P3 vs sRGB displays?

asus389

I’ve noticed that LCD displays that claim to cover 100% (or close) of the sRGB color gamut are more comfortable to me compared to displays that cover 100% (or close to it) P3 gamut. This is independent of PWM, none of these displays have PWM. This is also the case if I switch the color profile on the P3 displays to sRGB.

I would have thought that limiting the colors on a wide color (P3) panel to sRGB would resolve this, but it’s still more irritating to my eyes than a native sRGB panel. I haven’t tried manually calibrating the displays. Im using the built in color profiles. I’ve mainly tested on MacOS and iOS. But some windows laptops exhibit the same issue.

Can anyone explain this?

xenu

The LCD panel doesn't support such a wide gamut, so the video hardware and drivers use temporal dithering and FRC to rapidly switch between similar colors to give the impression of more colors.

It's like Botox but for displays. It's totally fake. And like a Botox'd person, it will hurt your eyes ;-)

End result is, people should avoid P3 if they can.

asus389

xenu Right, I get that. But I’d think that if you take a P3 capable display that is using FRC and you tell it to restrict itself to sRGB it would stop dithering? Or is there something different about the P3 panels that make it so they dither even in reduced color modes?

Clokwork

asus389 Are these P3 displays that still cause discomfort in sRGB mode all LCD or are they OLED? I have a problem with the vast majority of OLED no matter what color profile they use.

asus389

Clokwork lcd mostly but not all apple displays

Clokwork

asus389 oh I didn’t know you were referring to Apple displays mostly. Yeah I have the same issue. My aging MacBook Pro is still usable and feels better on my eyes and brain than my sRGB 8 bit only capable Framework laptop. The Framework is still usable but I feel there has to be more to it than just a dithering or PWM issue as the framework uses DC dimming.

Others have brought this up too, but I’m started to think part of the culprit are the specific LEDs being used. My TV is LED based but it too is older and I’m completely fine using it.

asus389

Yeah I can use a 2017 MacBook Pro, but the new ones, even the air which supposedly doesn’t have pwm causes me issues. The only thing I can tell is all of the devices I can use say they have sRGB panels in their specs, the newer ones all have P3. ie I can use the low end iPad which still ships with a sRGB panel, the iPhone 6s, etc but the iPad Air which supports P3 is harder for me to use. Same with MacBook Pros once they moved to P3 - even if I set an sRGB color profile.

Clokwork

asus389 Have you tried this newest generation iPad? It has the new display, but still states RGB on the Apple website. I'm hesitant to go in store to try it as I do have some degree of anxiety going in the Apple store since every other display in there leaves me feeling funny.

I know it would be anecdotal, but if you are fine with it, I truly think that I might have a better chance with it as well. I too have a 2017 MBP that is a great display for me. Which OS and version are you on?

jordan

asus389 if I'm not mistakened I think p3 panels all use ksf/pfs phosphor which could be the trigger too

asus389

Clokwork yeah the low end iPads seem to be fine for me. The 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th gen. The iPad 2018 pro seems ok also.

My 2017 MBP non touchbar is running Ventura. But I have to set the background to solid black and disable window tinting along with setting the accent color to a non standard value for it to be ok for me. Even then I still have issue with some versions of web browsers. I had no issues with this laptop up through Catalina. I could use it with the default settings and browser. I couldn’t use Big Sur or Monterrey at all. The default desktop backgrounds in all post Catalina OS versions cause major eye strain for me. But even setting the Catalina image on the newer versions doesn’t help. Idk why Ventura sort of works for me with these settings.

macsforme

jordan if I'm not mistakened I think p3 panels all use ksf/pfs phosphor

Yes, this. Wide-gamut panels seem to use alternative phosphors to get better red coverage, which seems (to me) to give the whole screen a reddish hue. When the screen causes discomfort even when in the background, not looking directly at it, then I have to suspect the backlight itself emitting an unhealthy light (although I suppose one could also argue another kind of unhealthy emission from the monitor/device, or flicker affecting the peripheral vision).

asus389

macsforme is there a way around this by manually calibrating the display to exclude those increased color tones?

MAS-76

I second this. I can use my sRGB 2015 MBP 15 with no issues. But anything newer with P3 causes symptoms immediately. I’ve tried Pro Air M1 M3, I even bought a 2019 MBP 15 (not 16) as it has the exact same res and PPI screen as my 2015. The 2019 caused symptoms immediately.

The only thing I couldn’t test on the 2019 was Catalina (shipped with Mojave) so MacOS a possible factor, but I’m convinced it’s P3.

MAS-76

I take it back a bit. I actually installed Catalina on the 2019 MBP 15" and it seems to be better. I need to sit with a bit more but at the least MUCH better than any of the Apple silicon machines or even the same 2019 MBP on Sequoia.

I have real and definitely symptoms to every modern Mac.

But is it possible most of this is due to MacOS after Catalina when they switched to lower contrast and softer text rendering? Is this all software instead of hardware?

asus389

MAS-76 I do fine with Catalina also. Anything newer is worse, I have to modify settings and some apps still cause eye strain. My guess is it has to do with Big Sur and newer supporting P3 and HDR more aggressively in the UI, apps, and graphics apis. But I really don’t know.

jordan

asus389 I mean you can change color settings but the leds still are using phosphor which cant be turned off. It will still emit the spectrum that the phosphor creates.

macsforme

asus389 In my experience, the harsh red undertone cannot be corrected in software. If you read up on the KSF phosphor, it seems to have multiple high and narrow peaks in the red part of the spectrum. This tweet with a comparison to the QDot Macbook Pro spectrum is a good illustration: https://x.com/MichaelTheGeek/status/1857228246972047789

MAS-76

The unfortunate part is it may be less a color/calibration issue and more a font rendering and low-contrast design issue, which I'm afraid will never be fixed - it's by design! Of course I'm sure there's hardware issues too, i.e. the P3 and 10-bit dithering aspects of it all. But after my 2015 MBP 15 is great on Catalina, and that same 2015 MBP 15 causes issues anything MacOS 11+ (albeit less than an Apple Silicon machine), I'm starting to believe MacOS itself is the main culprit.

It's pretty discouraging.

asus389

MAS-76 Would these same issues exist on a true 10-bit panel that doesn't have to dither for P3 support? ie one of the recent Eizo CG monitors I think are not FRC? I don't know for sure though.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

MAS-76 The issues getting worse on the 2015 15" with macOS 11 and later — point less to the design of the OS as the cause IMO — and more to the very likely case that newer AMD/Intel graphics drivers & firmware are provided with OS 11+ that render the image differently or change what graphics functionality is enabled by default.

If you look at a pixel-perfect screenshot of a modern macOS version, but on the older version that's working better for you, and it looks better than if that newer macOS version was running on the laptop itself — this would confirm the problem is the graphics drivers that are built-in to 11 and later.