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Chapter 5. Digital Display Devices

5.1. CRT Monitors

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General Characteristics
Figure 5.1. Characteristic curve of CRT monitor as
In the CRT (cathode-ray tube) of a linear plot.
computer or video monitor an
electron beam moves back and forth
across the back of the screen. Each
time the beam makes a pass across
the screen, it lights up phosphor dots
(pixels) on the inside of the glass
tube, thereby illuminating the active
portions of the screen. By drawing
many such lines from the top to the
bottom of the screen, it creates an
entire image. A color CRT uses
three electron guns which activate
red light-emitting, green light-
emitting, and blue light-emitting In a linear plot one can not see a difference between the
phosphors. interpolated measurements (black line) and the theoretical
gamma curve (green line).

Characteristic Curve Figure 5.2. Characteristic curve of CRT monitor as

logarithmic plot.
The output of the electron gun is not
linearly related to the monitor
signal. The relation is a power law
where the exponent is known as
“gamma”, see Figure 5.1. The
gamma value for monitors is
typically around 2.4. Some
mathematical background is
explained at the end of this section.
The usual display of the transfer
curve with linear units conceals
some of the details in the lower
values. Looking at the plot with log
units in Figure 5.2, you see that the
curve is bent at lower signal levels. The black line is the optimal transfer curve while the gray
line shows the influence of 0.5% flare. The green line is
The CRT can not produce an the “gamma curve”, which becomes a straight line in a log
absolute black, even when the driver plot.
signal drops to zero some electrons
are emitted from the gun.
The characteristic curve of the CRT is found by measuring the luminance of single gray
patches with increasing intensity. From the logarithmic plot one could assume that the CRT
can display an image with a contrast of 1000:1. As with film projectors we have to
consider viewing flare, though. It is caused by stray light reflected from the monitor’s glass
faceplate and by internal reflections in the tube. Again, the flare may be small in linear
terms (0.5 to 1.0%), but the visual impact of the effect is much better presented in
logarithmic scales, as in Figure 5.2.
To judge the performance of an image display device it’s always preferable to look at a
logarithmic plot of the characteristic curve.

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Gamma
It was stated earlier that gamma is the straight line of the characteristic curve of negative
film. Now, gamma is described as an exponent. The reason for this difference is that the
characteristic film curve is a log-log plot (density vs. log exposure), while the transfer
curve of monitors is usually displayed with linear units (luminance vs. driver signal). A
power equation with linear units like
luminance = signal ^ gamma
becomes a linear equation with log units
log( luminance ) = log( signal ) * gamma

5.2. DLP Projectors

General Characteristics Figure 5.3. Characteristic curve of DLP projector as

logarithmic plot.
DLP is the abbreviation for Digital
Light Processing, a new technology
developed by Texas Instruments
used for projecting images onto a
large screen for presentations. DLP
uses tiny mirrors housed on a
special microchip called a Digital
Micromirror Device (DMD).

Characteristic Curve
Digital projectors are quite
adjustable in their characteristics.
The Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI)
recommends to run the projector The characteristic curve of a DLP is similar to the curve of
a CRT monitor. Again, the black line is the optimal
with a gamma of 2.6. The transfer curve while the gray line shows the influence of
characteristic curve of a DLP tuned 0.5% flare. The green line shows the “gamma” of the
to this recommendation is similar to straight part of the curve.
the curve of a CRT monitor.
Compare Figure 5.3 with Figure 5.2.

5.3. Displaying Images

Grayscale Matching Figure 5.4. Transfer curve for print film contrast
simulation on CRT monitor.
Since the characteristic curves of
print film and monitor are known,
one can calculate a transfer curve,
which produces a good match
between the former and the latter.
The result is illustrated in
Figure 5.4. Displaying Cineon/DPX

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scans from a negative with this

curve brings out images with
grayscale characteristics matched to
a projected print from the same
negative. More has to be done to
achieve a good color match as well,
this will be the topic of the next
chapter.
Not surprisingly, the curve shows
the same non-linear characteristics
as the curve of print film displayed
in Figure 2.7. Is this curve only an
artifact of the motion picture
system? Can we abandon this
This transfer curve renders a DPX image on a CRT
transfer function once Digital monitor that has the grayscale characteristic depicted in
Cinema has replaced traditional Figure 5.2 to match a projected print of the negative.
print release?
Figure 5.5. Linear luminance encoding clipped above
A display of a photographed scene reference white.
on a monitor or on a digital
projector has to deal with the
following conditions.

1. Viewing flare will reduce the

maximum display contrast.
2. Because flare light generally
is white, its addition will also
reduce the saturation of
colors.
3. The absolute luminance level
of the display will be lower
than in the original scene. As
explained before this results
in lower perceived luminance This is still the only display mode or, even worse,
contrast and colorfulness. conversion offered by some image processing software for
Cineon/DPX files.
4. Lateral brightness adaptation
in a dark or dim surround will Figure 5.6. Scene in linear luminance encoding clipped
reduce the perceived contrast above reference white.
as well.

To compensate for the conditions 2

to 4, a higher midtone gamma must
be used. But at the same time the
viewing flare constrains the display
contrast to a range which is typically
The image is gamma corrected for display on CRT
lower than in the photographed monitor.
scene.
So there are three choices. Figure 5.7. ITU-R BT.709 transfer curve.

i. Map the original scene

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contrast linearly into the

display. If one wants to keep
the specular highlights, the
resulting image looks much
too dark as was already seen
in Figure 3.12.
ii. Transfer the scene contrast
with a higher gamma while
clipping at the reference white
point; the result is shown in
Figure 5.6. The midscale
brightness looks correct but
compared with Figure 1.1 it
has flat shadows and the
The overall shape is a compensation for the characteristic
specular highlights are curve of a CRT monitor, but the ITU function is not
missing. simply a mathematical inverse of the monitor
iii. Apply a shadow and highlight characteristic.
compression preserving some Figure 5.8. Broadcast system transfer curve.
of the differences in the lower
and upper end of the tonal
scale. This is the S-shaped
transfer function of the
motion picture system.

It’s a common misconception to

think of the S-shaped transfer
function of photographic systems as
a result of chemical limitations. No
matter if the scene was
photographed on film or with a
digital camera and regardless of the
encoding the optimum reproduction
characteristics are highly nonlinear. This is the “print-through curve” of the broadcast system.
The black curve shows the relation between scene
luminance and monitor luminance, the gray curve reflects
Transfer Curve in Broadcast the influence of 0.5% viewing flare. The thin straight line
System is the unity slope.
A digital projector has a higher gamma than a monitor
The television broadcast system is because projected images in a dark surround need another
characteristic than images viewed in a dim surround. The
not one-to-one with the original system transfer function resulting from using a DLP
scene either. The recommendation projector instead of a monitor is shown in the blue curve.
ITU-R BT.709 specifies the
encoding of luminance values with a
power function where the gamma value is 0.45, see below. A video camera according to
this standard outputs RGB values which are related to the scene luminance as shown in
Figure 5.7. This is a compensation for the characteristic curve of a CRT monitor, but the
ITU function is not simply a mathematical inverse of the monitor characteristic. The
resulting transfer function, when the camera signal is viewed on a broadcast monitor, looks
like Figure 5.8 . It has a non-linear shadow compression and the gamma value is greater
than one. To some degree the higher gamma is a compensation for viewing flare. Although

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the gray curve, where a flare of 0.5% was assumed, still has a midscale slope of approx.
1.2.
The ITU function is derived from experience with broadcast video cameras that have been
adjusted by skilled camera operators such that excellent quality video images are produced.
This experience shows that a video image needs a higher-than-one gamma to be judged as
a good reproduction of the scene. This can be explained by the same effects as before:
lower luminance and lateral brightness adaptation. Since video images are normally
viewed in a dim surround, the system gamma is lower than in motion picture film, which is
viewed in a dark surround. Also, the standard video system is not designed to capture
highlights above the reference white point.

ITU-R BT.709 transfer curve

The formula is taken from the recommendation ITU-R BT.709 by the International
Television Union.
signal = 1.099 * rel. luminance ^ 0.45 – 0.099
For relative luminance levels below 0.018:
signal = 4.5 * rel. luminance

5.4. Summary
CRT monitors have a non-linear characteristic, known as a gamma curve. A simple
power function, however, does not give an accurate description of the monitor
performance at low luminance values.
DLP projectors are made to have a characteristic curve similar to CRT monitors; the
gamma value is greater to compensate for the viewing conditions in a dark
projection room.
For an optimal reproduction of a photographed scene having a large contrast on a
digital display an S-shaped transfer function is needed.
The television broadcast system is not one-to-one with the original scene.

© 2005 Harald Brendel, Arnold & Richter Cine Technik

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