131–140 of 158 posts
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Sure, but show me where Apple defines "Pro" as "Pro for a graphic artist"?
sure, here you go: http://www.apple.com/pro/
"Whether you’re a designer, photographer, or any kind of creative pro who deals with visual material, you face the daunting task of getting your colors just right. [...] Learn how you can make the most of your Mac to maximize the effectiveness of your colors."
Even his old MacBook Pro 17" has a 6bit display. Moreover, different batches have different monitors. Manufacturers keep lowering prices (remember how much the Powerbooks did cost?) so they must use cheaper technology, and most people are mostly ignorant about specs anyway. Glossy screens are another example (they're cheaper to make and they look better at first sight).
It's funny to hear some of these guys talk about how they buy the MacBook Pro over the MacBook because of the 6-bit vs 8-bit panel when all of those laptops have only ever had 6-bit panels in them. The Pro just happens to use a better quality panel, that's all. But it's still 6-bit.
I'm not sure what this guy is looking for. Regardless of whether the display is 6-bit, or just 8-bit that looks crap, you're still going to have a problem. Unless you're harboring a fantasy that Apple will give you a MacBook with a custom screen as way of an apology. They've offered you a refund. Take the money and use it to buy the 15" MacBook with a better screen. And this time try checking out the product to make…
You didn't read the article. He would be glad to upgrade to the 15" MacBook but Apple will not tell him if it's a true 8-bit display. He's simply wants the TRUE specs on the machine.
Without dithering, 6 bit LCDs produce 191 colors. 8 bit LCDs produce 767 colors. If you want more than 767 colors you will be using dithering. I think where people get confused here is the naive dithering where a group of 3 pixels (one of each color) are logically grouped together gives your the 252k and 16m numbers, but there is no reason that is the only desirable solution. Consider sub-pixel rendering of typograph…
You are confused. "6 bit displays" have 6 bits of color data per channel, and hence can display 2^18 (262,144) colors without dithering. I'm not sure where you're getting 191 and 767 from.
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>>It's called a MacBook Pro and is marketed at more demanding users, i.e. professionals Which "professionals"? 8bit color is important to pretty much one professional group: graphic artists/designers (maybe two, if you include people doing video work). For the vast majority of people - "professional" or otherwise - 6bit vs. 8bit color doesn't matter. It looks good, it's fast, it runs what they want. Those are the thi…
This is absolutely not true. The difference between the screen on the 13" and the 15" MacBook Pro is enormous. The text is far sharper on the 15", and that matters hugely to developers. It matters to anyone who reads text. When you use dithering/pixel tricks to fake color depth, everything turns slightly fuzzy and washed out. Even black is affected. It really begins to affect the way things look and feel on the scree…
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When dealing with digital content, isn't accuracy what you're looking for? Properly calibrating a display would take care of the precision. (Unless I'm confused here, which is entirely possible.)
Situations when you need all 8 bits of color resolution: -- performing color matching against a sample - fabric, print, etc -- soft-proofing for print output (spot colors) -- when performing any color/contrast adjustments on photographs or art that have fine color/value gradients. A common example is a grey sweep backdrop--zoom in past a certain point and you can see visible banding That said, anyone doing prepress o…
The fact that, to a first approximation, one can no longer buy a laptop with an LCD of the same quality as those made 10 years ago - at any price - is disturbing all in itself, and suggests that technology is marching backwards. What's next, the abolition of 44.1KHz audio?
Compare a 1980s keyboard to a modern one. It is entirely conceivable that the UI technology we will be using in a decade or two will be of such abominable quality that one might be ashamed to design it into a children's toy computer today.
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I'm not sure about this - if false advertising (millions of colors) caused him to sell his old laptop with a better screen, then he's still worse off, as a result of Apple's actions. Then again, I think the whole MBP line has had 6 bit displays for their whole history, so I'm not sure why he's complaining now.
I thought that the 13" inch Macbook Pro had the 6 bit display while the others had 8 bit :-/ If the entire MBP line has 6 bit displays, then why complain? I am a bit concerned of Apple's false advertising though. So my 2006-ish 17 Macbook Pro is not able to display millions of colors? That is sad...
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Situations when you need all 8 bits of color resolution: -- performing color matching against a sample - fabric, print, etc -- soft-proofing for print output (spot colors) -- when performing any color/contrast adjustments on photographs or art that have fine color/value gradients. A common example is a grey sweep backdrop--zoom in past a certain point and you can see visible banding That said, anyone doing prepress o…
I think the main problem is the visual artifacts introduced by the time-domain dithering done to compensate for the 6-bit DACs, rather than the lack of color resolution itself. This affects everyone, not just artists foolish enough to use laptops. The fact that, to a first approximation, one can no longer buy a laptop with an LCD of the same quality as those made 10 years ago - at any price - is disturbing all in its…
Actually, it's funny that you pose that question in this article. I think MP3s are a great example of "44.1KHz" audio that is not the fidelity of what you're probably thinking of, the CD-Audio standard.
People are clearly prioritizing things other than the sheer quality of the material, be it visual or audio. I think it's impressive that the LCD folks have been able to engineer LCDs at the prices they have. And, much like MP3s shrunk music file sizes by throwing away parts of the music that people aren't supposed to miss, the LCD guys are throwing away quality that, apparently, people don't care about either.
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I think the main problem is the visual artifacts introduced by the time-domain dithering done to compensate for the 6-bit DACs, rather than the lack of color resolution itself. This affects everyone, not just artists foolish enough to use laptops. The fact that, to a first approximation, one can no longer buy a laptop with an LCD of the same quality as those made 10 years ago - at any price - is disturbing all in its…
|What's next, the abolition of 44.1KHz audio? Actually, it's funny that you pose that question in this article. I think MP3s are a great example of "44.1KHz" audio that is not the fidelity of what you're probably thinking of, the CD-Audio standard. People are clearly prioritizing things other than the sheer quality of the material, be it visual or audio. I think it's impressive that the LCD folks have been able to en…
The problem is that a substantial minority does care about quality - and we are left out in the cold. Have you ever priced a "specialist" monitor? That is where all non-lowest-common-denominator user interface technology seems to be headed - squarely outside the budget of the individual. And as we can see from the article, it has become entirely impossible to purchase a new laptop with both a decent screen and a decent operating system.
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Alternate comment: How's about commenting on the actual substance and not whining about the headline? Sure, he's asking for a pony in some ways, but they're making pro machines with displays that don't do what they say or anything "pro" for that matter.
It's not just the headline. Who makes a purchase decision base on a product being called "pro"? It must be very confusing for him when he visits a supermarket and encounters words all over the place like "new", "improved", "better", "more", "bigger"...