KM To turn off peak brightness reduction is a bit of a no go for my eyes. I need a working ABL without flashes/flicker. I think right now i will skip buying a new TV.

From rtings:

The Peak Brightness setting is unique to the Samsung S95B for Samsung TVs. It adjusts the Automatic Brightness Limiter, or ABL, which limits the brightness of the display depending on the content shown, which can be distracting at times. For our testing, we set it to 'High', as this setting delivers the highest peak brightness. This also results in the most aggressive ABL, though, so you should try different settings to find the one that looks best to you. The 'Off' setting effectively disables ABL entirely but results in a much lower peak brightness overall. There's almost no difference between the 'On' and the 'High' setting.

Looks like the perfect solution to me. Less brightness, and no flicker. Win-win for the eyes. But maybe you have requirements that go beyond eye strain, then just ignore my comments.

    4 days later

    KM Tvs now are much brighter than the tvs of previous years, 20 of brightness can be 110 from previous tvs, also it seems that the photodiode that rtings uses is not sensitive enough to detect some high speed pwm and even worse Samsung is the worst regarding eye comfort and care, almost all their display devices are eyes and brains destroyer.

      Abeabe my current TV is capped at 400 nits. This is too bright for me. The Samsung goes up to 1400 nits. And they are trying to get even higher.

        Greetings all,

        Hope everyone who celebrates had a great thanksgiving holiday! I have thrown myself into the fray and purchased a S95B on a Black Friday deal, it will arrive here Wednesday 11/30. I would say I'm on the higher sensitivity side when it comes to screens so if I can manage to get this to work for me eyes, it's quite likely anyone could! The people talking about brightness are correct, and strabismus historically was understood as an aversion or intolerance to bright light. Hippocrates himself described strabismus in his writings. I've had "wondering eye" or strabismus since I was a new born. My mother told me that the doctor saw one of my eyes out of alignment at my two week well check! Based on research I've done related to other chronic illness issues I have, strabismus might be, at least in part, related to genetic SNP's that effect ones ability to "methylate" and consequently detoxify the body. In any case, I will be doing extensive testing on this set in the hopes that I can get it work. Will report back my findings.

        voidv2 he never said anything more lol i am also curious ….

        Maybe his problems were solved and he is engaging in “le mans” tv marathons forgetting his “pwm friends” ah ah

        4 days later

        Okay I just got the TV (Samsung S95B) this morning so I wanted to share my initial findings with ya'll.

        When I first turned on and set up the T.V. I had ZERO symptoms, which is very atypical for me, as the headaches and eye cramping usually start immediately. So that was an exciting and promising thing. I quickly connected my PS5 and once I switched sources I was hit really hard with the typical symptoms of dizziness/vertigo, eye cramping etc. Ironically, it was the TV switching to "game mode" that triggered the symptoms. Took me about 30 mins to get past that symptom trigger. I reset the T.V. to default settings and started over. No symptoms once picture settings were back to default after the reset.

        However, when I switched to a source that had HDR capability (Nvidia Shield in my case) I had some symptoms come back. I discovered that T.V. out of the box has all motion software disabled by default, but when an HDR source is detected it turns all that stuff "on." So I went through and switched it all off, and the T.V. was better to look at, but not quite as good as the "out of the box" (SDR?) picture mode. So something is happening with the HDR sources that changes the viewing experience. The T.V. even displays some text explaining that it's switching to a "UHD" mode because it detected that source. Both my shield and my ps5 gave me no symptoms on my previous T.V.

        I've only had time to watch one HDR piece of content (Disney+ show) for about an hour with all the motion settings off. I can't say I had ZERO symptoms, but the T.V. was much more tolerable to look at, even compared to other LCD screens I've tried.

        My return deadline is not until Jan 31st, so I plan on doing A LOT more testing especially with game mode which should theoretically be better. One thing I noted is that the T.V. got quite a bit brighter in game mode, which may be a part of the issue. But that's all I have for now folks. It's not exactly the dream, but there might be some workable solutions with this set. I'll report back with any significant findings and please sound off if you have found any workaround yourselves. Thanks!

          voidv2 okay quick update:

          I messed with some settings and was able to get game mode to a far better place. However, one lingering issue is that I am still having residual dizziness side effects when gaming OR watching HDR content. It's quite subtle but it's there and if I am going to keep the T.V. I need that to not be the case.

          Does anyone have any tips on settings I can change that have worked on other TV's that might help with the dizziness. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I tried the "eye comfort" mode, but that inexplicably turned on a whole bunch of motion settings and just didn't really work overall. Another confounding factor I need to work out is that I have been taking Advil almost daily because I am fighting a pretty gnarly sinus infection. My hope is that the anti-inflammatory and pain relieving properties are not obscuring other side effects of the T.V. I will keep you all updated ofc once I am no longer taking Advil consistently.

            Disabling each and every "picture improvement" setting (including HDR both on the TV and the input devices) to get the most neutral picture possible would be my priority. Dizziness while gaming could depend on the game. Some games are not playable for me even on otherwise known-good hardware. Motion sickness can cause dizziness, but perhaps you can rule that out. The Fauser LiFli flicker detection device due to its acoustic feedback helped me to identify flicker that I would otherwise not have spotted on my backlit TV: flicker during black screen content, that happens during ads, when switching inputs, in between input resolution changes or short breaks in movies or black loading screens in games. I doubt this specific issue would happen on an OLED screen, but who knows. Those bursts of flicker are short, but if you know when to look, it should be recordable with cheaper oscilloscope setups, too. Contrast enhancing features can cause dynamic flicker during certain scene content. Any "automatic" contrast or brightness setting is prone to using flicker. Some form of flicker detection equipment always comes in handy. In particular for finding the exact brightness value that causes PWM to kick in. Try to avoid that by not setting the brightness too low.

            Another thing is disabling the TV's status LED and other connected devices' LEDs if possible. They can flicker, too. Or gamepads that have built-in LEDs. The PS4 gamepads definitely flicker. Probably same with PS5 and maybe other gaming hardware. It helps if you know the devices you use to play games and watch movies are not the cause for the dizziness - e.g. by using them on a known-good TV or monitor.

              voidv2 You should not fight too much with dizziness, it will always win, If the tv make you dizzy you should rest if not it will make you more sensitive to flickering or whatever are you making you feel dizzy.

              KM Hey thanks for this informative and thorough reply. Great idea on Disabling HDR. I think that is the heart of the problem, so I need to figure out how to do that. As I stated in my first post, when I first booted the TV I had no issues until I switched inputs and HDR was enabled. As I stated in my first post when I got the T.V. I had tested all connected devices on my old T.V. (Sony KDL W800c) and none of the devices gave me any dizziness issues. I tested them all for several weeks/years depending on how long I had had the device and no issues. So it's definitely the T.V. Fascinating re; the status LED's, had no idea that could induce symptoms, but again, unlikely in my case as this all started with the new T.V. I'm pretty sure I have disabled all contrast enhancing and brightness enhancing (this was more recently) but I can double check. Good idea re: making sure brightness is also not too low. What's baffling to me is that OLED should not be having these PWM issues, yet it's still quite hard on the eyes of folks like us, but it's unclear what that is about exactly. Very frustrating.

              Can you recommend any PWM detecting setups that are $100 or less? I can't exactly drop hundreds of dollars justifiably on more hardware right now.

              @Abeabe Definitely not trying to fight with the dizziness but rather make it go away! You are right that it can make you more sensitive to other devices tho, that's been a pain to deal with.

              • KM replied to this.

                voidv2 The cheapest method to detect flicker is probably the sound card oscilloscope, which, among more expensive methods, is discussed here: https://ledstrain.org/d/312-homemade-oscilloscope-to-detect-pwm-diy-guide

                Here are some S95B settings described by rtings in more detail: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/s95b-oled/settings
                I'd really turn anything off, especially BFI (Clear Motion) and other options that manipulate the image or even insert additional frames. Energy saving options may cause flicker, too.

                Update: So I did a lot of tinkering with the TV last night. It was not easy but I managed to figure out how to disable HDR on all of my devices. Not exactly an intuitive or straightforward process. One thing to note for folks in this forum, you cannot disable HDR for the PS5 from the Samsung TV menus. You have to go into your PS5 settings and do it there. Another thing I noticed is that its not just HDR that caused me issues on the PS5. I had to turn off several settings in order to make the system more tolerable to my eyes. These included VRR, "Color Depth Enhancement", and one other one I am not remembering at the moment.

                I did more testing this morning (without any Advil or other meds in my system) with all HDR and other settings mentioned here set to "off" and, sadly, I still had some mild eye strain in my dominant eye and later a mild headache. There was some very mild dizziness as well but it resolved rather quickly. However, it was still there, which is a dealbreaker for me if it continues. I may try to mess with some other settings, but I am feeling a bit less hopeful that this T.V. will do the trick.

                Something to note abt me is that anytime I get a new screen/device, even if it's the "right" kind of screen or even one I have used before, my eyes go through an adjustment period. For instance, I have an iPhone 8, which took a little adjustment and then worked extremely well for a few years. I then dropped it and had to get a replacement iPhone 8. The "new" device, even after switching off any motion settings, gave me some head pain and dizziness even though its the exact same phone I just had. This also eventually went away. I had a similar experience with my iPad Air which does not have the harsh retina OLED display, which gave me headaches and eye strain if I used it during the day (but not at night). With more consistent daytime use, these symptoms went away as well.

                I can't say I am confident that will happen with this T.V. but I will do some more testing over the next week or so to see if I can make something work. Any further suggestions for things to try would be much appreciated. Thanks!

                  voidv2 I heard of someone feeling dizzy because of the frequency coming out of the speakers of the tv and had to disable the speakers, he had to route the sound to an external receiver, If you already disabled all the extra processing of the tv and still feel dizzy maybe you can try this, if you are sensitive to led pwm flicker some sound frequencies can make you dizzy too.

                    Updates:

                    In a fit of desperation, I tried the "patching" method to view the T.V. Although this worked, it still did not resolve the issues entirely (still had mild-moderate eye cramp feelings but zero dizziness) and it's not exactly a sustainable or optimal way to watch T.V.

                    Just as I was getting ready to send the T.V. back, I made a bit of a breakthrough in terms of eye comfort for viewing this T.V. I found out that "filmmaker mode", much like "game mode" turns off ALL picture and motion software. Filmmaker Mode is apparently a collaborative effort by filmmakers, Hollywood studios, consumer electronics companies, and something called the "UHD alliance" to create a setting that most closely represents the filmmakers intent in terms of picture. Also, through a calibration guide I followed on youtube, I enabled the "Warm2" color setting, as the youtuber claimed it has the truest color accuracy. What I discovered was that, for whatever reason, filmmaker mode combined with the "warm 2" color setting virtually eliminated the dizziness, headache and eye cramping I was having with other settings. I would say it was about 80%-90% gone, but not 100%. I felt some slight eye strain in my dominant eye, but after 2 hours of viewing the TV I did not have a massive headache or constant mild dizziness as before.

                    I followed the same youtubers settings for game mode as well, and it seems to help, though motion in games still has a much more straining effect on my eyes, but I still did not get headaches or more impactful eye strain as before. It's hard to tell if the dizziness was there, I think it was with gaming, but again much more mild.

                    Unfortunately, my wife had some issues (frozen on HULU) with the TV this morning and said she "restarted it". I found myself having eye strain when looking at the TV, but discovered that the TV switched HDR mode back on automatically for some reason. So, this is a problem and I am not entirely sure how to resolve it at this point. I still need to do more testing with these new settings, but it's a promising direction at the very least.

                    On another note, these experiences have galvanized me towards getting re-evaluated by a BVD specialist. I am lucky enough to live close enough to U.C. Berkeley that I can be seen by their binocular vision therapy and rehabilitation team, which are apparently world class. I understand they have a very intensive eye therapy process and understand that nuances of BVD and it's many permutations. They guy on the phone understood my problem almost immediately, so that was a new and welcome experience.

                    Will update on any more progress.

                    Links to resources:

                    Film Maker Mode: https://filmmakermode.com/

                    Youtube Calibrations: https://youtu.be/BkHF1ThGB-E

                    9 days later

                    Hi! Just wanted to check-in how you are getting on with the S95B after your last update? I bought the LG C2 three weeks ago and while it was much better than the CX I tried two years ago, it still wasn't good enough to keep it eye-strain wise. Swapping it for a S95B tomorrow, as I have no issues using the Samsung OLED screen in my Nintendo Switch OLED for example. Knowing it's not the same type, I'm a little bit hopeful after your post here that the S95B may be better for my eyes. Fingers crossed and thanks for sharing!

                      MvDoorn

                      Hey! So, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but long story short I think I am going to keep the T.V. you can refer to my previous posts re: how I managed to get the T.V. to work for my eyes. In a nutshell: I turned off all post-processing and HDR modes for all inputs.

                      I turned on "Filmmaker" mode, and turned the color to "Warm2", settings recommended by youtuber as stated in my last post.

                      I turned the contrast down by about half, and all of the "auto contrast" and "peak brightness" settings to "off."

                      There are still times when I get some eye strain, but that's probably 95% gone and I go through long periods where I notice no symptoms at all. I can't claim this will work for everyone, as it seems we don't all suffer from the same underlying condition, but it works for me. I would say I'm moderate to moderate high in sensitivity depending on the device. The LG B8 annihilated my eyes, for instance, causing extreme vertigo, eye strain, and headaches. When I first turned on the S95B I had zero symptoms (I later understood that this was party due to the TV starting in SDR mode before connecting HDR ready devices). Hope that helps!

                        voidv2. My case with the sony a9s i am going to return the tv. Your settings are very similar to mine. My eyes are good but the tv gives me headaches and some weird tinitus sound in my head.

                        I am glad you overcome this situation. Qd oled could be an alternative. I am waiting for sizes of 49 - 50” … 55 is to big for me.

                        dev