For example, a black and white image will not look less detailed than a color picture. Luminance, or luma for short, defines most of the picture since contrast is what forms the shapes that you see on the screen. This reduces bandwidth without significantly affecting picture quality.Ī video signal is split into two different aspects: luminance information and color information. What is Chroma Subsampling?Ĭhroma subsampling is a type of compression that reduces the color information in a signal in favor of luminance data. After all, what good is a display that has no way to transfer the signal from the player to the device? One of the easiest ways to transfer more data is to compress the image, which allows for more information to be sent through the cable than it could normally support. As displays have gotten more advanced, supporting ever higher resolutions and faster refresh rates, one of the biggest limiting factors in their development has been the available bandwidth of the cables that connect our devices.

How to play chroma