Raygun wrote:Where it comes to my use of the term 'color accuracy', I was parroting the one client I have (out of more than a hundred) who I know is of the belief that CRTs are superior to LCDs. At that point, I was losing interest in the argument anyway (and was being rushed out the door), so I didn't bother to investigate whether the terminology was correct or not, or I probably would have said 'color shift' instead. I don't think that's the only effect he was referring to when using the term, though.
Different people mean different things when they use the term "color accuracy." Most people are talking about the host of image-related deficiencies in [TN] LCDs - many of which can be calibrated around, many of which cannot - like contrast, brightness, viewing angle, color unevenness, blah blah blah. But when a graphic designer or artist or pretentious fuck or Mac user - or some or all of the above - uses the term, they mean something really particular, and it's something I'm not sure I give a fuck about: color accuracy and gamut.
Now, every so often, yes, I'll get annoyed at some purple pallor to some piece of site imagery when I see it on a badly-calibrated monitor, or I'll think, "Uh oh, that text is completely visible on my monitor, but on this chick's laptop, I can't see it!" That absolutely happens, LCD or CRT. But the people who worry about color accuracy tend to take it like a religion: #5c7898 should be #5c7898 everywhere, and exactly #5c7898, not one bit lighter or darker, bluer, greener, or redder.
TN LCD's can't do that. I remember back in the day when it was a big deal that video cards had the power to finally push 24-bit color, every color the human eye could see. The monitors had been able to do it for a while, but the video cards couldn't handle so eight bits per pixel. TN LCDs, then, were a step back, to 18 bit color, because each pixel only takes six bits.
But I'm really not sure I care about this. This isn't one of those things like ghosting or bleeding or uneven backlighting where it's just obvious that the LCD suffers in comparison to the CRT, this is like the audiophile who insists his tube amp is somehow magically imbuing your music with magic. There's a degree beyond which most people just don't give a crap, won't ever notice, couldn't tell in an A/B comparison. And I think this gamut/accuracy thing might be one of those places where I just don't care.
It matters because the difference between an IPS LCD and a TN LCD - a decision I'll have to make, you know, someday - is largely in this color space issue. Some of my other concerns about LCDs are addressed, others not, but the big selling point is color reproduction, and I just can't know, until I sit an IPS panel next to a TN panel, how much I give a shit, you know? Now, if I put one of my 21 inch Trinitrons next to a 21 inch TN LCD, there's just no comparison: it's immediately and readily obvious to blind people that the CRT is the way to go, provided you own a forklift. But between IPS and TN? I'm just not sure I'm that much of a monitor-phile. I watch VHS transfers of The Daily Show from 2002; clearly I can't care that much about how many bits per pixel I'm getting!