Bravia engine optimization
- Thread starter ethan3686
- Start date
I think thisis the only thing now hat can give us better contrast on the XZ. Please Sony bring the screen calibration. And before anybody says that they will bring it. Please provide an official sorce and not speculation.
Also is any dev confident of turning ON the bravia engine at all times?
Also is any dev confident of turning ON the bravia engine at all times?
Everyone seems to be under the impression that Bravia improves the performance of the display. It doesn't. It has absolutely no effect on that at all - it can't have.
What Bravia does is simply to change the pixel values that are sent to the screen.
The display is 24-bit, so each pixel is has a red brightness, blue brightness and green brightness that varies between 0 and 255. Pure white would be red 255, green 255, blue 255; pure black would be red 0, green 0, blue 0. Suppose you're viewing a photo and there's a pixel in it that is dark grey - perhaps red 16, green 16, blue 16; and suppose there's another pixel in it that is a slightly greyish white - perhaps red 240, green 240, blue 240. What Bravia does is simply to change the dark grey pixel to a black one, and the greyish white pixel to a pure white one. So, instead of telling the screen "display r16g16b16", it tells it to display "r0g0b0"; and instead of telling it to display r240g240b240 it tells it to display r255g255b255.
The effect of this is that the photo appears to have better contrast; but you need to think about what happens if the photo already contains a pure black or pure white pixel. If the pixel is already r0g0b0 then Bravia can't make it any darker - it's already as dark as it can be. Bravia doesn't magically make the screen display black pixels as being darker than it normally would, it simply gets the screen to display dark grey pixels as "black". So, not only is it impossible for Bravia to affect the performance of the screen, it also has side effects. Imagine that you have a pure black pixel (r0g0b0) in the middle of an area of dark shadow that is r16g16b16. Without Bravia you should be able to see that there is an extra-dark spot in the middle of the dark shadow; but with Bravia on, the rest of the shadow gets bumped down to pure black. The dark pixel already is pure black and can't be affected; so what was originally a black pixel in the middle of a dark region becomes a black pixel in the middle of a black region - so you can't actually see it any more: you lose detail in the shadowy areas. And the same thing happens in very bright parts of the picture - there is no longer any visible difference between pure white and slightly greyish white.
Bravia does other things too - for example, if a pixel is (say) a slightly pinkish red (perhaps r240g10b10) it might convert it to a purer red - maybe r255g0b0. That makes the photo's colours seem more saturated. It also does edge enhancement - so if you have an area of dark grey pixels next to an area of pale grey pixels then the dark grey ones right next to the border will be pushed further towards black than the ones that are away from the edge, and the light grey ones right next to the border will be pushed further towards white than the ones that are away from the edge; that makes the edge look sharper. But the important thing to grasp is that all of the things it does involve manipulating the pixels within the image; none of it has the slightest effect on the actual screen. The screen still shows pure black as exactly the same and pure white as exactly the same, and the maximum colour saturation it can achieve is exactly the same; it's simply that the pixels sent to it are pushed further towards the limits of what it can display (with consequent image artefacts).
Those who are hoping for Bravia to be "always on" are also almost certainly in for a dissappointment: Bravia processing is intrinsically part of the process of decoding an image or a video. Asking for Bravia processing to be "on" when you aren't decoding an image or video is a bit like asking for an app that boosts the treble when there isn't any sound - it's not that it can't be done, it's that the request doesn't even make sense.
See, for example, http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...r-viewing-experience-to-the-next-level-video/
(Note that the numbers I'm using here may not be quite realistic: I don't know exactly how bright a pixel has to be before Bravia pushes it up to pure white, for example or how dark it has to be before it comes out black, and in any case that will vary because of edge enhancement; but it changes things in those ways and in those directions).
What Bravia does is simply to change the pixel values that are sent to the screen.
The display is 24-bit, so each pixel is has a red brightness, blue brightness and green brightness that varies between 0 and 255. Pure white would be red 255, green 255, blue 255; pure black would be red 0, green 0, blue 0. Suppose you're viewing a photo and there's a pixel in it that is dark grey - perhaps red 16, green 16, blue 16; and suppose there's another pixel in it that is a slightly greyish white - perhaps red 240, green 240, blue 240. What Bravia does is simply to change the dark grey pixel to a black one, and the greyish white pixel to a pure white one. So, instead of telling the screen "display r16g16b16", it tells it to display "r0g0b0"; and instead of telling it to display r240g240b240 it tells it to display r255g255b255.
The effect of this is that the photo appears to have better contrast; but you need to think about what happens if the photo already contains a pure black or pure white pixel. If the pixel is already r0g0b0 then Bravia can't make it any darker - it's already as dark as it can be. Bravia doesn't magically make the screen display black pixels as being darker than it normally would, it simply gets the screen to display dark grey pixels as "black". So, not only is it impossible for Bravia to affect the performance of the screen, it also has side effects. Imagine that you have a pure black pixel (r0g0b0) in the middle of an area of dark shadow that is r16g16b16. Without Bravia you should be able to see that there is an extra-dark spot in the middle of the dark shadow; but with Bravia on, the rest of the shadow gets bumped down to pure black. The dark pixel already is pure black and can't be affected; so what was originally a black pixel in the middle of a dark region becomes a black pixel in the middle of a black region - so you can't actually see it any more: you lose detail in the shadowy areas. And the same thing happens in very bright parts of the picture - there is no longer any visible difference between pure white and slightly greyish white.
Bravia does other things too - for example, if a pixel is (say) a slightly pinkish red (perhaps r240g10b10) it might convert it to a purer red - maybe r255g0b0. That makes the photo's colours seem more saturated. It also does edge enhancement - so if you have an area of dark grey pixels next to an area of pale grey pixels then the dark grey ones right next to the border will be pushed further towards black than the ones that are away from the edge, and the light grey ones right next to the border will be pushed further towards white than the ones that are away from the edge; that makes the edge look sharper. But the important thing to grasp is that all of the things it does involve manipulating the pixels within the image; none of it has the slightest effect on the actual screen. The screen still shows pure black as exactly the same and pure white as exactly the same, and the maximum colour saturation it can achieve is exactly the same; it's simply that the pixels sent to it are pushed further towards the limits of what it can display (with consequent image artefacts).
Those who are hoping for Bravia to be "always on" are also almost certainly in for a dissappointment: Bravia processing is intrinsically part of the process of decoding an image or a video. Asking for Bravia processing to be "on" when you aren't decoding an image or video is a bit like asking for an app that boosts the treble when there isn't any sound - it's not that it can't be done, it's that the request doesn't even make sense.
See, for example, http://developer.sonymobile.com/201...r-viewing-experience-to-the-next-level-video/
(Note that the numbers I'm using here may not be quite realistic: I don't know exactly how bright a pixel has to be before Bravia pushes it up to pure white, for example or how dark it has to be before it comes out black, and in any case that will vary because of edge enhancement; but it changes things in those ways and in those directions).
Yes but at least we can live with theillusion of better contrast than having washed out colors 
i am sure noone will mind that.
i am sure noone will mind that.Of course, judging by the only review I've seen that actually subjected the display on the XZ to a proper colorimeter analysis, colours on the XZ screen (without Bravia) aren't actually under-saturated: they're slightly over-saturated; it's just that everyone is so familiar with colours that are even more over-saturated (e.g. on Samsung phones with AMOLED displays) that they look drab by comparison.
I don't think Sony did themselves any favours by using rather muted colours in the UI, either.
I don't think Sony did themselves any favours by using rather muted colours in the UI, either.
G
GuestK00431
Guest
I think it comes a lot down to the UI and not the screen. Photos and video look vibrant, the UI screen doesnt. Change your launcher and job done.
Photos and video look "vibrant" because of the Bravia processing - see my earlier post (#23 in this thread). The photo and video apps deliberately over-saturate colours and "boost" contrast at the cost of introducing image artefacts like white- and black-crush and ringing.
Here's a better link with info about Bravia. Some of the on/off comparison photos in there are really quite scary: check out the one of the bridge against the sunset - that's not so much enhancement as turning it into a completely different picture!
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/technologies/mobile-bravia-engine/
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/technologies/mobile-bravia-engine/
Yeah that's why I switched off every "enhancement " feature on my Panasonic TV, don't like it at all.
Its not about the pics..as we can shut it off in them..its about the homescreen which does look good with a lil bit of saturation and gives it vibrancy..As it has no real world comparison its the best for a homescreen to have BE ON at all times.
As that's impossible, I wouldn't hold your breath. Bravia is part of the process of decoding images and videos - if there is no image or video to decode, it can't be applied. And of course it doesn't have any effect on the display's abilities at all, it merely changes what the screen is being asked to display; so it can't, for example, make black darker, white lighter, or a pure colour any more saturated.
Hmm u say about video and image, is that also applied when we play game or just when we play video and display image from gallery?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
No, only videos and pictures, nothing else; and even then only if you're using apps that have the Bravia code built in - so if you're using (say) MX Player, there will be no Bravia available.
EDIT: I'm talking b*llocks in the second half of that sentence, sorry.
Something like MXPlayer will be able to use Bravia in H/W or H/W+ mode, but not in software mode. However, that doesn't change the fact that you're limited to pictures and videos.
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Bravia Engine on anything with text or sharp graphics actually looks worse. It's only really meant for actual photos and real video (and cartoons, possibly).
Wrong, Bravia Engine is available for video in all apps that use the hardware decoder. So if you use MX Player with HW or HW+ your video is going through the Bravia Engine. For photos it's only active in the Album app.
Too bad it's only for pict and video. But better than nothing, if sony have technoligy that give accurate color, why the **** sony only apply it for pict and video. I wonder why
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
The display is very accurate without Bravia Engine. Bravia Engine adds some more saturation and contrast which make it look better to some people, but it's absolutely not more accurate.
^^^ This. ^^^
Bravia makes colours far less accurate, but in ways which are, in Sony's opinion, pleasing to the viewer.
I've posted this link before, but it's a good one: http://developer.sonymobile.com/2012/06/21/mobile-bravia-engine-explained-video/
It contains some samples of what Bravia does. In each case, the left picture is what the photo should look like if colours are accurate (assuming the monitor you're viewing it on is correctly callibrated). On the right is what the picture looks like after Bravia processing. Check, in particular, the picture of the bridge against the sunset, and see how much Bravia changes it: it's almost unrecognisable.
Those aren't real samples from Bravia Engine but some simulations to show what it actually does. Thankfully Bravia Engine doesn't change pics THAT much.
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