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And i'm am so sure they will care.....
For one thing, VZW has nothing to do with the dithering (the proper term for "color banding"), the company that writes the OS and builds the Blackberry is known as Research In Motion. No more a part of VZW than Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc.
Second of all, the device still operates in 16-bit color mode. Watch a video in media player and that is plainly evident.
The Storm is advertised as displaying 65,536 colors.... AND IT DOES. Dithering GUI bitmaps does not equal running at a lower depth. If the device were running at a lower color depth, EVERYTHING running on the device would show at a lower color depth.Last edited by Dave12308; 05-29-09 at 11:20 AM.
05-29-09 11:17 AM - As VZW has to support all BB's on its network and approves all updates, they should care, even if they aren't the ones who develop the OS software.And i'm am so sure they will care.....
For one thing, VZW has nothing to do with the dithering (the proper term for "color banding"), the company that writes the OS and builds the Blackberry is known as Research In Motion. No more a part of VZW than Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc.
Second of all, the device still operates in 16-bit color mode. Watch a video in media player and that is plainly evident.
The Storm is advertised as displaying 65,536 colors.... AND IT DOES. Dithering GUI bitmaps does not equal running at a lower depth. If the device were running at a lower color depth, EVERYTHING running on the device would show at a lower color depth.
Debating the semantics and technicalities behind this issue is not something I want to get into. Instead, I want the phone's GUI to look at least as good as the one on the device I bought. Simple as that.05-29-09 11:28 AM - If you buy a car advertised as having 500HP, and find out it's only pushing 400HP at the crank, are you going to complain to the dealer, or are you going to call up the customer service for the car company?
Same principal, VZW sells and supports the device, they DO NOT code the OS, and considering RIM reduced the GUI color depth in .90 and didn't raise it back up, it's obviously a sacrifice they felt they had to make. Who knows if they'll bring it back in 5.0. If you want to raise ****, call RIM, not Verizon.
The banding all boils down to sacrifice, something had to be sacrificed to bring phone performance up to an acceptable level. Rewriting the OS to support OpenGL or what not wasn't an option, so they did what they had to do.
I can understand the frustration of some users, but the pros of the reduction in color depth outweigh the cons by a landslide.
And regarding semantics, Dave is incorrect, dithering isn't banding, it's what they use to prevent banding from being visible. It's when they use noise (a crapload of dots/speckles) in an image to smooth gradients and color fades. Here's a perfect example.
If RIM used dithering a little more, it might help quell some of the complaints actually.05-29-09 12:25 PM - So rather than actually fix the OS to support the graphics chip that is currently NOT being used whatsoever, we should just accept the reduced color depth.If you buy a car advertised as having 500HP, and find out it's only pushing 400HP at the crank, are you going to complain to the dealer, or are you going to call up the customer service for the car company?
Same principal, VZW sells and supports the device, they DO NOT code the OS, and considering RIM reduced the GUI color depth in .90 and didn't raise it back up, it's obviously a sacrifice they felt they had to make. Who knows if they'll bring it back in 5.0. If you want to raise ****, call RIM, not Verizon.
The banding all boils down to sacrifice, something had to be sacrificed to bring phone performance up to an acceptable level. Rewriting the OS to support OpenGL or what not wasn't an option, so they did what they had to do.
I can understand the frustration of some users, but the pros of the reduction in color depth outweigh the cons by a landslide.
And regarding semantics, Dave is incorrect, dithering isn't banding, it's what they use to prevent banding from being visible. It's when they use noise (a crapload of dots/speckles) in an image to smooth gradients and color fades. Here's a perfect example.
If RIM used dithering a little more, it might help quell some of the complaints actually.
I paid for a phone with 65k colors, not 65k colors on most parts, except for the main screen.
They're putting a band-aid on a gaping wound, that the OS we have is just the Bold OS with some touch screen stuff thrown in. It needed to be redone from the ground up, not adapted as they did.05-29-09 12:33 PM - With .90, .103, .109, .132, I saw the "color banding".. While I noticed it, it really didn't totally bother me, because I only saw it on the lock screen when landscaped, or the the media player's initial screen (where you select video, pictures, music, ring tones), or the halo around the selected icon, key on the keyboard, or menu item.
When I had a home screen wall paper that was a photo or other picture, it didn't impact me.
It didn't have an effect on watching videos, or viewing pictures/photos.
When .148 came out, I wiped and RestToFactory using Javaloader. I then flashed .75, played with it for about 5 min, wiped and RestToFactory again, and then loaded .148.
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FLAME SUIT ON!! )
I honestly don't see it with .148 like I did with the other leaks.
If .148 still has it, it is so subtle that I can can't see it. Its gone from the lock screen in landscape, not in the media app's screen, not there when I'm making a menu selection.
I'd liken it to... if 75 is 16bit color (64k), then .90 thru .132 are 8bit color (256), and if .148 isn't 16bit, then its 15bit (32k), and certainly not 8bit.
The only place I kind of see it, if I look for it, is the halo around the selected icon on the home screen.05-29-09 12:50 PM - Thats probably because you are using a decent theme instead of stock. The banding is a minor little thing that shows up around icons and selection boxes and the such. Instead of a smooth transition from the lighter areas to the darker ones, it has solid bands from light to dark. Personally I think it looks okay myself. They probably did it after .75 to increase performance. What ticks off some of the guys I think is the fact that the hardware is capable of video acceleration but it is not implemented in this iteration of the OS. If it was, there are not enough effects in the world to slow the phone down.
I would think if you are happy with your phone as it is, stay that way. If you find yourself noticing the banding now, get a good theme. The more menus the theme takes over, the less banding you will notice. Blackberry Pro V3 has almost none at all as and example and does not seem to have memory leaks, another favorite complaint around here. This problem will probably resolve itself if and when 5.0 comes out. It would be idiotic on RIMS part to not use the hardware capabilities of the chipset going into most of their newer phones. The phones hardware is just better than the phones software. Sort of like M$05-29-09 02:46 PM
