These new standards are dealing with three major improvements, mainly resolution, color gamut, and dynamic range. Of these three,t eh most noticeable to our eyes will be the dynamic range increase. This is because we see contrast much better than we see color, loath though we are to admit it. But this is also the easiest to increase, as this is just a basic measure of how bright and how dark we can make the screen.
These screens being shown off there at the highness are 1-2k nits. (A nit, per wikipedia, is “candela per square metre (cd/m2) is the derived SI unit of luminance. The unit is based on the candela, the SI unit of luminous intensity, and the square metre, the SI unit of area.”)
To give you a reference to how bright that is, 2,000 nits, or cd/m2, is the equivalent of a average cloudy sky while 2.5k nits is the moon’s surface and 5k nits is the typical photographic scene in full sunlight. So, going from 80 nits in the sRGB spec to 1-2 nits is a huge boost for realism, but it is still on the low side to fully recreate a real life scene. To fully reproduce a “solar disk at horizon” or a sunrise/sunset, we would need 600k nit displays.*
Obviously this is in the right direction, and gives us as artist a much larger palette t work from, which is good. Unfortunately, the standards aren’t there yet for the minimums, so some of those displays were promoting 300nits, which already exist in the HD market.
I will deal with resolution in my next post, as it is easier to understand.