AJA KONA LHe Plus Installation And Operation Manual page 85

particularly noticeable in scenes having soft gradients like a ramp or sunset. For
example, if a sky region is mostly the same color but varies by only a few digital
numbers from one side of the picture to another, you may see contour lines
where the signal passes from one digital value to the next higher value.
Since each numerical value in a 10-bit system is only one fourth as large as an
8-bit system's, these contours become invisible and the sky varies smoothly.
10-bit video is often used when the source and output video (or "master") is also
10-bit. Even if the input and/or output video is 8-bit, a 10-bit "project" will still
maintain a higher quality when there is a significant amount of effects rendering
involved.
Industry standard professional mastering formats—Sony Digital Betacam for
Standard Definition and Panasonic D5 for High Definition—are both true 10-bit
formats.
KONA Capture, Display, Convert v13.0 85 www.aja.com