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I know there are video cards that display True Color (24 bit color), but are there any video cards that display Deep Color (30, 36 and 48 bit color)?

Further-more are there any display devices that can handle Deep Color?

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The ATI FireGL™ 3D Workstation Graphics Accelerators support 16-bit per RGB channel (48-bit color). "Beyond true color" video is typically used for HDRI applications (high dynamic range imaging).

Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 if you have a video card that supports 48-bit color and a monitor that supports 48-bit color using hdmi 1.3.

Here are a few articles I found about monitors supporting HDR and 48-bit images:

Sunnybrook HDR displays 40,000:1 resolution

BrightSide DR37-P HDR display

SIM2 Solar Series HDR LCD Monitor

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Just curious, roughly how many bits per channel is the Mark I eyeball good for? – dmckee Aug 6 '09 at 2:41
I thought it was in the range of 32-bits (+/- a few billion colors). We'll see if 48-bit makes a difference or if it is going to be the next "resolution war." – Robert Cartaino♦ Aug 6 '09 at 3:16
I was always taught that the human eye can only reliably discern roughly 24-bit color; however we can still see "banding" of similar, but slightly different -- notably in very large, very subtle gradients where 24-bit isn't sufficient to get all the variance between the start and end shades. I think the 48-bit color will help with that issue. John Carmack wrote up something about that a few years back. – John Rudy Aug 6 '09 at 13:35
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I think the 8 extra bits in "32-bit" color are actually for alpha transparency. Since 2^32 is about 4.3 billion (only a few, itself), "+/- a few billion" could widen your range to anywhere from 0 to 8 billion or more. ;) – rob Jan 29 '10 at 21:20
It's also worth noting that some people are tetrachromatic, and can see more colors than the rest of us. – rob Jan 29 '10 at 21:22
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