A good site on Temporal Dithering

Clokwork

I hope this isn't old news. I found a page breaking down Temporal Dithering to get a better understanding. There is an animated gif that shows a representation of dithering but very slowed. I immediately felt a hint of the effect I feel watching modern displays. Maybe this will help others to understand what may be causing their discomfort. There's good info and it's worth a read.

diop

Clokwork

This is a very interesting resource, thanks for sharing.

KM Until we have a cheap test method (capture card) that everyone can afford without regrets, all we can do speculate. And this may only help to find usable external devices, not displays. I fear finding a usable display is something that can't be done other than by using it and waiting for eye strain. The requirement for any further testing is already possessing a known-good display + connected known-good device. As you say there are too many variables otherwise:

I would imagine the majority of people here can source a known-good display, even if you have to go back to a CRT.

I think a PCoIP capture would indicate if a bad device has greater pixel activity than a good one. You also don't need any capture hardware, a copy of VMWare+VMWare PCoIP Log Viewer should be enough to measure differences. The benefit of this is it completely removes the monitor from the equation and focuses solely on what is rendered on the host machine at the pixel level.

KM

They say that when you disable temporal dithering in the driver's options, it can still be active.

ensete

Still of the mindset that all the dithering talk is a red herring for most people. Nothing impacted any sort of dithering has had any impact on my symptoms whatsoever

Clokwork

ensete

I can't claim with any certainty that dithering is my main enemy. To the contrary, I have very little clue at all. The only variables I know are that basically any current "modern" display gives me discomfort. Some almost immediately like LG OLED TV's and current iPad Pros and others over a brief time like Samsung QLED and Sony Bravia TVs.

On the other hand, my iPhone X is OLED and I have no problem. However, I do want to be able to possibly rule this out as you may have.

KM

Until we have a cheap test method (capture card) that everyone can afford without regrets, all we can do speculate. And this may only help to find usable external devices, not displays. I fear finding a usable display is something that can't be done other than by using it and waiting for eye strain. The requirement for any further testing is already possessing a known-good display + connected known-good device. As you say there are too many variables otherwise:

Display light spectrum (White LED vs OLED/Quantum dot with violet LED)
Display light flicker (PWM, ripple flicker, OLED refresh flicker)
Display pixel inversion flicker
Display temporal dithering ("FRC")
Driver/OS/GPU temporal dithering

Did I forget anything? It's too much already. If you buy a device with integrated display and OS (TV, tablet, smartphone), it can have any and multiple of those variables set and you'll never know which one it is that causes your eye strain.

JTL

KM I'd say that's accurate

Gurm

So I suspect that "flicker" and "focus" are the real culprit for many of us. Is spectrum or intensity a factor? Absolutely. But what it's doing is making it hard for us to focus, and overworking the muscles. Or making the muscles spasm. The causes are either physiological or neurological, triggered either by inability to focus or by flicker inducing a neurological response. There are SO MANY factors it's hard to track them all. I personally feel as though subpixel rendering methods, or subpixel dithering of some kind, is to blame for my problems. And you can SEE the problem. I've been watching a lot of car videos lately - go watch a car video. Anything filmed with a high speed camera you can SEE the LED's flicker. You can SEE the color dithering pattern. A BMW display - which is usually fine for me by the way, at least the little one with the stereo on it - that is 720p and fairly stable… has vast washes of red/green/blue (purple/orange/yellow) when filmed with a high speed camera. Headlights strobe. Dashboards too. It's CRAZY how much flicker is out there… and each source of flicker makes our visual system work that much harder, and creates that much more strain.

Clokwork

Of all symptoms, I think I could get past the strain on the eyes, but the inability to focus and/or losing depth perception really messes me up. Vertigo. I could definitely see how flicker of some nature is the culprit. Dithering by definition seems to make sense as it pulses a pixel to give perception of a color which I could see ( I have no proof) they eyes/brain not being able to focus properly and lose perspective.

Why are these displays trying to exceed realism always? 😆

Clokwork

I found another great source on Temporal dithering. Some really great info. I wish it kept going.