What is Contrast Ratio?

Contrast ratio is a huge determinant of overall image quality, but it can be a confusing specification...

[mahirooyama]

"a huge grain of salt" well it won't be a grain anymore more like a block of salt

[colonfrancelj]

"If you look 'closlier' " - Linus

[ghaitm]

This video was really really amazing and informative, and the editing in the background for clarification was awesome, i mean all of your videos are high quality, but this one is special, good job team (y) .

[pilebunker]

is it me or linus' face and hands look too yellow?

[Layarion]

5:22 that baby is like "what did i just get myself into?"

[RetroHellspawn]

I'm glad that you explained Dynamic Contrast Ratio and its different forms, because I had been told in the past that these contrast ratio measurements have been just purely arbitrary from brand to brand, but this makes a ton more sense.

[LazerLord]

So... i have an old plasma screen TV. I'd assume that it has a pretty decent contrast ratio? It looks pretty good to me.

[nO_dNAL]

I like the editing in these videos, keep it up! Makes it a lot easier to explain than just having a white screen with someone talking and adds value to the video

[michielolijslagers]

Keep up the good work you guys, i've learned a lot from these video's.

I do have a couple of suggestions for other video's (mainly network related):
- Full duplex vs half duplex communication
- MDIX (cisco feature to determine what sort of cable is connected)
- ssh vs telnet
- MAC address flooding
- DHCP and DHCP spoofing, DHCP snooping
- NTP (network time protocol)
- VLAN and the types (default, data, native, management)
- VoIP
- Default gateway, Broadcast, Unicast, Multicast, Loopback
- Load balancing
- Static routes, Dynamic routing, Floating static routes
- Router-on-a-stick (mainly used in VLAN's)
- ACL
- NAT and PAT

I know there are a couple of them that are complicated to explain easy, but I hope that i see one or two of them apear on my screen.

[JBreuel]

The main reason i watch so many of yalls videos is because of 5:20. I have learned a lot because of your videos which i appreciate a lot, but also the way you are with your kids is awesome. Kepp it up LMG!

[Seegs]

Linus, your description is incorrect. The 3000:1 or 1000:1 numbers you're quoting are called on/off or full field contrast numbers. The scene in which you discuss how the bright city lights compare to the dark background would be quantified by an ANSI contrast or intrascene contrast ratio, not on/off contrast. This is because, most of the time, you'll never actually reach the level of on/off contrast the screen is capable of when you have mixed content on screen. On/off contrast numbers are used by manufacturers because, more often than not, they're much larger than ANSI and intrascene contrast numbers. Bigger is better for marketing and is the same reason they quote screen sizes in diagonal measurements instead of width and response time in grey to grey instead of black to black. The numbers you quote in your video (3000:1 and 1000:1) are full field contrast numbers which are measured when the entire screen is at it's peak white output (white level) versus it's lowest output (black level). For dynamic contrast people should also know that in these dynamic contrast modes there is also something called dynamic gamma which occurs to compensate for brightness compression. If we simply lower the brightness of the light source the image will look dull and flat so manufacturers use some gamma adjustment to make the lighter highlights in the image brighter to compensate for the brightness loss.

[jasonbrittain]

yours ago when LED was 1st coming out, I was actually told That each company had thier own set standard for what one unit of light Would-be. so the same panel test of the exact same way at 2 different companies would come-up with 2 different Contrast ratios.

[thedanielchaniel]

"Infinite contrast" makes sense to me. The reason why some number divided by 0 is undefined is because as you approach 0 from the left (negative) side, the limit of some number / x is negative infinity; but, as you approach 0 from the right (positive) side, it's positive infinity. Because the limits aren't equal, it's undefined. But in the world of contrast ratios, aren't you really only approaching 0 from the positive side? You can't really have a negative brightness anyway. Hence, infinite contrast?

[ZLau]

Thanks for explaining dynamic contrast (and the huge ratios advertised with it).

[Evipicc]

Thanks for this, was actually curious about this recently.

[william]

"Closely-er"
- Linus Sebastian June 13, 2017

[lemmiix]

so what monitor do you recommend depending on the contrast ratio?

[jomialsipi]

I was expecting a "Over 9000" joke

[mastergx]

I get the infinite contrast ratio on the OLEDs. If they can turn the pixel off completely, any number they give for the maximum brightness will be infinitely larger than zero.

[kurstxmo]

Thanks, this was just the explanation I was looking for. So would it make a noticeable difference between a monitor with a dynamic contrast ratio of 5, 000, 000:1 vs 10, 000, 000:1?