macbook air 10bit of color output

MacBook Air 13- and 15-inch with M4 Chip - Tech Specs - Apple

Display Support

• Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at 1 billion colors and:
• Up to two external displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz

10 bit color = 1.07 billion colors

marshall_du wrote:

So which means both MacBook Air &Pro with M4 chip can suppport 10bit of color depth and 6k@60hz at the same time?

The Apple Pro Display XDR is a 32" 6K display that supports "P3 wide color gamut [and] 10-bit depth for 1.073 billion colors". That is probably the display that Apple has in mind – and I would guess that both M4 notebooks have the ability to drive one at 6K resolution, at 60 Hz, with 10-bit-per-channel color depth.

Over Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt provides a wide "data highway", and I believe that where the Apple 5K and 6K displays are concerned, a Mac would make two DisplayPort connections over one physical Thunderbolt cable. Each connection would carry data to refresh one half of the 5K or 6K display.

A USB-C (DisplayPort) display or adapter would be limited to 4K resolution. But I believe that USB-C (DP) can support 4K @ 60 Hz @ 10-bit-per-channel color depth. That's what the Dell 4K monitor connected to my Mac Studio claims that it is seeing.

If HDMI is involved, there may be some limitations.

• HDMI v1.4 only supports driving 4K monitors at 30 Hz. Someone started a thread recently after they couldn't get a 4K monitor to run at 60 Hz on a new Mac. Turns out that the monitor had a HDMI v1. 4 port, and that if you wanted 4K @ 60 Hz, you had to hook it up using its DisplayPort input.
• HDMI v2.0 does not support using 4K, 60 Hz, 10-bit-per-channel color, and RGB 4:4:4 encoding at the same time. Compromising on 4:4:4 encoding forces adjacent pixels to have the same color, which reduces the true resolution. So the usual tradeoff is that you can have 60 Hz OR 10-bit color, but NOT both.
• HDMI v2.1 has several times as much bandwidth as HDMI v2.0 and should not suffer these issues. But many Mac HDMI ports, monitor HDMI ports, and uSB-C to HDMI adapters do not support HDMI v2.1.

There is no need for special formatting.

marshall_du wrote:

I have always been curious about the latest MacBook models, whether it is the Pro or the Air model

the output color depth are missing. For example my macbook pro 2020 intel model has such description

(Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:

One external 6K display with 6016-by-3384 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors, or

One external 5K display with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors, or

Up to two external 4K displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at millions of colors) but in the new M4 model I can't figure out

it support the depth of color output.

10 bit color = 1.07 billion colors

MacBook Air 13- and 15-inch with M4 Chip - Tech Specs - Apple

Studio Display - Technical Specifications - Apple

I don't see anything in Apple's Technical Specifications or Support documents about the color depths supported on external displays. It does seem odd that the information is missing.

Use an external display with your MacBook Air - Apple Support

Use an external display with your MacBook Pro - Apple Support

"Millions of colors" is usually a reference to 8-bit-per-channel color.

2^8 = 256 levels per channel, and 256^3 = 16,777,216 conbinations.

As mentioned, "over a billion colors" is usually a reference to 10-bit-per-channel color.

2^10 = 1,024 levels per channel, and 1,024^3 = 1,073,741,824 combinations.