Horrible ImageView bitmap quality?

Question

I've got a splash screen with an ImageView playing the part of a background. Regardless of whether or not I allow my bitmap to be scaled (which I do), the image quality is horrible. I think it's reducing the color depth. I've looked around SO already and one suggestion was to place my image in raw instead of drawable but that didn't help either. Here is a screenshot:

What exactly is going on here and how do I fix it?

EDIT: I didn't apply this bitmap programmatically so there's no relevant Java code. Here is the XML code for this activity:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/RelativeLayoutSplash"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:drawingCacheQuality="high"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:padding="@dimen/splash_padding"
    android:scrollbarAlwaysDrawVerticalTrack="true"
    tools:context=".SplashActivity" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/ImageViewBg"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:contentDescription="@string/logo_description"
        android:scaleType="centerCrop"
        android:src="@drawable/splash_bg_register" />

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/ImageViewLogo"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:contentDescription="@string/logo_description"
        android:maxHeight="@dimen/logo_maxheight"
        android:maxWidth="@dimen/logo_maxwidth"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:src="@drawable/logo" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/TextViewCopyright"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:text="@string/copyright"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall"
        android:textColor="@color/white_50"
        android:textSize="@dimen/copyright_size" />

</RelativeLayout>

EDIT: I tried getWindow().setFormat(PixelFormat.RGBA_8888); as suggested which made a visible difference but the banding is still present. This is the image I'm using as the background.

Answer 1

Banding occurs mostly when aspect ratio of the image is disturbed.

You could try any one of the following:

1. Make your image .9.png. In that case, it will automatically fix any stretches and take care of banding.

2. Apply superficial dithering to your image which might prevent any unusual banding.

   <bitmap
       xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:src="@drawable/b1"
       android:tileMode="repeat"
       android:dither="true" />