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What Are Color Gamuts and Color Spaces in TVs and Monitors, and Do They Matter?
Back in the 1950s, when color TV was invented, everything was simple. TVs were either color or black-and-white, and you could tell at a glance which was which. Today, you can find TVs and monitors that somehow promise more colors, but what does that mean? And why do manufacturers use confusing jargon like color spaces and color gamuts to explain it? Let’s break it down.
Most likely, you've seen the terms “color space” or “color gamut” while shopping for a high-dynamic-range TV, but you’ll also see them pop up around certain computer monitors, especially ones designed for gaming. Sometimes a manufacturer will say that a display covers some percentage of a particular color space, like DCI-P3 or Rec. 2020.
If none of these words mean anything to you, then it’s probably fine if you ignore them. All most people really need to know is whether their display supports HDR—a significant upgrade to color displays that can produce over a billion colors in bright, vivid detail. But if you do a lot of media editing, or you care about getting the most accurate color reproduction you can, here’s how to interpret all the jargon.
As you might recall from middle school science class, color is simply how our squishy human eyes perceive different wavelengths of light. The spectrum of wavelengths that we can see is only a small subset of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. So, a color display will show all the colors that a human eye can see. Right?
