Just got my nice new XDA2...
And I am dismayed to find that the screen colours/wallpapers etc, all seem to be dithered images in a low colour depth.
Instead of smooth gradients, it seems banded from one colour to the next, and shades are made up of dots instead of many colours.
As this has 65,556 colours, I was not expecting this.
Its much like a real pc running in too low a colour depth - but unlike a real pc where this can easily be changed to 24bit or 32bit colour, I can find no such option on my XDA2. Anyone got any ideas, or is it really this bad (because that's how I would genuinely describe it - bad...)
Bumping ^
Anyone?
Same problem we all have, I think it is down to pixel alignment as if one tilts the top of the Xda II backwards the pixels and display appear how one would expect.
I feel cheated, i used to have a Dell X5 Advance. That display was flawless. Now i cant use some colors, especially blue. It gets really messed up...
Its sad
I still never found a satisfactory explanation, as it STILL looks as though the screen is simply NOT displaying anything like 65K colours...
Discovered this bug early on, but found a workaround. The problem seems to be a contrast issue (too high). Use the Pictures application and adjust the contrast of your pictures one notch downward.
I had an iPAQ H5555 before the XDA II (and a long list of iPAQ's before the H5555 ) I have no complaints over the display on my XDA II colours are crisp and clear, focus contrast and brightness are fine also.
Are you having problems with the default wall paper themes or other inages you have installed?
I have problems with any image used as the today background.
Even those created in Paint Shop Pro.
On my PC, they are smooth, gradiented fills, and blend smoothly.
Soon as you put them onto the XDA2 however, and it gets 'Banded' terribly. Legs appear in what seems like just two colours, a light flesh pink in the mid, and another lighter colour for the outline - a sharp jump from one colour to another - no gradiented fill in between.
Alas, I can't of course attach REAL screen shots, as in so doing the images would appear fine on here, as the images really ARE fine - its only their appearance on the XDA2 that goes haywire.
A simple example of what I mean, SIMULATED however, is as attached.
I have done this simply by posting a view from my window, in true colour 24K format, and then a copy of it, with the colour depth reduced to just 256 colours, with no error diffusion used.
This is almost EXACTLY what the resultant appearance is like on my XDA2. But sure enough, as some users say, if you ANGLE the XDA2, this becomes a lot less pronounced.
I am at a loss to understand why it does it at all however, becuase as far as I know, current screen technology does not need to suffer an issue such as this.
Mmmmmm.....
I have not found any sollution to the problem.
I am saddened to say, but it seems like it's the phone to blame.
So much for 65K Transflective being the bees knees.
I have designed a batch of about 60 themes for the phone, using photos. No matter what quality I save at, or even saving as .bmp based, half of them look terrible, with skin tones such as legs being made up of a lighter outline colour, with a big pool of a darker colour in the middle - TWO colours used to make up a part of an image that should be 100's of colours.
Terrible.
Even worse, I notice now, that this applies to Windows Media Player, playing back videos too.
If you angle your head/the XDA2 a certain angle, this reduces the effect. But I mean come on.
Obviously (based on my last comment there) this is a limitation of the screen technology.
Not impressed by far is all I can really say.
This annoys me too.
It feels like somewhere deep inside the XDA2 there's a hardcoded 4096 colour setting left over from the XDA 1. It's especially noticable on web pages.
You should bring this device back to where you got it from and test it side by side with another XDA II using the same themes.
The quality of my screen is perfect and the colours are all vivid and no banding appears unless the theme itself has banding.
I had an iPAQ 5455 that had the same problem as yours, colours appeared to only show 4096 colours 8bit. I sent back and it was replaced with another one that had a perfect screen.
Cheerio
Howard
Mmm - now this topic is getting interesting...
Anyone else think that there is a problem?
I have hinted all along that it's as if the XDA2 is only displaying images in a limited number of colours, and to now hear other people saying the same kind of thing makes for interesting reading...
hmmm
maybe i'm totally wrong, but: do you use CLEAR TYPE ???
i did activate it, and realized that eg. in the phone application the "talk" or the "number" buttons did really look awful.
so i turned clear type off, and my problems where gone... or was it all imagination ? i don't know ...
just a thought
servus ize|man
I do use it, so I'm about to experiment, and report back.
Was worth a try, but alas, no difference on my XDA2.
Just chose a couple of my themes that seem poorly 'dithered' and colour 'banded'.
Turned Cleartype off.
Did a reset...
And the themes look no different or better alas.
Damn.
Thanks for the suggestion though mate.
It REALLY does seem as if the 65000 colour XDA2 is forced into running with just 4096 colours - possibly even less.
But the way or angle you look at the screen makes all it look different, so then again, this could be an inherit issue, and in effect, 'feature' of the screen technology.
A very poor one if so, given the hype of how much much better this new screen is over the original XDA.
Probably one of the poorest that I have seen...
Here's my image quality.
I took your good image and put it onto my machine and took a screen shot. Here's the sample.... no banding!
Cheers
Exactly the same for me: no banding, good quality.
Perhaps something is wrong with your device.. :roll:
Er no guys...
Because that was just a SIMULATED screen shot, which I don't even use on my XDA2 - I just took a photo I had from my back window, and recoloured it down to 256 colours, to simulate what I see (as this is EXACTLY what it looks like with other themes).
I SHOULD have done it with a real theme I use, but in this case I hadn't.
I will post a theme file that is bad for me, and you can try that if you like...
My problem of course, is that all my many themes, are ADULT based images of my gf and her gf etc, so not suitable to post in a general forum such as this.
I have attached a screenshot of one of the 'tamer' ones though.
The screenshot, taken straight from ActiveSync Remote Display, appears FINE on a PC - it's on the DEVICE that it looks bad though.
So take a look at the screenshot, the area where I indicate bad 'banding' then run the also attached theme on your device, and tell me if you get 'banding' where I indicate, when you put the theme on your actual device?
Shadamehr,
It's the result of too much contrast. Try this:
1. Take the background bitmap you used for your theme and copy it to your XDAII.
2. Load the Pictures application and view the picture you just loaded.
3. Click Edit|Brightness And Contrast and adjust the contrast one or two settings downwards until the picture looks okay.
4. Save the picture, copy it to your PC and us it in your theme.
5. Try your new Theme on your XDAII and see if the banding problem goes away.
Hope this helps,
Rene
Related
While going through some photos it occured to me just now that the color depth seems skewed a bit. Its like looking at images on one of the old 4096 color devices. As far as I can tell there's nowhere inside of wm5 to change bit-depth on the display and the only thing I can guess is that one of the programs I installed recently may have tweaked a registry entry somewhere. Are rescoe photo viewer or conduit pocket artist known for this kind of behavior? Other than that a few games are the only other 3rd party apps I've installed.
The display on the Universal shows 16 bit (565) but the pictures themselves are 24 bit. If you look at them on a PC you will see the full quality.
I'd be willing to accept that explanation if it wasnt for the fact that not so long ago the image clarity was exceptional... the color depth and apparent dithering has gone from amazing to hardly tolerable. I was poking around inside morphgear and saw that it had driver changing options and that the configuration menu (graphics or otherwise) seemed to make the display go a bit wonky.
Hrmmm... attempted a hard reset and still no better. It did occur to me that I hadnt really done anything graphical until recently and not TOO long ago I had an LCD replacement done by pocketpctechs.com. Does anybody know if they use the OEM LCDs or if maybe I would have gotten an old 4096 color model?
You could try and check with the attached testpatterns.
They are basically three vertical gradients - greyscale, red, green, and blue
Each gradient in turn is composed of 3 columns
left column: 16bit - Rx5bits (32 levels) Gx6bits (64 levels) Bx5bits (32 levels)
middle column: 24bit - RGBx8bits (256 levels)
right column: 12bit - RGBx4bits (16 levels)
There's two files - one with dithering and one without (banding). The dithering method used is a basic Floyd-Steinberg which is used in most dithering engines next to a regular dither (not included, but I have one of those in the same kit
Be sure to view the image full-screen, as otherwise you will run into resizing issues
What you'll be looking for, essentially, is which of the two left/right columns most resembles the center column. Unless you have a full 24bit device, there should be either banding or dithering occuring, and the center column should look like the left or right column.
If you're not sure - load the image, take a screengrab ("Magic SS" functions with VGA), and attach the result here for us to peek at. I'm *assuming* that it would grab the actual output data and would thus get us the screengrab post-bitreduction
well, it would APPEAR that everything is in order, in the standard non-dithered image the left column matches up best visually to the center which would indicate a 16bit display, as the device is rated. however, in all my time of graphics work, downsampling a 24bit image to display on a 16bit display has never produced such unsightly results
magicss will force the saved BMP into 565 (16 bit). For a true 24 bit screen capture use my ScreenShotCE program (search Handango)
(of course this is a red herring since the screen is 16 bit, and not 18 or 24 bit.)
yeah, the point was to get a screengrab of what he's actually seeing - not what's being sent to the driver -before- downsampling/etc.
low color deth on display
I have the some problem about.. the color deth is low, I have bad quality, it look like 4096 colors, the today screen, the pics, the movies.. everything, I tryed a hard resert, but nothing to do..
Some help ???
MDA II - WM5 2.01a
I wanna save energy, so, how do I turn the white background into a black one, and foreground vice versa?
Could someone please help me I'd be very grateful
Dan
There was a black theme here somewhere, look for a thread on WM 5 theme creating.
Note that this changes absolutely nothing battery vise (though it is easy on the eyes and matches my Jamin case color).
The colors LCD displays make no difference in terms of power consumption (there is a blog on this by some MS guy but I really don't remember the link).
If you want to save battery reduce your back-light intensity (Start->Settings->System->Backlight) as this is one of the major battery eaters on the device.
levenum said:
The colors LCD displays make no difference in terms of power consumption (there is a blog on this by some MS guy but I really don't remember the link).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx found it here.
K. Now there wouldn't be a way to turn this down with any more steps than in the built-in-system, coz I can only turn this down one notch before blackness and then it's still pretty bright. Thanx.
Dan
Hey guys I downloaded a theme to my phone but i do not like the portrait picture. How do i just change that picture to something else? Thanks!
SEARCH/READ THE USER'S MANUAL!!!! But, if you hold your stylus down on the picture you want as a background, you'll see the little circle things, then a list of options, like right clicking on a mouse, select set as desktop background. Then select how washed out you want it, and select ok. There, that was your freebie. Use Wiki and search the forum from now on.
no i want to change just the portrait picture. only when i slide my slider. i know how to do that. i remember seeing a deal about that now i cant find it.
I'm pretty sure there's no way to change JUST the portait picture. You mean like having 2 seperate desktop pitures with one to display in landscape, and the other in portrait, right?
Yeah. But I found a way of doing. Just a little more work than I intended. Thanks!
HEY! this is give and take here... So spill the beans, how did you do it?
Yeah! this I gotta know about. You may have found a secret no one knows. The other question is: how can you re-size a pic so that when it is used as a desktop background, it only uses a portion of the screen and doesn't obscure say the whole "black theme" in use?
I'll let you guys know as soon as i get it done. Haven't even tried yet. Been playing around with different ROMs to see which I like better. So far I'm diggin the Touch-It Light.
--slLy-Dee
if you want to change picure ionly in portrait mode, bud not landscape, you must force edit the Theme you want.... or, ... maybe if it is multiple images theme, just replace one of them, but most are 1 file, .... in that case you have no chance without any program..
Google search for ThemeGenCE. It works like a charm and allows one to change the portrait (slide closed) and landscape (slide open) to different pics. it will also change almost all of the colors. I'll try to post a screen shot of the Halo3 theme I built with it. I've built about 12 different .tsk files with it so far and all of them turned out pretty well. It will also let you import an existing theme and modify it. I used the black touch skin and applied my own pics.
It automatically resizes pics to fit the screen...
Yeah. That's what I was gonna play with but never had the chance. I forgot what the prog was that's why I never bothered. Thanks!!
the gloss from WM6 doesn't show up when you make a theme using ThemeGenCE?
The gloss???
wow thats nice....this will work with the wing correct???
Yes... I'm currently running it on a wing. I'm having some issues getting the color fades on the start bar to work. It has to do with the WM5 tab but the descriptions are a bit cryptic as to what fields they actually represent. So I built one with a LOT of really out there colors to see what field effects what part of the screen. If you don't use the stuff on the WM5 tab then it will just be solid colors. The Halo3 one wound up just being green instead of the orange/green fade at the top. That screenshot is from the previewer in the program not what actually wound up on the phone.
senzamike said:
Yes... I'm currently running it on a wing. I'm having some issues getting the color fades on the start bar to work. It has to do with the WM5 tab but the descriptions are a bit cryptic as to what fields they actually represent. So I built one with a LOT of really out there colors to see what field effects what part of the screen. If you don't use the stuff on the WM5 tab then it will just be solid colors. The Halo3 one wound up just being green instead of the orange/green fade at the top. That screenshot is from the previewer in the program not what actually wound up on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably a stupid question but what were the size image options you put in? In the options it asks about the size of the screen & the size of the start menu
If I look carefully my display I can notice that display image is not properly centered, infact it has two different black vertical bounds.
I would like to expand image to cover all the display area (like a regulation for lcd displays for example...).
Is it possible??
Cavallipurosangue said:
If I look carefully my display I can notice that display image is not properly centered, infact it has two different black vertical bounds.
I would like to expand image to cover all the display area (like a regulation for lcd displays for example...).
Is it possible??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. That's a bit vague - difficult to understand. Can you take a screenshot so we can see what you mean?
Yes I know it is a bit vague, but unfortunately I can't take any screenshot of this, bacause it would show nothing about this problem... I'll had to use an external camera, but at moment the only one I have is the leo's one...
Let me see if I can explain in little words... what I see is that the potential area of display is for example 480x800, but the real display (image on display) is smaller leaving black bounds all around it; it seems projected to a smaller surface, resulting in a smaller display experience (not so much to be honest ).
Given that in all pc monitors you can adjust image position and size to best fit its window, I was asking if it could be possible also on this leo device.
Hope you can better understand now...
If, for example, I open Internet Explorer and wait till the address bar and bottom buttons disappear, I'm left with a mostly white display. There IS a border of about 1mm all the way round this.
Is this what you are talking about?
Yes, it should be! In my case the stripe on the left side is a bit thinner than the one on the right...
Cavallipurosangue said:
Yes, it should be! In my case the stripe on the left side is a bit thinner than the one on the right...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not an active display area. The display shouldn't go to the very edge, so there's nothing wrong with your phone, and no, you can't expand the display.
Ok, thanks a lot!
just picked up the tab about an hour ago, and just started playing with it... so far, so good
the one thing that stuck out at me so far is the color... it's at least 300-500K too warm, and waaaaaay to vibrant...
is there anyway to tone it down a bit ?
I couldn't find a way to adjust/calibrate the color on the device. I wanted my photos to look correct ... so I created an action in Adobe Photoshop that correctly adjusts the photos before I download them to the SGT 10.1.
Below is a copy of a post I made on the post processing forum on fredmiranda.com:
A little work allowed me to create a Photoshop action that will take images from my normal calibrated NEC 2690 work environment and apply a transform that preps them for use on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. In case anyone needs to get images looking good on a tablet, here is what worked for me.
In Photoshop, I created three adjustment layers.
1. Hue/Saturation - Reduced saturation (this was to overcome the highly saturated LCD on the Samsung).
2. Curves - I adjusted the individual RGB channels in the curves adjustment layer to get the right color balance on the tablet.
3. Exposure/Gamma - I reduced the exposure slightly and adjusted the gamma value to offset the gamma on the tablet.
Then resized the image for the small screen and applied appropriate sharpening.
I standardized on using sRGB for output. I left the original images intact ... this action can be used to create a a custom set of images for display on the tablet.
The good news ... I ended up with a beautiful tool for sharing images.
UCSB said:
I couldn't find a way to adjust/calibrate the color on the device. I wanted my photos to look correct ... so I created an action in Adobe Photoshop that correctly adjusts the photos before I download them to the SGT 10.1.
Below is a copy of a post I made on the post processing forum on fredmiranda.com:
A little work allowed me to create a Photoshop action that will take images from my normal calibrated NEC 2690 work environment and apply a transform that preps them for use on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. In case anyone needs to get images looking good on a tablet, here is what worked for me.
In Photoshop, I created three adjustment layers.
1. Hue/Saturation - Reduced saturation (this was to overcome the highly saturated LCD on the Samsung).
2. Curves - I adjusted the individual RGB channels in the curves adjustment layer to get the right color balance on the tablet.
3. Exposure/Gamma - I reduced the exposure slightly and adjusted the gamma value to offset the gamma on the tablet.
Then resized the image for the small screen and applied appropriate sharpening.
I standardized on using sRGB for output. I left the original images intact ... this action can be used to create a a custom set of images for display on the tablet.
The good news ... I ended up with a beautiful tool for sharing images.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks
i guess that's the workaround...
not sure i like having to work around the color issue, but i guess it's better then sitting in front of a booker explaining why the model looks like she just took a bath in orange juice
I think turning off Auto adjust screen power in the screen settings helps the reds a little. There is also an app in the market that will let you adjust the RGB but for the life of me I can't remember what it is called. I uninstalled it because it made the launcher laggy but other than that it worked OK.
Found it: color filter service is the app. Its 99 cents.
jtseidner said:
Found it: color filter service is the app. Its 99 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will definitely try this app...
rgb controls would be ideal, and will allow me to use a colorimeter...
thanks