MacBook - 8Bit Displays

Which MacBooks (Pro or otherwise) have a 8bit display... I just spent a weekend chasing my tail trying to fix a 'display' issue on a MacBook Pro he said the display was 8bit when it was a 6Bit display... He was complaining of banding and inaccurate colours.

(If you you wondering how I found out, have a read here:

Blog)

Faolan wrote in post #8230901
Which MacBooks (Pro or otherwise) have a 8bit display... I just spent a weekend chasing my tail trying to fix a 'display' issue on a MacBook Pro he said the display was 8bit when it was a 6Bit display... He was complaining of banding and inaccurate colours.

(If you you wondering how I found out, have a read here:

Blog)

Apple does not list the specifics (viewing angles, panel type, etc) on their tech specs page (anyone jump in if you find them), so I really wouldn't be surprised if they are 6bit panels with good backlights. Nowhere do they say 16.7 million colors, just "millions of colors", so it may very well be that they have 6bit with FRC (since I haven't seen obvious dithering in the apple store models). Inaccurate colors are likely just do to a bad ICC profile or bad calibration though, if there's one thing I give apple a thumbs up for it's the quality of the screens (though big thumb down to prices). Haven't personally seen the 13.3in though.
Also, for banding, overheating the graphics card will do that (macbooks are known to run hot), and if playing video, upscaling somewhat banded video will produce massive banding.

However, apple does not state the panel type of ANY macbook, and I doubt they will. If you look up part numbers and manufacturers based on feedback here though, you may be able to see a pattern among the sizes

The screen is calibrated (both with my GMB Eye One and his Spyder 3) and when using either ACR or Photoshop there is banding in blue skies and also in the light reds/pinks. Plus there seems to be artefacting in the shadows. When attached to his Lacie Monitor the problems dissappear.

He bought the laptop about a week ago and so far he's less than impressed, particularly with Apple support. If he can't find out which monitors have at least 8bit support he's going to end up buying a PC laptop that has one, which to be fair he doesn't want to go that route because he will end up having to have to buy two copies of his Adobe Software. He specifically asked for a Mac Laptop that could handle wide gamut images as he has to do tethered shooting on clients premises. Ironically his older MacBook Pro did this flawlessly.

Mind you I got some nice Mac Pro RAM from him to sell despite me not being able to 'fix' the problem.

Faolan wrote in post #8230982
If he can't find out which monitors have at least 8bit support he's going to end up buying a PC laptop that has one, which to be fair he doesn't want to go that route because he will end up having to have to buy two copies of his Adobe Software.

He can try asking adobe about changing licenses to windows ones, some windows users were told that it's possible windows to osx, so I don't see why it wouldn't be the same the other way (there is also a chance that someone mis-spoke about it)

He does most of his editing on a Mac Pro hence why he went Mac Book. Because of his experience with Apple support (and he's a hard core Apple user) and looking at spending nearly £1,700 to get the Windows version of Creative Suite, he's definitely not a happy bunny. Adobe told him that he needs two licences if he wishes to run the Windows with the Mac. He could use a VM but you take a performance/RAM hit with that option plus running Premiere et all under a VM is definitely not recommended.

In addition he's thinking of selling the Mac Pro because he needs more RAM than the Mac can give him in Ps CS4. I think his experience with the Laptop may push him over.

To the best of my knowledge no one makes a laptop with an 8bit screen.

It is one of the compromises you have to make when buying a laptop.

Faolan wrote in post #8231157
In addition he's thinking of selling the Mac Pro because he needs more RAM than the Mac can give him in Ps CS4. I think his experience with the Laptop may push him over.

He's going to have that problem with the laptop no matter what brand he chooses, not much he can do about that.
I used a 2008 model Macbook Pro the other day, and I have to say the screen was actually pretty good. Not ideal, but good enough for onsite work.


The current version of OS-X is not true 64bit, so Adobe never made a 64bit version of CS4 for the Mac.
The next version of OS-X is true 64bit, so I would hope that CS5 will have a 64bit version for the Mac.
If Adobe also make use of Open CL, there is the potential for photoshop etc, to run extremely well on Macs.


Of course if your mate can't wait that long then you can introduce him to an i7 920 and Windows Vista

He's looking at both Xeon/Opteron workstations from HP. His prime focus is video work so probably the Xeon would be the best option for render times but for budget the Opteron gets the nod. Plus it's easier to find 4Gb modules for Workstations/Servers

His issue is that his old MacBook Pro display was fine, it just died a death in the recent heat wave and he can't understand why the new display is decidely worse. There is a few PC laptops that come with a 8bit display but their rare and hard to find but he's looking at the Lenovo ThinkPad W700 as an option.

Plus if he goes PC now, he'll get the Win 7 upgrade for free.

Faolan wrote in post #8230901
Which MacBooks (Pro or otherwise) have a 8bit display...

None.

basroil wrote in post #8230992
He can try asking adobe about changing licenses to windows ones, some windows users were told that it's possible windows to osx, so I don't see why it wouldn't be the same the other way (there is also a chance that someone mis-spoke about it)

If he is going to use the Adobe software on both the Mac Pro and the PC laptop the of course he would have to buy a new license.

Faolan wrote in post #8231316
He's looking at both Xeon/Opteron workstations from HP. His prime focus is video work so probably the Xeon would be the best option for render times but for budget the Opteron gets the nod. Plus it's easier to find 4Gb modules for Workstations/Servers

His issue is that his old MacBook Pro display was fine, it just died a death in the recent heat wave and he can't understand why the new display is decidely worse. There is a few PC laptops that come with a 8bit display but their rare and hard to find but he's looking at the Lenovo ThinkPad W700 as an option.

Plus if he goes PC now, he'll get the Win 7 upgrade for free.

Have him check the Apple store online for refurbs, the previous generation unibody MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz is $1349. I'm not sure if that is the same model as what he had or not. I would never have recommended the MacBook to replace the Pro in the circumstances that you describe.

I'm a little curious though as a hard core Apple User as to why he's not using Final Cut Pro.

It's simple the work flow in Creative Suite is far superior to that of Final Cut pro, especially when you factor in the Dynamic Link functionality plus OnLocation -> Premiere <-> After Effects -> Encore. This is isn't to say Final Cut is bad, it isn't but for what he does and project he works on he needs this flexibility. It was a interesting couple of hours talking to this guy about video footage and learning a few new tricks in After Effects.

As to recommendation, I don't have a scoobies apparently it was a dealer in Manchester that sold it to him. He really doesn't know that much about hardware.

Faolan wrote in post #8231316
He's looking at both Xeon/Opteron workstations from HP. His prime focus is video work so probably the Xeon would be the best option for render times but for budget the Opteron gets the nod. Plus it's easier to find 4Gb modules for Workstations/Servers

I really don't get why people get xeon workstations unless they are going two/four way and planning on 16GB+ memory. If he wants single core, tell him to go i7, he can save thousands and have about the same performance (if he wants to run workstation apps, have him spend the money on a quadro instead of xeon).

Faolan wrote in post #8231786
As to recommendation, I don't have a scoobies apparently it was a dealer in Manchester that sold it to him. He really doesn't know that much about hardware.

Obviously not (dealer).

Premier/After Effects can use 4Gb RAM per core and is 64Bit optimised. He's looking at around 32Gb of RAM on board. The 64Bit optimisation is another nail in the coffin against OS X. This is why he's looking at workstation/server class processors. AS to costs I don't think he's too bothered as he can get most of it back from the business.

I have advised him to look into CUDA/Stream rendering but there's not much on the ground for this yet. Another option is to set up a render farm of smaller, less powerful machines.

However thanks for the info re: Apple displays and the rest of the advice, I'll pass it along tonight.