Workaround: Broken “Input Range” Setting in Intel Graphics

The Problem

Comparing between 0-255 and 15-255 input range.

If you’re connecting your laptop to a TV and the black in the image is grey instead, your laptop is not outputting the full 8-bit-per-channel color range. Instead of sending values between 0 and 255, it’s sending 15-255. You could compensate for this in some TV’s settings, but you’d be losing color definition.

Input Range setting in Intel Graphics Control Panel

Intel defaults to 15-255. There is a setting for this in the Intel Graphics Control Panel (In Video > Color Enhancement), but it doesn’t seem to take any effect… unless you do the following:

The Workaround

  1. Make sure Input Range is set to ‘Full Range‘.
  2. Now go back to the main menu and into the Display page.
  3. In the Color Settings section, Enable ‘YCbCr’.
  4. Wait for several seconds for the setting to revert itself. You should now be getting full 0-255 color range.

You have to do this every time you restart the computer or reconnect the TV.

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