This week at a major Display Conference in the USA Sharp revealed a new 1080p TFT LCD module using five primary colours. This is significant because it proves that it possible to display 99% or more of all the surface colours found in real life claims David Barnes the Vice President, Strategic Analysis, at leading research Company DisplaySearch
He claims that no other display technology has ever delivered such realism and that most professional monitors deliver 88% or less. In addition, Sharp has proved that it is possible to preserve such realistic colour when the panel is viewed at an angle.
Instead of conventional red, green, blue (RGB) stripes on the colour filter, they added cyan, yellow and a second red stripe to create a RCGRBY six-stripe sub-pixel pattern. This means there are more than 65 thousand ways to create each colour.
In a conventional LCD there is only one way to create a given colour, so designers must accept whatever off-axis colour shift results. Not so with a five-colour design, the Sharp team discovered how to minimize off-axis colour shift for each colour and developed a decoding algorithm that converts standard RGB image data into optimal colour codes for their system.
In a blog written for DisplaySearch clients Barnes said that this indicates that accurate colour reproduction can come from a simple change to the colour filter. Conventional, low-cost backlights and other components can be used. Digital cameras capture far many more colours than any TV or monitor can display today and professional cameras capture even more. We may soon be able to see life-like images at no additional cost.
