Using Eink Monitors To Detect Temporal Dithering

jordan

JTL I think there was even some stuff in intel vbios too that someone dug up.

AshX Agreed seems 2018 was definitely when this all started.
hmm it might be! I think people just want vibrant colors and no banding which of course costs us our health. soooo unnecessary. At least there should be a toggle to revert to basic video output with no flicker.

photon78s

There is the Boox Mira (non pro) which is 13in but probably out of stock too. I wonder if boox stopped listing them due to tariffs? I think it should work on other monitors too, I know dasung is seen as 8 bit too which I think is intentional so they are less likely to dither. You can play with different display modes and see how the dithering visibility changes. For example if I cap the boox to pure b&w most of it is hidden so if I need to tweak things ill enter that mode and then back to normal grayscale when I need to record it in action. I have a color mira pro too but havent tried that. I wonder if that can show any color fringing?(I think thats what its called)

I think its possible yes but I just dont want to look at the dithering long since it has bothered me on normal screens. I know the grayscale mode on eink uses its on spatial dithering which isnt triggering so if its dithering it should change how it looks when things are static. I also wonder if dithering would be easy to capture on lcds if you set the refresh rate really low? Doesnt it dither at half the refresh rate?

JTL

jordan I think there was even some stuff in intel vbios too that someone dug up.

In any case it wouldn't be the same but that also does ring a bell.

photon78s

jordan

I've read that pixel inversion can be perceived as half refresh rate.

https://display-corner.epfl.ch/index.php/LCD_dynamics

The "high-frequency schemes" get more complicated but hopefully less of a concern.

All this to say this approach is worth exploring more and also e-ink.

AshX

photon78s

I wonder if this is pixel walk or temporal dithering: https://streamable.com/tkohgw

photon78s

AshX

This is pixel inversion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H6bETUx2Lc

Looks very different from your video.

Have you tested the screen using pixelinversion.com? I must warn that you may see visible flickering on these test as intended.

AshX

photon78s

Wow. This is very different. It is interesting that the subpixels also appear “chipped” inconsistently. The video doesn’t indicate what device is being filmed. My video is at 240 fps vs that video’s 120 fps.

My iPhone 5 also looks similar: https://streamable.com/5saleu

I will say that this form of flicker is much less intense than that of newer Macs. But it looks differently from the videos I’ve seen of temporal dithering on newer LCD devices.

This flickering is “faster” so am I to assume the frequency is higher or lower? Not quite sure how that works. Both videos I took are on gray colors.

Aquila

These are the MUST;
📌 Win 10 1809 (base or LTSC)
📌KSF (phosphor free) monitor
📌A safe GPU

In fact we have a OS dithering, (software) and hardware dithering (monitor and GPU).

A true 8bit panel sadly isn't the solution.
Many times a 6bit+frc or 8bit+frc are better than a true 8 bit panel with harsh blue or modern panel

Dithering is absolutely a problem as the PWM but the nature of the panel is probably more important.

markdotpeters5

Did you try this setting? I don't have the tools to measure dithering on desktop OS but have no issues at all with Windows 10 22H2 so would be surprised if it does with this setting enabled.

(not sure if you can see that pic, it says 'not available in your region' for me!)

jordan

markdotpeters5 I didnt see that option at all. which driver version are you on? I am going to load 22h2 again and try a couple other things so I can check for that again

markdotpeters5

jordan are you able to see the picture? It's in the Nvidia app.. I'm on driver version 581.57 (The Game Ready drive if that matters)

jordan

markdotpeters5 Yep! Thanks I will load that driver when I load 22h2 again and see if I can find that option.

Aquila someone actually posted last year about the studio driver helping their eyestrain. Ill test it on 22h2

Aquila

What's your opinion about Nvidia Studio drivers?

WhisperingWind

jordan

Further research may be helpful, as in my experience Windows 10 22H2 does not appear to perform temporal dithering by default. I’m currently using a Sapphire Radeon RX 6600 Pulse, and testing was carried out with a Blackmagic UltraStudio Recorder 3G. Driver settings: RGB 4:4:4, 8-bit. Driver version 24.12.1 (Adrenalin Edition).

The testing methodology is straightforward: a Python script compares frame N with frame N+1 on a static image. If any frame shows pixel changes, it flags the presence of temporal dithering. The testing is done with a custom Python script, with an additional check described here.

I’m quite sensitive to temporal dithering, but I’ve been using this setup for almost 10 months with great comfort for my eyes.

I plan to try other driver versions in the future. However, my impression is that the issue is not the OS, but the hardware or a driver setting that may depend on the hardware used. But I don't yet know exactly what the issue might be.

jordan

WhisperingWind But does the system see the ultrastudio capture device as a monitor with a proper monitor edid? My worry with capture cards is that they arent treated the same as a monitor. I can visibly see the temporal dithering on my rx6600 pulse on every build after 1809 even before installing the radeon driver. 1809 its self has zero TD upon my testing so for my setup is appears to be the OS. I hope more people can jump in with testing this.

markdotpeters5

jordan I just did a test using OBS to capture my desktop, then the Ffmpeg script to highlight the changes between frames as linked earlier..

As a test I played a video on one half of the screen and had the lagom.nl dithering test picture on the other half…

Absolutely no movement on anything but the video, so looks like my 22H2 isn't dithering.

WhisperingWind

jordan

But does the system see the ultrastudio capture device as a monitor with a proper monitor edid?

The recorder is recognized as a TV. But the “monitor” I use with Windows 10 22H2 is also a TV 🙂

I hope more people can jump in with testing this.

I hope so, too, since it’s still unclear what the issue might be. I don’t think Windows 10 handles TVs and monitors separately; however, since my only true 8‑bit display is the TV, I can’t confirm or refute that.

jordan

markdotpeters5 I dont think a screen record is going to be accurate

WhisperingWind

markdotpeters5

I agree with @jordan here, because software‑based screen recording usually pulls data from the OS framebuffer, while temporal dithering is added further down the pipeline, when the framebufferr’s contents are sent to the graphics card for processing and output. Therefore, frames from the framebuffer may not contain temporal dithering.

simplex

markdotpeters5 using OBS to capture my desktop

it does show nothing, because post-processing applied after OBS capturing frames stage in grapfic pipeline

markdotpeters5

jordan might be capturing before the dithering is applied or at a different level - have to do it with a capture card as per here: I disabled dithering on Apple silicon + Introducing Stillcolor macOS M1/M2/M3 - LEDStrain Forum I suppose

markdotpeters5

WhisperingWind I've just tried with my capture card. It's limited to 1080p @ 60fps but clearly only shows any movement that is me moving the cursor/window around.. I'm not sure if it's capturing at the required detail though!

This is capturing on a Windows 11 laptop I happen to have here

WhisperingWind

markdotpeters5

If the capture card can record uncompressed video, the result will be accurate.