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Gradient banding on 2009 MBP 17"?

ipedro

ipedro

macrumors 603
Original poster
Nov 30, 2004
6,484
9,330
Toronto, ON
Hey everybody. After the initial honeymoon, having been blown away by my new MacBook Pro 17", I found an issue that could be quite serious but seems to be standard on this type of display:

A gradient color should display in a smooth transition. It did on my 3 yr old MBP 15". On the new 17", I see visible sections of color as if my display were showing 256 colors!

Is this because the resolution is so much higher on this display? I've read on other forums people complaining of the same.

To compound my issue, the angle at which I view the screen affects the color being displayed! I'm a graphic designer and that can prove to be a serious issue. I just designed a red background for a website and when I tilted the display, it turned to pink and in the other direction, brown.

Is this normal? Can it be corrected?
 
ipedro said:
Hey everybody. After the initial honeymoon, having been blown away by my new MacBook Pro 17", I found an issue that could be quite serious but seems to be standard on this type of display:

A gradient color should display in a smooth transition. It did on my 3 yr old MBP 15". On the new 17", I see visible sections of color as if my display were showing 256 colors!

Is this because the resolution is so much higher on this display? I've read on other forums people complaining of the same.

To compound my issue, the angle at which I view the screen affects the color being displayed! I'm a graphic designer and that can prove to be a serious issue. I just designed a red background for a website and when I tilted the display, it turned to pink and in the other direction, brown.

Is this normal? Can it be corrected?
Click to expand...

My 2009 MacBook Pro 2.4 15" does the same, while my old 2.2 MBP did not.
Upsetting. :(
 

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I tried it, but is this what you're talking about? I know that you're talking about the new 17 Inch, and I have the 15. :D Anyways, it is so difficult to check whether or not the display is faulty, because those screen test don't work.
 

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All laptop TN displays suffer from this because they only display 256K colours...i think and use dithering for the rest
 
w00t951 said:
I tried it, but is this what you're talking about? I know that you're talking about the new 17 Inch, and I have the 15. :D Anyways, it is so difficult to check whether or not the display is faulty, because those screen test don't work.
Click to expand...

Posting a screenshot won't help, because I see the same line as I do on my MacBook Pro. You would have to tell us where the line is. Maybe you don't have one.

daneoni said:
All laptop TN displays suffer from this because they only display 256K colours...i think and use dithering for the rest
Click to expand...

Then why didn't my old MBP do that, and this one does?
 
metroid87706 said:
Posting a screenshot won't help, because I see the same line as I do on my MacBook Pro. You would have to tell us where the line is. Maybe you don't have one.



Then why didn't my old MBP do that, and this one does?
Click to expand...

Some TN screens are poorly calibrated and just plain old crap compared to others. In other words you previous screen may simply have made the issue less apparent compared to today's screens

EDIT: What the above poster said
 
Pretty ugly

There actually is a thread about this already:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/677825/

I also noticed in my post that the new MacBook Pros (I tested the 15" and 17") have a noticable vertical banding in smooth gradients. It manifests as thin horizontal lines every other line. As if every other screen line is 'faulty' by being slightly darker or displaying only 256 colors instead of millions.
My post also had a gradient picture attached for testing.
Looks pretty ugly IMHO and makes me not want to spend so much money on a laptop with a rather poor display.

But any such 'poor display' complaints are usually immediately shot down by people saying 'all laptop LCD panels are 6bit, that's what you get'.

But my argument is:
I do not see these ugly artefacts on my old, supposedly far inferior 12" PowerBook's LCD! So why do the 17" MBP flagship LCDs have that issue?

Perhaps it's a fault in the screen driver, that can be fixed at some point. But as it currently stands, my old PowerBook has a better screen than the super expensive 17" MacBook Pro when it comes to displaying gradients.

I'm not impressed.


I did try to take a photo, but the iPhone cam has no macro, so it's a bit blurry. I'll attach it nonetheless.
The actual artefact is much stronger in real life.
What this image basically shows are moire patterns caused by the thin horizontal lines present in smooth gradients on a 17" MBP with matte display. They are also somewhat visible on the desktop image.
Photo taken in an Apple Store.

All 15" and 17" (matte and glossy) MacBook Pros in the Apple Store had the issue prominently, so I assume they didn't have faulty displays, but rather that all new MBP's LCDs are like that.

For comparison I also tested the 24" LED display and the 30" ACD in the Store and they were both fine. The artefact was visible only on the MacBook Pros.
 

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Dreamail said:
But any such 'poor display' complaints are usually immediately shot down by people saying 'all laptop LCD panels are 6bit, that's what you get'.

But my argument is:
I do not see these ugly artefacts on my old, supposedly far inferior 12" PowerBook's LCD! So why do the 17" MBP flagship LCDs have that issue?
...
All 15" and 17" (matte and glossy) MacBook Pros in the Apple Store had the issue prominently, so I assume they didn't have faulty displays, but rather that all new MBP's LCDs are like that.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Same with my previous 15" MBP; it was much better than this new one (UMBP).
 
metroid87706 said:
My 2009 MacBook Pro 2.4 15" does the same, while my old 2.2 MBP did not.
Upsetting. :(
Click to expand...

I think this test doesnt really work, I'm viewing it from my 24" LED ACD which has an H-IPS 8-bit panel on it and the zig zag line looks the same as the one your drew with the black line.
 
ipedro said:
Hey everybody. After the initial honeymoon, having been blown away by my new MacBook Pro 17", I found an issue that could be quite serious but seems to be standard on this type of display:

A gradient color should display in a smooth transition. It did on my 3 yr old MBP 15". On the new 17", I see visible sections of color as if my display were showing 256 colors!

Is this because the resolution is so much higher on this display? I've read on other forums people complaining of the same.

To compound my issue, the angle at which I view the screen affects the color being displayed! I'm a graphic designer and that can prove to be a serious issue. I just designed a red background for a website and when I tilted the display, it turned to pink and in the other direction, brown.

Is this normal? Can it be corrected?
Click to expand...

Has anything been resolved regarding this? I've heard of people with new MBP not seeing these artifacts on their displays.
 
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