Hewlett Packard, with some assistance from DreamWorks, is announcing a new technology dubbed "HP DreamColor" that the company says will be a "disruptive" force in the market place. MacNN spoke with Jim Zafarana is Vice President, Worldwide Marketing for Hewlett-Packard Company's Workstation Global Business Unit and Jeff Wood, Director Product Marketing at HP about the new technology, which will purportedly pave the way for displays with accurate, predictable color reproduction at a fraction of the cost of similarly capable monitors and finally offer a transition route to flat-panel displays for graphic design firms (like DreamWorks) that have thus far been stuck with CRT displays.

"The entire animation industry has a core need to manage color across their enterprise," Zafarana told MacNN. "Color is part of your brand -- a reflection of the essence of your design." To that end, HP considered the needs of one its biggest clients and partners, DreamWorks, and set out developing a new technology that will offer 30-bit color reproduction (billions of colors) on LED-based, RGB-backlit displays.

Prior to the HP's endeavor, DreamWorks was using CRT, because that's the only display technology that would give them the color calibration, black levels, white levels, etc. that would meet their needs. In fact, DreamWorks had to stock piles of CRTs in warehouses as the CRT industry died. HP was challenged to come develop something to meet their needs, and the result is DreamColor.

One key feature of the DreamColor engine is the capability to snap into various color spaces (standard def, high def, and others) with a compliant display. DreamColor displays also include a color calibration accessory meant to ensure that color remains consistent through time.

All major platforms, including Mac OS X, will be supported by DreamColor displays.

"Apple does not design this class of display," Zafarana "So it will be great to see some DreamColor displays paired with Macs."

HP told MacNN that we should expect to see the first displays using DreamColor technology this Summer.