Video signal
Colour depth: 8, 10, 12, 16-bit (deep colour)
How many brightness steps each colour channel has; 10-bit or more avoids banding in HDR.
What is it?
8-bit gives 256 levels per channel (16.7 million colours), 10-bit 1024 levels (1.07 billion), 12-bit 4096 levels. HDR10 is mastered in 10-bit, Dolby Vision in 12-bit. 'Deep colour' is HDMI's name for anything above 8-bit; 16-bit (48-bit total) is the maximum the HDMI 2.0 spec defines and the Vertex² supports. Too few bits show up as banding — visible steps in skies and gradients.
Why it matters with the HDfury Vertex²
The HDfury Vertex² keeps 12-bit intact when scaling (any 4:2:2 signal is processed at 12-bit and never clipped) and can raise or lower bit depth per output, e.g. 12-bit to a projector and 8-bit to a capture card. The OLED shows the real bit depth of the incoming and outgoing signal. Note: standard Dolby Vision (TV-led) travels in an 8-bit RGB container — an '8b' readout during DV is normal, not a downgrade.
How to use it on the Vertex²
Web server → SCALER → Custom scaling → Deep colour per output: Follow input, 8, 10, 12 or 16-bit. Combine with chroma: at 4K60, 12-bit is only possible with 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 within 18 Gbps.
Related terms
- Chroma subsampling: 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0 — How much colour detail travels with the picture; 4:4:4 is full colour, 4:2:0 is what discs and streaming use.
- HDR10 — The baseline HDR format: 10-bit, PQ curve, BT.2020 with static metadata.
- Dolby Vision (DV) — Dolby's premium HDR format: 12-bit, dynamic metadata, tone-mapped per scene.
- 18 Gbps / 600 MHz bandwidth — The maximum data rate of HDMI 2.0 — the Vertex² passes it through untouched.