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What are the applications for dithering these days? I understand it was needed when we had 4 or 16 or 256 color limits. But now we have 8-bit/channel displays,

What are the applications for dithering these days? I understand it was needed when we had 4 or 16 or 256 color limits. But now we have 8-bit/channel displays, and 10-bit is becoming popular.

s1mon 6y ago
There are still plenty of 1-bit displays in the world. Consumer electronics with small OLEDs, and various low-power signage have low bit depth. Just because our modern phones and laptops have high bit depth doesn’t mean that dithering goes away.
formerly_proven 6y ago
Eight and ten bits are the full range of the image, but dark scenes only use a fraction of the range and often suffer from banding (and comically bad compression artifacts on certain popular streaming services). Clean, slight gradients as a backdrop often only cover a small distance in RGB, so again, very low resolution and banding is the result. Dithering is vital. Just like dithering is vital for audio, even at 24 bits. Also keep in mind that the "10 bit" you speak of is implemented by dithering on an 8 bit panel in almost every display. Similarly many cheaper 8 bit displays are actually 6 bit with dithering. Additionally, 10 bit is a very rare output format [1] and rarely used by applications apart from the handful of HDR games; even for content creation applications 10 bit support is uncommon, and it actually being utilized even less common. [1] Just because everything is output and composited in 8 bit, doesn't mean 10 bit display output is entirely for naught. If you are using hardware gamma correction, which you are when you use tools like flux/redshift/... or most ICC display profiles, then 10 bit scanout of an 8 bit framebuffer still makes sense.
- sinity 6y ago
  Yeah, since the day I noticed it on one YT video I can't unsee it in every dark one. I didn't even learn why it's so bad for a long time. Horrible huge squares/rectangles of slightly different black all over the place.

What are the applications for dithering these days? I understand it was needed when we had 4 or 16 or 256 color limits. But now we have 8-bit/channel displays, and 10-bit is becoming popular.

s1mon 6y ago

There are still plenty of 1-bit displays in the world. Consumer electronics with small OLEDs, and various low-power signage have low bit depth. Just because our modern phones and laptops have high bit depth doesn’t mean that dithering goes away.

formerly_proven 6y ago

Eight and ten bits are the full range of the image, but dark scenes only use a fraction of the range and often suffer from banding (and comically bad compression artifacts on certain popular streaming services). Clean, slight gradients as a backdrop often only cover a small distance in RGB, so again, very low resolution and banding is the result. Dithering is vital. Just like dithering is vital for audio, even at 24 bits. Also keep in mind that the "10 bit" you speak of is implemented by dithering on an 8 bit panel in almost every display. Similarly many cheaper 8 bit displays are actually 6 bit with dithering. Additionally, 10 bit is a very rare output format [1] and rarely used by applications apart from the handful of HDR games; even for content creation applications 10 bit support is uncommon, and it actually being utilized even less common. [1] Just because everything is output and composited in 8 bit, doesn't mean 10 bit display output is entirely for naught. If you are using hardware gamma correction, which you are when you use tools like flux/redshift/... or most ICC display profiles, then 10 bit scanout of an 8 bit framebuffer still makes sense.

sinity 6y ago
Yeah, since the day I noticed it on one YT video I can't unsee it in every dark one. I didn't even learn why it's so bad for a long time. Horrible huge squares/rectangles of slightly different black all over the place.