Sub-pixels and AG coating

[Neo]

Mapping subpixels has an additional wrinkle that nowhere in any standard has sample geometry been defined. And the idea that rgb signal "needs" rgb hardware isn't true. The rgb simply encodes a desired outcome that can be realized with any combination of techniques including different primaries (multi-primary color filters and leds), geometries or even time sequence displays like the old CBS system.

Area 51 indeed.

Dolby [ http://blog.dolby.com/ ] has fired the first shot of the "better pixels" wars with their announcement of a HDR display reference design. Rez, bit depth, gamut, luminance, black levels and high frame rates. Dolby seems to be focusing on the dynamic range, and mention frame rate in passing, but any attempt at such bright displays wouldn't work without faster picture refresh as the flicker, caused by the frame content itself not even a strobe backlight, would be horrible. Their system seems to be a HDR 4D LED imaging full array system that would support high quality strobing. Which is good news for any one that wants a fast display because the more attention to quality and investment means the flood gates are about to open for 100 hz+ display tech. Convergence and competition in technology are awesome.

[flood]

ClearType (which would be redundant on Pentile screens anyways), 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, Bayer and ZigZag color filters, etc.

ugh how many times do I have to explain this.

chroma subsampling (4:2:2, 4:2:0, 4:1:1), bayer, other color filters: these are removing color information at pixels. that's just like what pentile does, so yes pentile is related to these.

cleartype/subpixel antialiasing uses the geometry of the subpixels to acheive higher spatial resolution. It is not redundant on pentile screens. This isn't throwing away color information anywhere but it's adding more information to each pixel!

Please go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering carefully

[Chief Blur Buster]

ClearType (which would be redundant on Pentile screens anyways), 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, Bayer and ZigZag color filters, etc.

[snip]
chroma subsampling (4:2:2, 4:2:0, 4:1:1), bayer, other color filters: these are removing color information at pixels. that's just like what pentile does, so yes pentile is related to these.

flood is certainly correct on this item.
Pentile (especially lower DPI) would definitely benefit from a modified ClearType.

Any subpixel technology that puts colors at any spatially different positions, can benefit from a modified ClearType that takes into account of the spatial separation of the color components.

ClearType is essentially mapping proper colors, not too conceptually different from overlaying a million-pane stained glass window (tiny red/green/blue panes) on top of a book or newspaper, and then doing a color-by-numbers based on what you see through the stained glass window. Pentile is just a different stained glass window layout than traditional striped RGB. Metaphorically, that's the easiest way to understand how ClearType works. For more information about ClearType, see Micrsoft ClearType Page.


...Seeing ClearType under a magnifying glass -- it's kind of like seeing text through a stained glass window

Only displays that displays all channels in every pixel (e.g. Foeven camera sensors, DLP and 3-LCD projectors) can't benefit from the subpixel behavior of ClearType. They only benefit from the traditional anti-aliasing.

[flood]

back to original questions:

Can the actual structure/shape of sub-pixels also contribute to a sharp crystal clear image?? Take a look at this very interesting article I found:

Is this even worth stressing over realistically?

A higher fill factor looks less aliased.
i.e.
..rrr.ggg.bbb..
looks smoother than
...R...G...B...

As for sharpness, that's mostly entirely dependent on the screen's dpi. If there is an AG coating, a smaller fill factor would look sharper though. If there isn't any coating, there would be no actual difference in sharpness, though a smaller fill factor could look sharper because it would have more fake details above the Nyquist limit.

but these are things that become unimportant as dpi increases. I would never worry about such things as a buyer, unless I'm buying a projector.

[Neo]

History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#History

Originally invented by IBM in 1988,[1] subpixel rendering was first brought to public attention by Microsoft in Windows XP as ClearType, but it was not activated by default until Windows Vista. Mac OS X uses subpixel rendering as well. In stealth mode from 1992 to 1999, Candice H. Brown Elliott was researching subpixel rendering and developing novel layouts, the PenTile matrix family, that worked together with the subpixel rendering algorithms to increase the resolution of colour flat panel displays.[2] In 2000, she co-founded Clairvoyante, Inc. to commercialize these layouts and subpixel rendering algorithms. In 2008, Samsung purchased Clairvoyante and simultaneously funded a new company, Nouvoyance, Inc., retaining much of the technical staff, with Ms. Brown Elliott as CEO.[3]

PenTile matrix family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenTile_matrix_family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PenTile matrix is a family of patented subpixel matrix schemes used in electronic device displays. PenTile is a trademark of Samsung.
These subpixel layouts are specifically designed to operate with proprietary algorithms for subpixel rendering embedded in the display driver, allowing plug and play compatibility with conventional RGB (Red-Green-Blue) stripe panels.

How are images rendered on a PenTile RGBW™ display? http://www.nouvoyance.com/technology.html

The same image data drives both RGB stripe and PenTile RGBW™ displays. However, conventional RGB stripe displays render (draw) images by assigning a color and luminance (brightness) to an entire RGB-triplet as a whole pixel, adjusting its three RGB subpixels to set a single addressable point.
Images on a PenTile RGBW™ panel are subpixel rendered, meaning they are drawn at the subpixel level (the individual points of light), rather than to the whole pixels of an RGB stripe display. In fact "pixels" in the traditional sense have been eliminated in PenTile RGBW™ displays; individual subpixels are not restricted to use in one pixel group, but instead participate in multiple "logical" pixels in their surrounding vicinity.
Subpixel rendering dramatically increases addressability and enables the sophisticated image processing used in PenTile RGBW™ displays.

Flame Warz! j/k

[Chief Blur Buster]

Flame Warz! j/k

LOL.

That said -- none of what was posted, is mutually exclusive with the fundamentals of mapping colors spatially into subpixels -- whether it be RGB, RGBW, Sharp Quattro, 6-color-subpixel (RGBYMK), in whatever layout (striped, shadowmask, pentile, etc).

Let's mix things up. You see, pentile can be also technically/theoretically be treated as a traditional 3-color-component-per-pixel display (different from Nouvoyance's description). Likewise, RGB striped can be theoretically treated as a subpixel mapped display (example sub-pixel aware image resizing) -- Treating an RGB display just exactly like Nouvoyance's description. There is really no technobabble distinction between Pentile and RGB -- fundamentally, they're just "different stained glass layouts" under microscope.

DPI is more important, and I think that's where we have nearly unamious agreement.

[Vega]

I have one of those Dell 24" 4K screens inbound. It will be interesting to see how much the AR film messes up the image quality of such small pixels.

[flood]

[quote="Neo"][/quote]
All that means is that pentile displays are subpixel-aware. In that regard it is similar to this feature of cleartype http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... ositioning .

With cleartype, white text on black background could look like this near an edge:
___rgbrgb
____gbrgb
_____brgb
______rgb

If you try to display white text on a black background without special processing (i.e. without subpixel rendering in the text rendering software) on a pentile display, you will never have an edge that looks like that.