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Color depth (or bit depth) is not the same as gamut. Color depth means just that, the depth of the colors in the picture. Bit depth started with HDTV because it is all digital; bit depth is not applicable to analog TV because the signal there is continuous (not in bits of information), although someone can say that analog NTSC signal had the equivalent of something like 32 bit depth.
The reason why HD broadcasting systems see fit to broadcast a 24 bit depth (or 8 bits per component) picture instead of the equivalent of a 32 bit depth one that analog NTSC used to have is because they believe that the human eye cannot tell the difference above 10 million colors, and actually a 24 bit depth picture has about 16 million colors.
I have read somewhere that television and motion picture engineers believe that the 3 most important things about a picture are gamut, contrast and color depth. Perhaps, they overlook the color depth somewhat nowadays.
Last edited by basil lambri; 06-05-2013 at 09:12 PM.
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