Mac Mini video out : millions or billions of colors?

[Frank Philips]

Hi,

a few questions for owners of the new Mini.

Does the Mini output video at millions (8-bit) or billions (10-bit)* of colors?

If the latter, did you get the signal out through HDMI or TB/USB-C?

Finally, can you guys post a list of color spaces the Mini supports (eg: does it have Rec.2020/BT.2020 or Rec.2100/BT.2100)?

Thanks




* Note : yes, I know I should rather say 24-bit and 30-bit, but I tried to simplify for the sake of clarity.

 

[ArPe]

If your display is HDR and the Mac supports it then you’ll get 10 bit (or 10 bit with dithering as some displays do).

The spaces you mention are purely for certain videos. For computer use set your display to default, P3 or custom calibrated profiles. Your monitor should be standard gamma profiles such as BT 1886. If you’re using a display as a video reference monitor then ST 2084.

You’ll see the display switch when you enable HDR in they prefs.

If you want to check if wide color is well supported Google P3 WebKit and check out all the sample images.

 

[joevt]

For some reason, Apple likes to hide this info (output resolution, bit depth, color space, chroma sub sampling, DSC, DisplayPort link rate and lanes). They give you the framebuffer resolution (in the GPU memory) and the framebuffer pixel format (but I don't think they do that for the M1 Macs anymore?) - but that framebuffer info doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the output info (for example, the framebuffer may have a resolution of 5K, use RGB 10 bpc, but output 4K, YPbPr, with 4:2:0 chroma sub sampling).

You might be able to see some of this info using the AGDCDiagnose command (works only on Intel - AMD GPUs provide the most info) and the log stream command.

 

[Frank Philips]

If your display is HDR and the Mac supports it then you’ll get 10 bit (or 10 bit with dithering as some displays do).

Hence why I try to find if the Mini supports it.
Apple gives the info about the M1 Air and MBP sort of (millions of colors on the built-in display, but no info on the TB/USB-C out).
No info whatsoever on the Mini...

By the way, one more question (though I'm 99.99% sure I already know the answer) : unless Apple secretly put back the digital out, the headphone out is analog only, right?

 

[Frank Philips]

You might be able to see some of this info using the AGDCDiagnose command (works only on Intel - AMD GPUs provide the most info) and the log stream command.

I would happily do it, and pass the info around, IF I owned a M1 Mini.
This question of bit depth, color space etc. is one of the reasons why I'm still considering whether or not I will buy one.

I have other concerns that will or will not be answered by online reviews (even though there's no T2 chip, will the M1 Macs suffer from a sound bug? Is h.264 / h.265 video conversion really that good? etc.)
Among other things.