Anyone know of (before I get to work calibrating my new display) of the 6/8/10 (or whatever) bit colour tests you can look at in a browser ?

Found this one so far...

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y127/g ... rtest2.jpg

You are supposed to be clearly able to see each colour gradient left to right, each one is graded left to right, dark to light and the far right ones should not look washed out.

Also what is the truth concerning using Display Port, does it really give you 10 bit, whereas DVI and HDMI will only give 8 ? If its right, I will have to buy a DP capable card, but I don't want to spew money on one if its not true.

Edit, found this one too, and I want to be in the right ball park before I get my friend to set it up with his medallion thingy....

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php

Unless you are paying a couple of grand for the monitor, the display port/DVI isn't going to be the problem. The "cheap" non-professional dispalys all have 6 bit GLUTs, the more expensive semi-pro stuff make a big thing of having 8-bit GLUTs.

It's a Dell 2709W S-PVA and I am using it for Autocad, Solidworks and Photoshop. Hence I need it to be accurate.

Then I would really invest in a proper calibration unit...

Yep, we used the Spider at our last place.

Is the crappy colour banding on modern LCD TV do to a low bit colour system or poor compressed digital broadcasts/discs?
I usually spot it in the background, eg a blue sky not being shown as a gradual colour change, but sudden blocks of colour.

This is more likely to be compression. I see it a lot on digital TV channels, even on a CRT display. You will also see artefacts around any moving object in such situations.

I don’t notice it on DVD or BluRay play back.

That is down to the compression, I used to see that, when I switched to Sky digital on my old CRT television, when I was still in the UK. We don't seem to get such heavy compression over here, the images aren't so blocky and sunsets etc. are better graduated, even on my LCD TV.