Enable Full RGB to reproduce accurate colors in your TV/Monitor

[ontherocks]

This is applicable only to people having NVIDIA cards/drivers and who are using HDMI to connect their TV/Monitor to computer (either directly or via an AVR).
Even though in NVIDIA control panel, under Display --> Adjust desktop color settings --> Digital color format, you select RGB, it is actually set to Limited (16-235 RGB levels), not Full (0-255 RGB levels).

Full RGB is available under in NVIDIA control panel, under Video --> Adjust video color settings --> With the NIVIDIA settings --> Dynamic range. But it affects only videos, not affect games, applications, etc.

If your TV/Monitor supports Full RGB, which it mostly would do, you may notice you aren't getting the right colors and the blacks don't seem so black and the whites don't seem so white.

To test it, use the image here

Gradient (banding) - Lagom LCD test

The trick is to enable Full RGB in Windows registry. This nice tool does that for you with a single click.

http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/NV_RGBFullRangeToggle.zip

Simply press the button "Set Full Range (0-255)", reboot and see the difference.

 

[manoj.p]

Ontherocks,

Nice observation. But I think more info is needed.

RGB - Is the video standard. It uses range as 16-235. Level 16 indicates lowest level (black) and 235 indicates max level (white). Anything less than 16 is considered blacker than black, and anything more than 235 is considered whiter than white.

FullRGB - Is the PC standard and uses range 0-255. Level 0 is black and 255 is white. There is no concept of blacker than black and whiter than white in PC.

All the videos only use RGB levels and all media players, bluray players, dvd players will output it as such. It's correctly detected by the display and shown as such. Problem occurs when we play the video's on the PC. The display detects the source as PC and changes the levels to 0-255 and expects it as such. Now the video card/software player in the PC needs to correctly convert 16-235 to 0-255 and output it as such. If it doesn't, then you will get elevated black levels (blacks will look gray) and whites will be crushed.

Best way to do it, is leave the RGB on standard (16-235) and make a change in the display to standard RGB so that it correctly displays the levels as video. Or determine what the PC is outputting in the video mode. Get a video calibration disc (it can be downloaded from AVS for free), bring up the brightness and contrast test patterns and set the levels correctly either on source or display.