Dan Mons

D93 colour matrix and CRT colour simulation announced for RetroTink4K

Posted on by Dan Mons

RetroTink creator Mike Chi announced on Twitter that the upcoming RetroTink4K will include full custom colour matrix support.

If you’ve been following my posts on RetroRGB these last few weeks, you’ll know I’ve been working on a series of mathematical inputs and outputs that allow modern monitors and TVs to display accurate simulations of other colours systems.

Some systems such as MiSTer, can only do this along the grey scale (i.e.: only simulating a shift in the white point).  So while they can simulate D93, they can’t fully simulate more complex adaptations of the primary colours of certain types of CRTs, or certain phosphors used in CRT manufacturing.

Other systems such as MAME allow a 64^3 point LUT (lookup table), which gives better primary RGB simulation abilities as well as the white point, but at slightly lower accuracy (a downsampling of 1:4).

Mike has announced that the RetroTink 4K includes full matrix support, which means it has the ability to fully simulate the colour profiles and behaviour of any known CRT (as long as the data for that CRT can be measured or collected).

Mike shared screenshots of the tool in action.  You can see on his first here Super Metroid with a much less red sky under this input matrix which defines a measured PVM 20M2U profile with D93 white point, supplied by Keith Raney:

And here an early version of the colour matrix selector, along with a few of the matrices I have stored in my repo:

Combined with the existing announced features like BT.2020 (both wide gamut and HDR) support (which will allow a fully unclipped representation of D93), BFI (black frame insertion), shadow masks, and all the previous gen Tink features, this product is shaping up to be a spectacular tool for people interesting in getting as close as they can to a CRT-like experience on modern display technology.  A very welcome addition in a world where CRTs continue to both dwindle in number, and increase in price.

Mike’s announcement can be seen here:

https://twitter.com/retrotink2/status/1722065319416545347