Technology Trade-offs

Although video standards assume a display gamma of about 2.2, a gamma of about 2.5 is more realistic for CRT displays. However, this difference improves the viewing in a dimly lit environment. More accurate viewing in a brightly lit environment may be accomplished by applying another gamma factor of about 1.14 (2.5/2.2). It is also common to tweak the gamma curve in the display to get closer to the “film look.”

Early NTSC Systems

Early NTSC systems assumed a simple transform at the display, with a gamma of 2.2. RGB values are normalized to have a range of 0 to 1:

To compensate for the nonlinear display, linear RGB data was ...

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