What is xvycc on samsung tv?

Front

The front of the LN46B750 is quite shiny. The screen itself is reflective and the bezel is glossy black with a clear border. Just below the Samsung logo is the power indicator, which glows when the TV is on. To the right are some touch controls that are incredibly hard to see.

Back

The back of the LN46B750 is also glossy. Towards its left side you'll find a cluster of ports.

For information about the ports on the back of the Samsung LN46B750 see our Connectivity section.

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Sides

The right side of the LN46B750 has a handful of ports.

For information about the ports on the back of the Samsung LN46B750 see our Connectivity section.

Stand/Mount

The stand is a classy-looking affair. The base has the 'clear on top of black' aesthetic, and attaches to the TV via a clear column.

Controls

The on-set controls are touch sensitive and located on the front of the TV, in the bottom right corner. They're very hard to see. Whenever we were trying to get at the ports on the right side of the TV, we always accidentally hit one of them.

Remote Control

The remote control borrows the 'glossy black plastic' look from the TV's back. It has large buttons and equally large print. The remote itself is rather large as well.

In The Box*(6.5)*

The Samsung LN46B750 comes with the standard pack-ins: a remote, batteries, a USB manual, and a cleaning cloth.

Getting the HDTV set up isn't too difficult. Due to the size of the TV, however, you'll need two people to hoist it up and onto the stand. Even with a lifting buddy, the TV has a very awkward shape to it, with a thin outcrip around its edge and no real handholds on the back of the set. If you're grabbing it by the front edge, it'll be very, very back heavy.

Aesthetics*(7.0)*

We liked the LN46B750's design. It has a very clean look with sharp lines. When we've reviewed other Samsung TVs, the 'Touch of Color' aesthetic got mixed reviews. With this all-black design, however, the LN46B750 netting positive reviews from just about everyon in the office.

Black Level*(6.72)*

Black level describes how dark a TV's darkest black is. The darker the black, the more detail a TV has the potential to display in dark scenes.

The LN46B750 features dynamic dimming. This means when a certain percentage of the screen is dark, the backlight dims. This allows the TV to display a lower overall black level, but also dims lighter areas. It also means that, during normal viewing, you won't see its deepest dynamic black.

With the dimming, the LN46B750 is capable of an impressive black level: 0.04 cd/m2. Normal viewing conditions offer up a significantly higher black level, 0.18 cd/m2, which is significantly worse.

Peak Brightness*(9.89)*

Peak brightness refers to the luminosity of whites on the TV. The LN46B750 was capable of an impressive 471.85 cd/m2. Peak brightness is important because it not only indicates the range of detail available in bright scenes, but it gives an indicator of how well the TV will handle external light. A dim display will get washed out if the sun or a particularly bright light is shining on the screen.

Contrast*(7.74)*

Contrast refers to the ratio of brighest whites to darkest blacks. Our eyes are very sensitive to contrast. A TV with a poor contrast ratio will make subtle details much harder to see.

The LN46B750's mediocre black level and high peak brightness result in a better than average contrast ratio. We measured the ratio at about 2621:1. This isn't the most impressive ratio we've seen, but it's solid.

As mentioned above, the TV has an auto-dim that can't be shut off, which cuts the backlight during dark scenes. This dynamic backlight is why the contrast ratio listed on the box is so absurdly high compared to our measured ratio. Again, the auto-dim will rarely kick in during normal viewing. Also, when it does activate, it reduces the peak brightness, meaning the listed contrast ratio isn't even possible.

Tunnel Contrast*(8.73)*

Our tunnel contrast test check to make sure the black level is consistent, regardless of how much black is on the screen. Though TVs with automatically dimming backlights score lower on this test than ones that don't, the perrenial underachievers here are plasmas.

Given the dynamic backlight, the LN46B750 still did well on this test. As it turns out, the dimming doesn't kick in until there's a very, very small amount on the screen that's not dark.

White Falloff*(7.68)*

White Falloff is like the above test, only with white instead of black. Again, plasmas have issues here: the more of a screen that's white, the dimmer it will be.

The LN46B750 did all right here, despite its auto-dimming. When a small amount of white is on the screen, the TV will assume you're watching a dark scene and cut the backlight a bit. This allows for the artificially deeper blacks, but saps brightness from the lighter colors.

Uniformity*(9.13)*

The LN46B750 had a very uniform screen. The only issues we saw were minor dimming in the corners when the screen was white. There wa also a slight flashlighting effect in the corners when the screen was dark, but this was mainly due to the viewing angle rather than improper backlighting.

Greyscale Gamma*(7.46)*

Greyscale gamma refers to the curve along which black brightens to white and white darkens to black. We're testing several things on this test. First of all, we're making sure the curve is smooth, since any bumps mean adjacent shades are too similar, thereby leading to a loss of detail. Secondly, we're making sure the curve follows a steady logarythmic progression. Our eyes register a logarythmic progression as a smooth, even transition from one color or shade to another, whereas an arithemetic progression will have too much variation in the greys and nowhere near enough towards the extremes.

The LN46B750's graph actually more closely resembles arithmetic progression, since there's barely any curvature in the line at all. The low end bottoms out far too quickly, and whites don't increment as quickly as they should. This being said, the line itself is fairly smooth, meaning you aren't losing much minute detail.

Resolution Scaling*(7.97)*

Overall, the LN46B750 did well with non-native resolutions. It still had a few issues across the board, but none were significant.

480p*(8.25)*

This resolution is what standard definition TV runs. The LN46B750 had very minor issues with 480p. There was a 3% vertical overscan and a 2% horizontal overscan. There were some minor Moire interface issues, which is common for 480p. As with most TVs trying to display 480p, the LN46B750 had some Moire interference issues. Fine patterns often clumped together to look like a dot matrix. Again, however, this is a common issue across every TV we've reviewed. Overall, the LN46B750 did a good job at 480p.

720p*(7.40)*

This format is used by DVD players and internet HD content. The LN46B750 had its roughest time with 720p, but still managed to maintain better than average picture quality. It had a 1% overscan along both axes, which is negligible. It had more issues with Moire patterns than it did at 720p: some patterns had a shimmery cast to them and often the lines were slightly blurred together.

1080i*(8.25)*

Broadcast HD programming uses 1080i resolution. We didn't see many issues here at all. There was no overscan. Moire patterns were limited to some very minor blurring and a very slight color cast.

Color Temperature*(9.08)*

When we calibrate the TVs, we try to get the color temperature as close to the ideal 6500k as possible. We were able to get the LN46B750 to 6936, which is pretty close. Just being able to display this color temperature at one point in the greyscale isn't good enough, however, so we test the entire spectrum to check for variance.

On the graph below, anything outisde of the faintly tinted box indicates a perceptible shift. As you can see, it barely exits this box at all. The LN46B750 has a rock solid color temperature.

RGB Curves*(8.09)*

The LN46B750 did well on our color representation tests. There were some minor issues here and there, but the main one we saw was the low-end dropping out too soon.

Red has some slight issues with peaking, but they occur so close to maximum intensity that they shouldn't be too much of a problem. The low-end bottoms out far too early, however.

Again, like red, green has very poor representation towards the black end of the spectrum. Otherwise, it was flawless.

Blue takes the worst of green and red and combines them with a wonky curve. It has a hard peak close to max intensity, which is minor, and drops to black before it should.

Color Gamut*(3.72)*

The colors a TV displays are supposed to adhere to rec. 709, which is an industry-wide standard. This is to ensure all TVs are displaying roughly the same spectrum.

The LN46B750 boldly flies in the face of this standard by trending towards an oversaturated blue that's slighly more towards red than it should be. Greens are also a bit oversaturated, but not significantly. While it's not the worst gamut we've seen, it is much worse than the average TV.

Below is a chart of our measurements, which are sure to delight cinephiles and confuse everyone else.

Motion Smoothness*(8.38)*

The key to motion smoothness are the 240Hz options. If you boost the blur reduction option (choose the custom setting and you can fiddle around with the slider), you should have no real problems with blurring at the native resolution. Blurring was slightly worse in 1080i mode, but still much better than a majority of TVs we've reviewed.

Motion Artifacting*(6.63)*

The LN46B750 had some odd artifacting issues. There was some minor shuddering as fine patterns panned around the screen, to such an extent that they began to blur together. Movement was a bit blocky. Some patterns showed a very slight shimmering pattern or a color cast.

While none of these issues were significant on their own, their numbers are what drove down the LN46B750's score. Even so, the TV didn't do that poorly on these tests.

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps*(9.00)*

If you're looking to watch 3:2 content, you'll want to change the Film Mode. We found the Auto 1 setting removed a lot of the artifacting we were seeing. With this setting on, we saw only minimal artifacting on our test pattern. Some fine patterns flashed slightly, but it seemed to happen at random intervals. On our test footage of a sports stadium, we didn't notice any of the usual crawling or shuddering effects.

The TV also supports 24p mode.

Viewing Angle*(3.49)*

The LN46B750 had a poor viewing angle. You can get about 26º away from center before the contrast drops below 50%. This means you have a total viewing angle of 52º. Although this is a shallow viewing angle, it's actually decent for an LCD. Typically LCD TVs have very narrow viewing angles compared to plasmas.

Reflectance*(3.50)*

The Samsung LN46B750 had some issues with reflectance. When the screen is dark, external light will create vertical and horizontal streaks as well as minor diagonal streaks. Fortunately, this 8-point star effect is diminished significantly when a brighter image is on the screen. Even on an all white screen, however, the screen is highly reflective. We perform these tests with an array of LEDs, and we were able to clearly see each individual LED in the reflection.

The good news is the streaks aren't particularly bothersome if the light is shining in at an angle. You might catch a reflection on the bezel, but non-direct light won't be a gigantic issue. Just make sure there's no window near the LN46B750 and you'll be fine.

Video Processing*(2.50)*

The LN46B750 has a handful of video processing options. For the most part they worked as advertised, although we keep failing to see any discernable differences in the Edge Enhancement feature, regardless of the TV's manufacturer.

Calibration

[

](http://www.displaymate.com/)To make sure we're testing our HDTVs at their peak performance levels, we calibrate them before running any tests. Our setup involves hardware and software. The hardware is a CS-200 ChromaMeter, which takes all the measurements. The software is a customized version of the DisplayMate calibration software.

Since your HDTV won't come fully calibrated otu of the box, we've provided the chart below. Listed are the settings we used for our testing. You can either use these settings, or pay someone to come in and calibrate it for you. While our settings are close to perfect, they might not be ideal for your viewing environment.

Video Modes

There are a handful of video modes on the LN46B750. We liked that the list keeps it to the basics, rather than including a separate mode for each sport and genre of movie. Cluttered lists are cumbersome to navigate and it's often confusing which mode is best suited for your content.

Ergonomics & Durability*(5.85)*

The LN46B750's remote is the same one the Samsung UN46B6000 uses. It has a glossy finish and a curved back. The buttons have good travel, but could use more tactile feedback. The remote is well balanced, with its weight distributed toward the back, where the majority of controls are located. The remote also has a backlight feature, which is always appreciated.

As we mentioned in the UN46B6000 review, the remote does have one really weird design choice: towards the bottom, there's a little flap that curves out and around like a back scratcher. We have no idea how this is functional or why Samsung chose the design. We've tried in vain to hold the remote by this tail fin and reach the buttons. The only purpose we've found for this curvature is help claw over a bag of chips that's six to eight inches out of your reach.

Button Layout & Use*(6.10)*

The LN46B750 has a good button layout overall. Holding the remote in the neutral position, the d-pad, menu button, volume toggle, and channel toggle are all within easy reach. Buttons are very clearly labeled and, as mentioned earlier, can be backlit with the press of a button.

The remote seems to activate the TV even when it's not pointing directly at it. We did notice that if anything is in front of the Samsung logo, however, the TV has a very hard time registering button presses.

Programming & Flexibility*(1.0)*

While it can't be programmed to work universally, the LN46B750's remote can control devices connected to the TV via HDMI. This is not only a proprietary system, but it requires an HDMI connection. While some functionality is better than no functionality at all, we don't reward such features with many points.

Input Ports*(7.50)*

The LN46B750 has a good selection of input ports. On its side, it has an easily accessible HDMI port, a set of analog audio inputs, and a composite video cable.

On the back you'll find three additional HDMI ports, a VGA input and corresponding 3.5mm audio in, a digital audio out port, three sets of analog audio inputs, one analog audio out, two component video inputs (one of which also serves as a composite video input), and the RF input.

Output Ports*(2.0)*

The LN46B750 has two sets of output ports: an analog audio out and an optical audio out.

Other Connections*(3.0)*

In addition to the ports mentioned above, the LN46B750 has a LAN port and an EX-LINK port. The LAN will allow you to hook an ethernet cable up to the TV. An internet connection will allow you to access internet content via widgets or play back media on a networked computer. Although the content available pales in comparison to some higher-end Sony TVs, like the KDL-46Z5100, it's still good functionality to have.

The EX-LINK port helps the LN46B750 network other EX-LINK devices for easy media playback.

Media*(2.0)*

Like other Samsung HDTVs, the LN46B750 has two USB ports on its left side. You connect USB flash drives to view their media content. One of the USB ports also supports USB hard drives.

Placement*(8.0)*

The LN46B750 has good port placement with a few minor issues. The back-facing ports are laid out well, with clear labeling. The dual-purpose component/composite video input is slightly unintuitive, however, and could've done with some more obvious labelling. The side-facing ports are easy enough to reach, but we wish they weren't indented as far as they are.

The TV swivels on its stand, which is good. Once swiveled, you should be able to easily reach the ports on the back. Given the TV's size, howver, it'll need to be set away from the wall in order to take advantage of the full swivel radius.

Audio Quality*(5.0)*

We thought the LN46B750's audio quality was about average. We thought the speakers sounded a bit muffled and were very lacking in the low end. If you're watching an action movie, turn on the surround sound mode. It doesn't actually create a surround sound experience, but the audio will sound much more vibrant. If you care about audio, you'll probably want to buy auxiliary speakers.

The audio menu contains five different modes: standard, music, movie, clear voice and custom. Custom mode opens up a small equalizer for toggling individual levels.

Menu Interface*(7.0)*

The LN46B750's menu system is the typical Samsung offering. Hitting the menu button will open up a tabbed interface. Tabs are listed in a column to the left, and their contents open in a window to the right. Highlighting an item will list its description at the bottom of the screen. The menu is also very consistent, using the same style for their sliders and multiple choice settings.

You scroll around the menu with the remote's d-pad. While the interface is intuitive, it's very laggy. We definitely weren't fans of inputting five arrow presses then waiting for the menu to catch up. Fortunately, the top of the menu wraps around to the bottom, so you typically won't need to navigate far.

The picture menu is bifurcated into a Picture Options menu and a Picture Settings menu. While we like the decision to sequester advanced menu items away from the eyes of easily-confused new users, we were never sure which options were hid where.

Despite the few complaints we had, however, the Samsung LN46B750's menu remains very easy to use.

Manual*(1.0)*

The Samsung LN46B750's manual comes on a USB drive. This seems like a good idea. The information on the drive, however, can only be accessed by plugging it into the TV. This seems to be very counter-intuitive, since most people tend to break out the manual when something is wrong with the TV. Paper manuals are a boon in such a situation, because they don't rely on a working television to help.

This odd, somewhat circular logic is offset by the presence of the manual online (available here in English, French, and Spanish). We'd recommend downloading the PDF and using that instead of the thumb drive.

Formats*(10.5)*

The Samsung LN46B750 runs full 1080p, which means it can play back the highest quality HD content currently available. At the moment, this can only be found on Blu-ray discs. The TV can also handle 1080i, 720p, and 480p content. The TV supports 24 frames per second playback and 3:2 pulldown. The LN46B750 also has xvYCC mode, which means it supports an expanded color gamut. While xvYCC is nice to have for future-proofing your set, supported content isn't widely available yet.

Photo Playback*(6.0)*

The LN46B750's photo viewer can either read media off a connected USB device or via a network-connected device. The photo viewer consists of a strip of thumbnails. You can zoom in on the photo or rotate it. There's a basic slideshow feature, which allows for background music (via USB or network streaming). Like the TV's other menus, the photo viewer is a bit laggy and slow to respond. Given this, it's functional and looks good when it isn't jerkily trying to keep up with your inputs.

Music & Video Playback*(3.0)*

Like photo playback, music and video playback is supported via network streaming or a connected USB device. For the most part, the interface is similar to the photo playback feature. You browse thumbnails in a strip and there are several options for sorting.

The video playback feature supports a good amount of file types, including MP4, AVI, 3GPP, MKV, and ASF. It can also play back ripped DVDs saved as PS or TS files. The music playback feature only supports MP3 files, unfortunately. While the video support list is impressive, we were surprised to see no WMV or MOV video files, especially given the less common types that are supported.

Streaming Playback*(3.0)*

The Samsung LN46B750 has a LAN connection, which will allow the TV to connect to your home network. As of right now, the content you can access via this feature is a bit underdeveloped. While there are a nice variety of widgets available, there aren't a lot of media options. You can browse Yahoo's video page and Flickr. Given other manufacturers have struck deals with YouTube, Hulu, or Netflix, the LN46B750's offerings seem very sparse.

Other Media*(0.0)*

The Samsung LN46B750 doesn't have a built-in DVR, Blu-ray player, or any other additional media sources.

Power Consumption*(8.82)*

Although we don't often think about it, our TVs have a yearly cost. If the TV draws a lot of power, it could add up by the end of the year. To figure out costs, we use the national average of 5 hours of use per day. If there's a standby mode that draws power, we assume the remaining 19 hours are spent in this mode.

The main factor mitigating a TV's yearly cost is its backlight level. To perform our power consumption test, we hook a TV up to a wattage meter, then take measurements at various backlight settings. We typically take a series of measurements at the minimum and maximum setting, then one final one when the TV is outputting 200 cd/m2.

At maximum backlight, the LN46B750 will cost $44.91/year, or about $3.75/month. This is cheaper than the average TV we've reviewed. You can drop this cost nearly in half by dropping the TV down to 200 cd/m2.

In the chart below, we've stacked the LN46B750 up against several competing HDTVs. The LN46B750 is actually the cheapest one to run at 200 cd/m2, if only by a small amount per year.

Value Comparison Summary

Both of these TVs are similar sizes and received similar scores. The Samsung has a poorer viewing angle and black level, but has less blurring issues. The Sony makes far better use of its internet connectivity. In general, the Sony managed to perform slightly better on our performance tests. Since the two TVs are the same size and roughly the same price point, this match-up isn't really about budget. The Samsung is better than average and the Sony is slightly better than the Samsung, albeit at a $200 markup.

Blacks & Whites

The Sony had a deeper black level and a dimmer peak brightness. The black level was deep enough to render the difference in brightness moot, however, and ended up with a better contrast ratio.

Color Accuracy

Both TVs had very similar color temperature performances. The Samsung had slightly better color representation, but it's gamut was way off.

Motion

The Samsung had better judder/blur reduction controls, and was able to obtain a smoother, less artifacted picture.

Viewing Effects

The Samsung had a much more shallow viewing angle than the Sony.

Connectivity

There aren't any huge connectivity differences between the two TVs.

Other Comparisons

The only other difference between these two TVs is the depth of the online content currently available. The Sony has an incredible array of content available.

Value Comparison Summary

These TVs are both very similar. They have similar capabilities with similar video quality. With the Vizio, you're getting a slightly larger TV with arguably worse video quality and far fewer internet-based features at a lower price.

Blacks & Whites

The LN56B750 had a much deeper black level than the SV471XVT and about the same max brightness. The LN56B750's contrast ratio was twice that of the SV471XVT.

Color Accuracy

Both color temperature and color representation results were similar. The SV471XVT had a much mroe accurate color gamut.

Motion

While both TVs had similarly good motion smoothness, the Vizio had significantly less artifacting.

Viewing Effects

Neither TV had a great viewing angle. They were actually very similar; the lines in the graph below nearly overlap.

Connectivity

The main difference between the two TVs is the LAN port. The Vizio's lack of a LAN means it doesn't have any online capabilities.

Other Comparisons

As mentioned above, the main difference between the two TVs is the online functionality. The Samsung has access to multiple widgets and online content. The Vizio does not.

Value Comparison Summary

The LN46B750 and LN40B650 are very similar TVs. The 750 has a 240Hz mode and an additional six inches to its screen. The 650, however, has very similar picture quality and costs almost half what the 750 does.

Blacks & Whites

The LN40B650 had a deeper black level than the LN46B750, leading to a better overall contrast ratio.

Color Accuracy

Both TVs performed similarly on our color accuracy tests.

Motion

The LN46B750's blur-reduction mode helped it attain a smoother overall picture than the LN40B650. The LN46B750 also had slightly fewer artifacting issues.

Viewing Effects

While neither TV had an impressive viewing angle, the LN46B750's was better than the LN40B650s.

Connectivity

Both TVs have a similar array of ports.

Other Comparisons

The main difference between these two TVs is their price. They have similar feature sets and their performance scores are roughly in the same ballpark. The LN46B750 is significantly more expensive than the LN40B650, however, even once you factor in the size difference.

Samsung LNxxB750 Series

If you scoured all of the details on the recent HDMI 1.3 release (and who didn't?), you may have noticed the inclusion of xvYCC and Deep Color. These are two different things that together will theoretically make displays' color more realistic. The short version is this: Deep Color increases the available bit depth for each color component, while xvYCC expands the overall color gamut. Sure they do, but why?

Isn't Color Color? Essentially, all TVs use the primary colors of red, green, and blue to create all of the colors in a video signal. "Now wait a second," you may say (or not, but let's assume you do). "I learned in second grade from Ms. (not Mrs.) Driscoll that the primary colors are yellow, red, and blue." For finger paints and any ink or dye, that is true. This is called subtractive color. (See Figure 1.) The ink, like what you see printed on this page, absorbs all the whitish light from your bathroom fluorescents and reflects back only the color you see (more or less). With additive color (Figure 2), a specific wavelength or wavelengths are being created. The easiest way to think about this is that, with additive color, light is being created directly; with subtractive color, light is reflected. In video, we deal with additive color, hence the RGB.

Thanks to the way the eye works, red, green, and blue are the colors that TVs add together to create other colors. So, red and blue mix together for magenta, red and green for yellow, blue and green for cyan. By varying the amount and intensity of each color, a display can create different shades. The more steps of gray (and, by extension, steps of each color) a TV can create, the more colors it has available on its palette to create a lifelike image. This palette is not infinite, as the color space in the video signal constrains it somewhat.

Figure 1: Subtractive Color Mixing

Figure 2: Additive Color Mixing

Color Space? What is red? What looks red to me may look reddish-orange or purplish-red to you. Color is in your head. So, there needs to be a standard. Otherwise, every TV show would look different, and, in reality, our very TV system wouldn't work.

1990 saw the approval of Rec.709 (a.k.a. Recommendation ITU-R BT.709), which defined the exact red, green, and blue points for the upcoming HDTV standard. These points are "x" and "y" coordinates as found on a CIE (Commission Internationale de l'clairage or International Commission on Illumination) chromaticity diagram like the one in Figure 3. Without diverging too much from the topic at hand, the chromaticity diagram is a visual and numerical representation of color. Use it, and you'll never have to say, "Well, this one is kind of bluish-greenish with a little reddy-purple." With this specification in place, content creators for TV and movies can know that their cameras will output a certain color, they can edit and color-correct to specific colors, and then hopefully they can see it on a monitor as they saw it in the camera (or not, depending on what they were hoping for). Without this specification, each TV show, and even different cameras or editing equipment, would all assume a different specific red, green, and blue so that what you got at home could look all out of whack. In reality, it doesn't work perfectly, but this is the idea. If every step in the chain follows the standard correctly, the result in your home is colors that look the way they were supposed to, either compared with the real world (the field in football, for example) or somewhat off in a way that the director intended (like the greenish tint on CSI or the yellow-orange of CSI: Miami).

So, a TV with perfect color points (like the Samsung HL-S5679W I reviewed last month) can accurately reproduce exactly what the provider intended and every color within the triangle of its red, green, and blue color points.

But What if There's a Color Outside of the Triangle? Well, that would be the issue here. There are plenty of colors that lay outside of the Rec.709 triangle that our eye can see but that TVs can't reproduce. One industry pro commented to me that he had never seen an eggplant look right, for example. TV manufacturers, or, more precisely, their marketing departments, would have you believe that they have it all solved. Their TVs sport an "Ultrawide Color Gamut" or some similar line. If you only expand the color gamut on one end, the colors will look cartoonish. This is because, when the video signal tells the TV to create red, it creates its red, which may be some sort of über red and not at all realistic. This may make for wow factor on the show floor, but it doesn't make the image look at all realistic. Color is an important factor in choosing a display. (See the Face Off on page 62 for more.)

So, What's This xvYCC and Deep Color? xvYCC (also known as IEC 61966-2-4) expands the color-gamut triangle but does so as a standard across the board. This gives access to deeper colors—a redder red, if you will—for content providers and all the way down to you at home. Interestingly, xvYCC doesn't do this by changing the Rec.709 primaries. Instead, it uses those primaries as reference points for a whole lot of other math. Simply, it allows for more room around the current RGB triangle.

Deep Color increases the number of bits available for transmission for each channel. This means that there are more shades available for a TV to mix together. So, for example, a TV that accepts the new standard in 12-bit form can mix together any one of 4,096 shades (levels of brightness) of each primary color for 68.7 billion possible colors (4,096 red x 4,096 green x 4,096 blue = 68,719,476,736 colors). HDMI 1.2 could only transfer 8 bits per channel. So, there were only 256 shades of each color to choose from and fewer colors overall (256 x 256 x 256 = 16.7 million). These different shades help decrease artifacts (like color banding) and increase color fidelity. The visible picture-quality increase from 8 bits per channel to 10 or even 16 (in its highest 1.3 form) has been and is still being debated, but having the ability to transmit xvYCC and Deep Color sure can't hurt. Together, they mean that there will be more and better colors for future displays.

Figure 3: A 1931 CIE Chromaticity Diagram

But There's a Catch In order to make for a wider color gamut and a higher bit depth for even more realistic-looking displays (capable of creating a wider range of colors), every step in the chain needs to do that exact thing, as well. If the camera can only do Rec.709, it won't matter that your TV can do more than that, because that extra color isn't in the source (which is, uh, the situation we have now). If the camera can do xvYCC but the medium (say, HDTV broadcasts) can't, again, it won't matter that your TV can do it. In other words, for you to see the new colors, material will have to be shot, transferred, encoded, and mastered in xvYCC and Deep Color. Sure, you could fake the wider color gamut at the mastering stage, but this won't be true extra color.

Most importantly, the source itself (say, some future HD DVD or Blu-ray player) will have to be able to output the extra color (via HDMI 1.3 or greater) to get to your TV, which also has to be xvYCC and Deep Color capable. If any step doesn't have these, then you won't get the benefit.

With the fact that some TVs don't have enough bits to do the current standard correctly, while some have widely inaccurate color points, even this end of the chain isn't a given. It's a much bigger issue than just having the capability on the cable, isn't it?

A Step (All Is Not Lost) The PlayStation 3 and PC create their own universe, so to speak, so they can do Deep Color now (if so enabled). Apparently, some camcorders will be coming to the market soon that can do xvYCC. So steps are being made to get content. As you can imagine, film itself isn't bound by these standards. Only the mastering is. So, creating the content isn't a huge obstacle. The issue is getting that content to the consumer.

xvYCC or extended-gamut YCbCr is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space.[1][2][3] xvYCC was proposed by Sony,[4] specified by the IEC in October 2005 and published in January 2006 as IEC 61966-2-4. xvYCC extends the ITU-R BT.709 tone curve by defining over-ranged values. xvYCC-encoded video retains the same color primaries and white point as BT.709, and uses either a BT.601 or BT.709 RGB-to-YCC conversion matrix and encoding.[4] This allows it to travel through existing digital limited range YCC data paths, and any colors within the normal gamut will be compatible.[4] It works by allowing negative RGB inputs and expanding the output chroma. These are used to encode more saturated colors by using a greater part of the RGB values that can be encoded in the YCbCr signal compared with those used in Broadcast Safe Level.[4] The extra-gamut colors can then be displayed by a device whose underlying technology is not limited by the standard primaries.[4]

In a paper published by Society for Information Display in 2006, the authors mapped the 769 colors in the Munsell Color Cascade (so called Michael Pointer's gamut) to the BT.709 space and to the xvYCC space. About 55% of the Munsell colors could be mapped to the sRGB gamut, but 100% of those colors map to within the xvYCC gamut.[5] Deeper hues can be created – for example a deeper cyan by giving the opposing primary (red) a negative coefficient. The quantization range of the xvYCC601 and xvYCC709 colorimetries is always Limited Range.[6]

Camera and display technology is evolving with more distinct primaries, spaced farther apart per the CIE chromaticity diagram. Displays with more separated primaries permit a larger gamut of displayable colors, however, color data needs to be available to make use of the larger gamut color space. xvYCC is an extended gamut color space that is backwards compatible with the existing BT.709 YCbCr broadcast signal by making use of otherwise unused data portions of the signal.

The BT.709 YCbCr signal has unused code space, a limitation imposed for broadcasting purposes. In particular only 16-240 is used for the color Cb/Cr channels out of the 0-255 digital values available for 8 bit data encoding. xvYCC makes use of this portion of the signal to store extended gamut color data by using code values 1-15 and 241-254 in the Cb/Cr channels for gamut-extension. [7]

xvYCC expands the chroma values to 1-254 (i.e. a raw value of -0.567–0.567) while keeping the luma (Y) value range at 16-235 (though Superwhite may be supported), the same as Rec. 709. First the OETF (TransferCharacteristics 11 per H.273[8] as originally specified by the first amendment to H.264) is expanded to allow negative R'G'B' inputs such that:[5]

V = { − 1.099 ( − L ) 0.45 + 0.099 L ≤ − 0.018 4.500 L − 0.018 < L < 0.018 1.099 L 0.45 − 0.099 L ≥ 0.018 {\displaystyle V={\begin{cases}-1.099(-L)^{0.45}+0.099&L\leq -0.018\\4.500L&-0.018

Here 1.099 number has the value 1 + 5.5 * β = 1.099296826809442... and β has the value 0.018053968510807..., while 0.099 is 1.099 - 1.[8]

The YCC encoding matrix is unchanged, and can follow either Rec. 709 or Rec. 601 (MatrixCoefficients 1 and 5).[5]

The possible range for non-linear R’G’B’601 is between -1.0732 and 2.0835 and for R’G’B’709 is between -1.1206 and 2.1305.[9] That is achieved when YCC values are "1, 1, any" and "254, 254, any" in B' component.

xvYCC709 covers 37.19% of CIE 1976 u'v', while BT.709 only 33.24%.[10]

The last step encodes the values to a binary number (quantization). It is basically unchanged, except that a bit-depth n of more than 8 bits can be selected:[5]

Y x v   n = ⌊ 2 n − 8 ( 219 × Y + 16 ) ⌉ C b x v   n = ⌊ 2 n − 8 ( 224 × C b + 128 ) ⌉ C r x v   n = ⌊ 2 n − 8 ( 224 × C r + 128 ) ⌉ {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}Y_{{\rm {xv}}\ n}&=\left\lfloor 2^{n-8}(219\times Y+16)\right\rceil \\Cb_{{\rm {xv}}\ n}&=\left\lfloor 2^{n-8}(224\times Cb+128)\right\rceil \\Cr_{{\rm {xv}}\ n}&=\left\lfloor 2^{n-8}(224\times Cr+128)\right\rceil \\\end{aligned}}}

With negative primary amounts allowed, a cyan that lies outside the basic gamut of the primaries can be encoded as "green plus blue minus red".[4] Since the 16-255 Y range is used (255 value is reserved in HDMI standard for synchronization but may be in files) and since the values of Cb and Cr are only little restricted, a lot of high saturated colors outside the 0–255 RGB space can be encoded. For example, if YCbCr is 255, 128, 128, in the case of a full level YCbCr encoding (0–255), then the corresponding R'G'B' is 255, 255, 255 which is the maximum encodable luminance value in this color space. But if Y=255 and Cr and/or Cb are not 128, this codes for the maximum luminance but with an added color: one primary must necessarily be above 255 and cannot be converted to R'G'B'. Adapted software and hardware must be used during production to not clip the video data levels that are above the sRGB space. This is almost never the case for software working with an RGB core.

The more complex example is YCbCr BT.709 values 139, 151, 24 (that is RGB -21, 182, 181). That is out-of-gamut for BT.709, but is not for sYCC and xvYCC709, and to convert those values to display gamut you would convert to XYZ (0.27018, 0.40327, 0.54109) and then to display gamut.[11]

The XYZ matrix is as specified in Nvidia docs.[12]

A mechanism for signaling xvYCC support and transmitting the gamut boundary definition for xvYCC has been defined in the HDMI 1.3 Specification. No new mechanism is required for transmitting the xvYCC data itself, as it is compatible with HDMI's existing YCbCr formats, but the display needs to signal its readiness to accept the extra-gamut xvYCC values (in Colorimetry block of EDID, flags xvYCC709 and xvYCC601), and the source needs to signal the actual gamut in use in AVI InfoFrame and use gamut metadata packets to help the display to intelligently adapt extreme colors to its own gamut limitations.

This should not be confused with HDMI 1.3's other new color feature, deep color. This is a separate feature that increases the precision of brightness and color information, and is independent of xvYCC.

xvYCC is not supported by DVD-Video but is supported by the high-definition recording format AVCHD and PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray. It is also supported by some cameras, like Sony HDR-CX405, that does actually tag the video as xvYCC with BT.709 inside Sony's XAVC.[13]

On January 7, 2013, Sony announced that it would release "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray Disc titles which are sourced at 4K and encoded at 1080p.[14] "Mastered in 4K" 1080p Blu-ray Disc titles can be played on existing Blu-ray Disc players and will support a larger color space using xvYCC.[14][15][16]

On May 30, 2013, Eye IO announced that their encoding technology was licensed by Sony Pictures Entertainment to deliver 4K Ultra HD video with their "Sony 4K Video Unlimited Service".[17][18] Eye IO encodes their video assets at 3840 x 2160 and includes support for the xvYCC color space.[17][18]

The following graphics hardware support xvYCC color space when connected to a display device supporting xvYCC:

xvYCC or extended-gamut YCbCr is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space.