Televisions without temporal dithering?

bpo19

I recently purchased a Samsung q80c and then a Qn90c and both had to go back due to dithering. I know rtings has flicker ratings of tvs, but no mention of which tv's have or don't have dithering. I have read a few posts on reddit that Sony x85k is 8bit+FRC. Does anyone have any recommendations of a tv that works for them? One that is current and available to purchase at stores? Thank you!

jordan

bpo19 if the x85k uses FRC I'd imagine disabling HDR will force it to 8bit?

bpo19

jordan no idea? Would prefer no dithering at all and/or to be able to use the features of the tv, etc.

GZunit

i dont know if this will help you but I am not able to use any OLED iphones, a lot of tvs make me feel sick and I am not able to use computers with intel Iris Xe card or new laptops with nvidia cards. I am able to watch X85K for extended periods without any discomfort. Same results when I use it with PS5. i never used it as a PC monitor for extended period of time so I can't comment on that.

RecentlyDeceased666

GZunit any idea what the sony 85k does different that helps you?

Abeabe

I can use a Sony 65x90L as pc monitor all the day without problems, with local dimming activated at medium, but only if the tv is at 120hz, sharpness at min, reality creation off, game mode, brightness at 0 and controlling the "brightness" with the contrast setting, light sensor off.

GZunit

RecentlyDeceased666 no idea unfortunately. I can still use it without any issues. I have HDR turned on and can watch all streaming platforms, YouTube, cable tv without any problems. I can also game on ps5 with hdr on. Yet cannot use any new iPhones, also struggle to use lcd based iPhones with iOS 18 (se 2 & 3). I also swapped iPhone 15 OLED with an LCD and it had worse effects on me than the original OLED.

WhisperingWind

I have a similar story, but with a different Sony TV: KD-49XG8096 (manufactured in 2019).

Before purchasing it, I used an LG OLED 55" for a couple of weeks. My eyes hurt terribly, and I could only watch a movie with two breaks. The PWM measurement device showed about 10-15% at the brightness level I had set. Back then, I didn’t know about dithering or pixel inversion, so I can’t comment on them. The TV was sold.

Almost immediately, I bought a Sony KD-49XG8096. There is no PWM. FRC (temporal dithering) is absent when an 8-bit signal is used. Pixel inversion is also absent.

The picture from the embedded Android is terrible; I only use it in conjunction with a PC (AMD RX6600, Windows 10 22H2). The picture from the PC is comfortable for my eyes.

Comfort also depends on the PC graphics card and its settings. For example, if I set 60 Hz from a PC, there is noticeable eye strain. Comfort is only achieved at 59.94 Hz.

When enabling the frame interpolator (Motionflow), eye strain is noticeable even at the lowest levels, so I keep it turned off. All picture enhancement features are also disabled, except for black level adjustment (set to low) and additional contrast enhancement (set to low). Contrast is set to 90, brightness to 14. The light sensor is enabled.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

GZunit

Are you using your PS5 to watch streaming platforms on your TV?

I've also had a strangely okay experience with a PS5 + a modern TV as well (a LG C9 in my case, a 65" OLED TV with WRGB stripe subpixel layout. It has mild "brightness dip" flicker on every frame but no strobe-like PWM. There is also a Sony surround sound receiver that also serves as a HDMI splitter in-between the PS5 and the TV, if that changes anything).

This is essentially one of the only modern screens I can actually enjoy a show or video game on. Not as good as my "truly good" screens and get some mild strain, but I can still say I'm able to fully enjoy an episode or two of a show each week, or get immersed into a game for about an hour and 30 minutes every now and then before feeling like I want to stop playing.

However, the same LG OLED TV is totally unusable and causes a ton of eyestrain with an Apple TV 4K connected though, on the Apple TV I can't follow anything that is going on in a show or its plot at all (including the same shows that look decent enough to enjoy when streamed via the PS5). Everything feels like a blur to me with the Apple TV and I have to refocus my eyes every single time the scene changes.

The OLED TV is only enjoyable for me when connected to a PS5 (even though both inputs have the exact same settings, each device has the same output formats selected in their own settings, are connected to the same receiver, and I've tried the same HDMI cable.)

The 2017 Nintendo Switch is also uncomfortable and strainy when connected to this TV, although I feel that's for a completely different reason than why the Apple TV 4K doesn't work -- the Switch only supports 1080p output so it is likely activating a ton of additional upscaling and processing functionality on the TV in order to scale the image to 4K, which the PS5 doesn't need.

The Nintendo Switch is much more playable when connected to much older TVs like my 2004 LC-G5C26U Sharp VA TV. Although, the Switch still certainly has some GPU-related issues -- because it's not as comfortable as connecting a "truly safe" output to that old 2004 VA TV such as my 2011 Raspberry Pi 1 Model B

(which is on a whole different level of comfortable compared to everything else I'm discussing in this post, LOL. That Raspberry Pi is essentially 100% strain-free when connected to the 2004 Sharp VA TV, one of the best ways I can VNC connect into another computer for hours of serious productivity and comfortable reading, etc!!)

In my case, HDR is off though and every single post-processing setting on the OLED TV had to be turned off in order to make it "OK enough" for me with the PS5. Interestingly, the LG OLED has a "4:4:4 passthrough" option that claims to disable many forms of extra post processing that the other settings usually can't control, and I feel that this setting is what led to the greatest improvement for me with the PS5 and this TV.

However, although the PS5 has been surprisingly playable on this TV, I will say that there is still some temporal dithering (coming from the PS5 as it's not present in the TV's own menus) that I see when looking up close at the OLED subpixels.

Overall though, it is very fascinating to me that I can play and watch shows "good enough" on the PS5 with this TV, but not at all when the Apple TV is connected…

BTW, the OLED TV is still on the original firmware it shipped with, and has never been connected to the internet so it has never received any updates. The PS5 and Apple TV are on their latest versions though, and are updated frequently.

AgentX20

Apple TV 4K didn't work for me on my 'good' plasma. But the previous gen Apple TV (I think it's 4th gen) is still ok.