Question Why do Blu ray players etc use YCBCR not RGB?

blackmesa8

Ex Member
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
1,403
Reaction score
377
Points
279
Hi guys, Always been wondering abou this. Why is RGB not used for movies or TV episodes?
Isn't it just a compression format of colours or so?

Why do things played back through RGB seem more jerky (unless there games etc) than movies played back through YCBCR?

Is it the fact all of todays TV's can't cope with uncompressed RGB at 4K HDR? Although if that were the case how they are coping fine with 4K 60fps/hz HDR gaming so easily in full RGB mode?

What is the difference between RGB and YCBCR and why does TV and MOVIES use YCBCR and PC's and Games consoles use RGB?
 
Wiki on YUV/YCC and rtings article on chroma subsampling explain it.

Simple short version is it was invented for use were bandwidth was constrained and video color space didn't necessarily need to be fully uncompressed. Over the years bandwidth has improved and allowed the increased use of RGB.

As to why it's still used my guess part familiarity, a lot of TV/movie production chain have been using it for so long and see no reason to change.

The HDMI 2.0 interface cannot do RGB 10-bit HDR at 4K 60Hz, game consoles switch over to YUV 10-bit 420 in order to output HDR signals at 4K 60Hz. For video and games the visual difference is minor between RGB and YUV, see rtings article.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom