Color

I'm a big believer in having good color. The look of a 3-megapixel photograph from a D-SLR with accurate color is still far more pleasing a 6-megapixel consumer image. Photographers often talk about this quality as being images that are sharp, but not brittle.

We have a much more comprehensive color suite planned, but using the same tests, we decided to look at the purity of each color.

ATI green

NVIDIA green

The greens seem similar enough, but since our test images are only supposed to contain green and "black", we would expect the overlap in the blue and red curves. The ATI seems to be producing a slightly warmer image, which is consistent with what is experienced subjectively.

ATI red

NVIDIA red

ATI blue

NVIDIA blue

Figuring out how the red and green differ is going to require more work and we'll need to turn to more advanced tools than just histograms.

Conclusion

As a rapid communication, there's not much we can say. The one conclusion I feel strongly about is that line conditioning can provide a small, but measurable benefit in picture quality. Again, the standard disclaimer exists -- I live in San Francisco, known for its old power grid. It's hard to assess how this affects the change, but these tests show that line conditioners aren't smoke and mirrors when it comes to performance.

As for the NVIDIA versus ATI image quality question. This article establishes the fact that there are noticeable differences in signal timing (sharpness) and color balance, and so more research will be needed on our part to characterize the differences. Right now, based upon our one monitor, the ATI is producing a sharper picture, but NVIDIA is producing more accurate color.

Whether it is contrast, color, or sharpness that makes for the best picture overall is something photographers have long debated and is something we'll try to address in the next version.