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Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

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Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#71

Post by dilap »

jeroenhd wrote: post #53
alin23 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that long time might not be higher than an hour or two given how much heat the LEDs need to dissipate. A lot of non-technical users might get used to that brightness and then start complaining about their display dimming by itself randomly.

Apple claims on its website to support 1,000 nits sustained brightness and 1,600 nits peak brightness. If in reality they can only sustain 500 nits brightness, that's probably a disappointment to people who spent extra on the newer, fancier display in the hopes of working on the laptop outside. If they can't sustain their sustained brightness, that might even be false advertising.

Yeah, I'm people; got a 14" MBP expecting to be able to ramp up the brightness, and was surprised to find it caps out at exactly the same brightness as my previous 16" Intel. I think their marketing claims here are extremely deceptive. Apple should be above engaging in such shenanigans!

(Nevertheless, still super happy w/ the computer as a whole; it's an amazing machine.)

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#72

Post by fulafel »

alin23 wrote: post #70
fulafel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have a monitor that has a brightness of 1600 nits, and whites of some content ("sdr") shows up much dimmer, the pixels the monitor is asked to display by the systmes are dimmed relative to max brightness - no?

Yes, that’s another way of putting it. But people usually look at this, relative to previous displays, not relative to peak brightness (since the peak brightness is not achievable for prolonged periods of time because of overheating)

Overheating sounds interesting! So what happens if you display a max brightness hdr image on the screen for a long time, does the monitor shut off?

Edit: apparently at least on some laptops your screen may automatically adjust brightness downwards if you are in a hot climate and the cooling system fails to keep up: https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/04/macbook-pro-limited-brightnes...

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#73

Post by alin23 »

fulafel wrote: post #72
alin23 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s another way of putting it. But people usually look at this, relative to previous displays, not relative to peak brightness (since the peak brightness is not achievable for prolonged periods of time because of overheating)

Overheating sounds interesting! So what happens if you display a max brightness hdr image on the screen for a long time, does the monitor shut off? Edit: apparently at least on some laptops your screen may automatically adjust brightness downwards if you are in a hot climate and the cooling system fails to keep up: https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/04/macbook-pro-limited-brightnes...

Yes, the system monitors the display temperature and caps the brightness accordingly. Here are some interesting functions I found related to this inside the system frameworks:

    SkyLight.framework:
        SLSDisplayIsThermallyLimited
    
    CoreBrightness.framework
        -[CBDisplayModuleSKL hasThermalMitigation]
        -[CBThermalBrightnessCap getCurrentCap]
        -[CBThermalBrightnessCap setJetMode:]

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#74

Post by gardaani »

watermelon0 wrote: post #36
ddlutz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anybody like me not 'getting it', the for me at least on my m1 pro macbook pro needed to use this in Safari, chrome unfortunately wasn't showing the white text.

Same with Edge/Brave, however they all support HDR videos on Youtube, so I'm not sure what's the reason. Additionally, the site claims it works (worked?) on 2020 MBA M1.

I have 2020 MBA M1 and it works on its internal screen if I use Safari. External SDR monitor doesn't show it. Chrome/Firefox don't show it.

There seems to be a strange bug in Safari. If I change the tab from/to that page, the mouse cursor jumps to the bottom left corner of the screen.

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#75

Post by brentcetinich »

jiggawatts wrote: post #16
amitp wrote: post #3

I was amazed by how bright this page could get, on both Macbook and iPhone — https://kidi.ng/wanna-see-a-whiter-white/ — and I want to figure out how to use this superwhite on my interactive tutorials. But as far as I can see, canvas, svg, and webgl can't access it.

Even on 100% brightness, an iPhone Pro 13 shows the "White" text significantly brighter than the background white. Some other interesting observations: - If I zoom in, the over-100%-bright text fades until it blends in with the background. This is expected (OLEDs have higher peak brightness for small areas), but what isn't expected is that it seems to do it in discontinuous steps. - If I go outside into full sunlight…

I think if you zoom in whilst showing a corner of the viewport it works because the hdr videos are still in play but if you zoom so the corners are not visible it will fade out

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#76

Post by robocat »

wtallis wrote: post #38
bujak300 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific glasses are these? I'd guess that the direction of the polarisation of the glasses makes a big difference

I think polarized sunglasses are always vertically polarized, to block glare off horizontal surfaces.

Correct. This page explained it nicely: https://nigerianscholars.com/tutorials/wave-optics/polarizat...

"Vertically polarized light is preferentially refracted at the surface, so that the reflected light is left more horizontally polarized" and you use vertically polarised sunglasses to filter out the reflected horizontally polarised light.

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#77

Post by Syzygies »

A "nit" is also an alternate term for a "nat", the natural logarithm counterpart to a Shannon information "bit".

This headline really threw me, trying to guess at what level of organization there was an information bandwidth issue with the MacBook Pro that would be measured as "500 nits".

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#78

Post by can16358p »

alin23 wrote: post #66
can16358p wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is Apple advertising it as 1000nits sustained? If it can sustain 1000 nits for HDR content, it can for SDR too. The display isn't going to say "hey it's SDR let me piss them off" and suddenly start dissipating more heat at 1000 nits at SDR compared to HDR after all.

Well most likely because HDR content doesn’t mean full bright white for extended periods of time. Even if you watch 8 hours of HDR content, only some of the LEDs will get to peak brightness for small periods of time. That will allow the LEDs to cool down enough to sustain that brightness. The macOS UI and webpages on the other hand are mostly bright white and that can cause trouble on extended periods of time.

Makes sense, but still, the advertising is a bit misleading, and I honestly think that it's on purpose.

As a dark mode user I'd love to see 1000 nits though, maybe something like iPhone thermal throttling the brightness when it gets too hot.

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#79

Post by jeroenhd »

alin23 wrote: post #66
can16358p wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is Apple advertising it as 1000nits sustained? If it can sustain 1000 nits for HDR content, it can for SDR too. The display isn't going to say "hey it's SDR let me piss them off" and suddenly start dissipating more heat at 1000 nits at SDR compared to HDR after all.

Well most likely because HDR content doesn’t mean full bright white for extended periods of time. Even if you watch 8 hours of HDR content, only some of the LEDs will get to peak brightness for small periods of time. That will allow the LEDs to cool down enough to sustain that brightness. The macOS UI and webpages on the other hand are mostly bright white and that can cause trouble on extended periods of time.

That's perfectly reasonable, but Apple lists different brightness capabilities for "sustained" and "peak". I don't think anyone expects their excellent 1600 nits peak brightness to be constantly available, but the 1000 nits sustained brightness is supposed to be, well, sustained.

Perhaps "sustained" is some kind of jargon from the laptop industry but I consider myself to be more educated than the average Joe when it comes to computers and I would've expected a 1000 nits screen based on their advertisements. I don't see what Apple has to gain by either lying or deceptively using jargon like this.

Re: Trying to get past the 500 nits limit of the MacBook Pro (and failing)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

can16358p wrote: post #49
nottorp wrote: post #46

Isn't like ... 200 nits ... a healthy upper limit for looking at a screen all day?

Depends on surrounding environment. If you are a dark area 200 nits would even be high. If you are in a well-lit area or outside in a sunny day, 200 nits would be super dark, and by that definition if it was unhealthy, looking at almost anything in a well lit day would be unhealthy.

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