Since picture monitors have a nonlinear relationship between the input voltage and brightness, the signal must be correspondingly predistorted.

Gamma correction is always done at the source (camera) in television systems: the R, G, and B signals are converted to R 1/g, G 1/g, and B 1/g. Values of about 2.2 are typically used for gamma. Gamma is a transfer characteristic. Display devices have gamma (or at least CRTs do).

If you measure the actual transfer characteristic of a CRT used for either television display or computer display, you will find it obeys a power law relationship: Light = Volts^gamma where gamma is 2.35 plus or minus 0.1. CRTs have values between 2.25 and 2.45.

2.35 is a common value. It is a function of the CRT itself, and has nothing to do with the pictures displayed on it. CRT projectors are different; green tubes are typically 2.2 while red is usually around 2.1 and blue can be as low as 1.7. But there are no direct-view CRTs which have values lower than 2.1. Pictures which are destined for display on CRTs are gamma-corrected which means that a transfer characteristic has been applied in order to try to correct for the CRT gamma. Users of TV cameras have to accept the characteristic supplied by the manufacturer, except for broadcasters who have adjustable camera curves (the video engineers adjust the controls until they like the look of the picture on the studio monitor in their area). Even so, no TV camera uses a true gamma curve; they all use rather flattened curves with a maximum slope near black of between 3 and 5. The higher this slope, the better the colorimetry but the worse the noise performance.