness or seeking 'justice'; it's a legally endorsed playground for funny money using rhetoric, blackmail, stock-bruising and good old-fashioned acting to turn over a cool sum in a hurry. You 'build' a case, attract media attention to make the defendant hurt and sell it in court. The jury might as well be potential investors.

The fact that the MBP screens may be a bit shabby compared to some other portables is completely beside the point. I doubt the plaintiffs even care.

8-bit vs 6-bit LCD displays

[Trevin]

This got me wondering how many bpp my own Viewsonic Pro series monitor can display. I was surprised to find that it wasn't listed in the product specifications -- neither as bits nor total number of colors.

A little further digging brought me to this article [about.com] which gave some good insight about the differences. Some highlights:

Since consumers were demanding faster screens, something needed to be done to improve response times. To facilitate this, many manufacturers turned to reducing the number of levels each color pixel render. This reduction in the number of intensity levels allows the response times to drop but has the drawback of reducing the overall number of colors that can be rendered.

High-speed LCD monitors typically reduce the number of bits for each color to 6 instead of the standard 8. ... This is far fewer than the true color display such that it would be noticeable to the human eye.

If no color depths is listed, it should be assumed that monitors of 12ms or faster will be 6-bit and the 20ms and slower panels are 8-bit.

This is very subjective to the actual user and what the computer is used for. The amount of color really matters to those that do professional work on graphics. For these people, the amount of color that is displayed on the screen is very important. The average consumer is not going to really need this level of color representation by their monitor. As a result, it probably doesn't matter. People using their displays for video games or watching video will likely not care about the number of colors rendered by the LCD but by the speed at which it can be displayed. As a result, it is best to determine your needs and base your purchase on those criteria.

Spatial and temporal dithering

[AlpineR]

I never heard of this LCD dithering before. A little bit of Googling found a simple explanation [about.com] of what it is, a simple test [photo.net] to look for it, and a detailed explanation and test [behardware.com].

This seems to be a very common practice on LCD screens, not just a trick used by Apple. I'm still not clear whether most LCDs use spatial or temporal dithering. It seems like temporal dithering would work very well with an LCD. They're known for their sluggish response times, so sending "80-84-80-84" at 60 Hz should result in a nice smearing into "82-82-82-82" over time.

I didn't see any dithering artifacts on my MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo). Either it doesn't dither (unlikely) or the dithering is better than my eyes can see.

We all know that screens are actually made of red, green, and blue (RGB) dots that combine to make the apparent color of each pixel. An 8-bit screen would have 256 levels of brighness for each of those subpixels, yielding 256 x 256 x 256 = 16.8 million mixed colors. But if you wanted to be really technical you could say that the screen can actually show only 256 + 256 + 256 = 768 colors; the mixed colors are an illusion. Likewise a 6-bit screen can generate only 262 thousand colors in a given pixel at a given instant, but it can simulate many more colors over time or space.

The argument depends on how many pixels the manufacturer claims to have. If they say their screen is 1024 x 768 with 16.8 million colors then we would expect to have 786,000 independently addressable pixels, each of which comprises three RGB subpixels. If in fact it takes four RGB subpixels (1-1/3 of each 6-bit subpixel to get 8 bits) to yield 16.8 million colors then they should really only claim a resolution of 768 x 576. If, however, they do the dithering temporally and the pulsation is unnoticeable then I think continuing to call the resolution 1024 x 768 is fair.

AlpineR

Same thing done with digital cameras

[Starker_Kull]

If these geniuses really want to start suing over their lack of research on how things work, I suggest they go after the folks who make digital cameras and advertise them as 12 megapixels or what have you. In your typical digitial camera, each pixel does NOT record the intensities of three different colors, but only ONE. See this [cambridgeincolour.com] for a more detailed explanation, but in summary, each pixel has either an red, a green, or a blue filter over it, and the camera then 'reconstructs' what a given pixel should see in the other two colors based on what its neighbors see. This is rather a big deal with RAW files - the RAW format actually preserves the fact that each pixel really only sees one color, and allows you the photograhper to make some decisions about how the software blends the information.

The point is, a pixel is NOT used in at least two different fields (camera sensors, and LCD displays) as the ultimate unit of color display, so they are going to have a hard time arging this silliness in court. If you really care about the difference between spatial dithering, temporial dithering, etc., you should have known this before you bought a tool to help you work with it.

The majority of all LCD monitors do this.

[guidryp]

This looks like a frivolous lawsuit to me.

Nearly all TN based LCD screens (the majority sold) are 6bit depth displays with dithering. 8bit screens are even more rare in laptops than they are on desktops. I have never seen a laptop that didn't have a TN screen (as opposed to more expensive 8bit IPS/VA screens).

If you go directly to LCD manufacturer sites, they will list the spec as supporting 16.2 million colors. They list the true 8 bit screens as supporting 16.7 million colors.

If they want to go after anyone it should be the manufacturers of the panels. Frankly all the specs are essentially lies. 180 degree viewing angles??!! Geez the gamma start shifting if I move an inch. exactly what can anyone see when 90 degrees off axis from the screen??

By all means sue for some truth in advertising on LCD specs, but go after Samsung/LG et al...