lcd screen too bright factory

NOTE: Before adjusting the monitor, ensure it has been running for at least 20 minutes to allow the brightness and contrast levels to stabilize. The exact steps to perform the steps will vary from model to model, see the user manual of the Dell monitor.

Locate the button on the monitor that activates the On-Screen Display (OSD) menu. To learn how to navigate the on-screen display menu, see the user manual of the Dell monitor.

As you adjust the Brightness and Contrast settings, you will see the screen change as a result. Continue adjusting until you reach the desired brightness and contrast levels.

Locate the button on the monitor that activates the On-Screen Display (OSD) menu. To learn how to navigate the on-screen display menu, see the user manual of the Dell monitor.

Adjust the brightness and contrast settings using the On-Screen Display (OSD) menu. To learn how to navigate the on-screen display menu, see the user manual of the Dell monitor.

Those might as well have been the days of horses and buggies. Today? We have 8K resolution, if you want it. Flatscreen liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays can be lifted by one person, and they’re easy to tile. We now have flexible displays that can wrap around surfaces. LCD TVs and monitors are dirt cheap now, selling for 1/20th of early-2000s prices—and they’re twice the size.

Wondering about brightness? Well, how does 3,000 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) from LEDs strike you? On a 120-inch, 16:10 screen, that would be the equivalent of 135,000 lumens from a projector! Even half that brightness would require a 67,500-lumen projector for the same size screen. Although that’s impractical for projection, it’s just another day’s work for LED displays.

Several companies are now selling “outdoor” LCD screens with brightness ratings from 700cd/m2 to 800cd/m2. High-dynamic-range (HDR) ultra-HD TVs easily exceed 1,000cd/m2 small-area/peak luminance. Prototype “micro” LED displays have been shown with brightness specifications in the tens of thousands of candelas per square meter.

You get the point. When it comes to displays, brightness isn’t an issue anymore. But anyone who has walked through Times Square or strolled the Las Vegas Strip at night could tell you that. On some city blocks, it almost feels as though it’s daytime with all those photons showering down on us. And, under normal daylight, with light readings ranging from 10,000cd/m2 to 100,000cd/m2, you can still read those signs without much effort.

Even cinemas are experiencing a revolution with respect to screen luminance. Two years ago, I described a trip to Richmond TX to see the second Samsung Onyx LED 4K cinema screen in operation. (The first is in Chatsworth CA.) I thought to bring along a spot meter, and I took measurements of the screen, as well as the chairs, walls and clothing articles of my fellow viewers when high-luminance content was being shown. With white backgrounds onscreen, those readings hit 52 foot-lamberts (fL), or 178cd/m2. At that point, the theater was lit up more brightly than when all the house lights were turned on.

Yes, we’ve finally reached a point in time when displays are bright enough—indeed, in some cases, they can be too bright. OLED TVs—I own one of them—are often derided by LCD TV brands for “not being bright enough,” as they have a maximum small-area brightness level of 700cd/m2. Yet, having taken some measurements with my spot meter, I found that the average luminance levels for TV programs with my 55-inch OLED TV in ISF Day mode ranged from 70cd/m2 to 150cd/m2. And those levels were plenty bright enough to view with indirect daylight illuminating the room, and they were very bright at night.

Even in HDR mode, small-area/peak luminance exceeded 600cd/m2—no complaints there! TV programs with sustained luminance levels exceeding 170cd/m2 (50fL) can seem too bright in a semi-darkened room. With the lights off, those levels are high enough to fully light up the viewing space, and high luminance content is difficult to watch for sustained periods under those conditions.

My proposal in the HPA presentation was to change our way of thinking on two counts: 1) stop worrying about “brightness”; 2) instead, focus on contrast-ratio targets. I’ve taught several classes on display setup over the years, and I’ve adopted some useful contrast-ratio guidelines from other industry experts. Those would be 15:1 for classroom and meeting-room presentations, 50:1 for analytical decision-making, and 80:1 and up for true immersive viewing. Those ratios are calculated by measuring the ratio between screen luminance and room ambient-light levels.

Intriguingly, in my travels and measurements, I’ve found that it’s often difficult to attain a screen/ambient contrast ratio exceeding 50:1, especially with high-luminance content. In my own home theater, a circa-2007 full-HD LCD projector, fully calibrated, puts out a measly 330 lumens onto a 92-inch, 1.0-gain screen. But, at that light level, other objects in the room reflect light and become visible, even with a 51:1 contrast ratio. Even the walls, which are painted a dark, neutral gray (Sherwin-Williams’ “Gray Matters” color), are lighting up. Gain screens (remember those?) could mitigate the light-scattering problem, but the tradeoff is accepting narrower viewing angles.

This situation was observed in the Richmond TX Onyx theater demonstration. With bright screen content measuring peak levels of 170cd/m2, you could easily read a book or newspaper, navigate your way to and from the snack bar, and see the sound-absorbing tile patterns on the wall. White and light-colored shirts absolutely popped out, as did white athletic shoes. You’d have to drape everything—walls, floor, chairs and even patrons—in light-absorbing black stipple velvet to realize a significant improvement in the ambient contrast ratio.

Outdoors on the Strip, or in an airport or at a mall, screens are intentionally super bright to catch your eye. They’re competing with other screens and lighting, and you usually give them a brief glance. In a movie theater, however, you shouldn’t be seeing and watching anything but the theater screen. (There are exceptions, of course: an occasional glance at your snack, drink or meal; a turn to your companion to make a snide comment; a glare as if to say, “Stop looking at your @#$%^ phone!”)

I still have most of the “Angles of View” collection. In one installment (“By Different Lights—Contrasting Among Brightness Levels,” pp. 17-18), Milliken stated, “In an earlier article [Vol. IV, #11], we observed that 50 was a kind of upper-threshold number for brightness and that, if a screen were, in fact, to exhibit a luminance level of 50 foot-lamberts, it might actually be too bright for all but unusual environments.”

I just installed Windows 7 Pro on an HP Pavillion with an HP w2007 20" monitor. I had no color issues initially and everything worked fine. The first time I ran Windows Update, it included an optional update called "HP- Display - HP w2007 Wide LCD Monitor".

That update "failed" to install and when I rebooted, my screen had a very "neon" look to it - my desktop background, a picture of a tree with a bunch of red leaves, was very washed out and most of the leaves were now bright red with no details visible. This

is evident everywhere, not just my desktop background (another example...the little green circles next to contact names in Gmail chat are very bright green, more so than usual). Everything is too bright. I have tried the following fixes:

If you’re always surrounded by displays—PCs, smartphones and tablets—are you placing too much strain on your eyes, neck and shoulders? If this sounds like you, read this article and take steps to address it right away before your symptoms worsen.

Have you ever been on a train and had the sun shine on your book from behind you making it hard to read or on your smartphone screen creating a glare and making it hard to see?

When you"re working on your PC, similar poor conditions may develop without you realizing it. For example, if the lights are near the center of the room, and your PC is set up with you facing the wall, although the level of brightness is different, you could experience something similar to sunlight shining on your screen from behind you like on the train. If that"s the case, consider changing the layout.

What can further worsen your eye fatigue in a situation like this is the light reflected from your display. Shiny glare panels are made to provide accurate blacks and colorful display, so they are good for watching videos, but they also tend to reflect outside light. In an office or similar setting, lights and other displays can be reflected on your screen, throwing off your focus and causing eye fatigue.

For regular PC work, an LCD with a non-glare panel that does not reflect light is easier to use. If the product you"re currently using has a glare panel, you can affix low-reflection film to the screen.

Fluorescent lights are brightly reflected on the glare panel, making the screen hard to see. These conditions can easily strain your eyes (left). A non-glare panel can substantially reduce the reflection of fluorescent lights and reduce the strain on your eyes (right). The difference is as plain as day.

It’s also important not to make the lights in the room too bright. It"s common for advice to focus on not letting the room be too dark, but if the lights are too bright, it creates a difference between the screen brightness and ambient light, and that"s also no good. More specific details on screen brightness are provided in Point 5. Also pay attention to the temperature setting on your air conditioner and the direction in which it blows. These things can cause dry eyes, and your seat should never be positioned so that the air conditioner is blowing directly in your face.

Generally speaking, the distance between the user and the screen should be at least 40 centimeters or 50 centimeters in the case of a wide screen. The reason you should be further away from a wide screen is that the wider screen will not fit completely into your field of vision unless you sit further back. The conditions will vary slightly depending on other factors as well, including screen resolution, text size and your eyesight.

No matter what the situation, if you are viewing a screen at a distance of less than 30 centimeters for long periods of time, your eyes are obviously going to become fatigued. If you have an A4-sized sheet of paper, hold it up longways between you and the screen on which this article is displayed and see if there is enough room for it to fit. An A4-sized sheet of paper is about 30 centimeters (297 millimeters) long, so if you"re viewing the screen from a shorter distance than this, you"re too close. If you"re viewing it at a distance of about 1.5 times that length, you"re safe for now.

Once you"re at the proper distance from the display, try to have it so that your line of sight is directly ahead or slightly downward when viewing the screen. You should avoid looking up at the screen, because that can cause dry eye.

Displays that do not allow sufficient adjustment of the angle and height of the screen can lead users to adjust their posture to the screen position, which prevents them from working in the correct posture. Choose a display that has rich features including a tilt function allowing the screen to be tilted up and down and a height adjustment function.

The adjustment mechanism of the LCD is also important for working on a PC in a posture that does not strain the eyes, neck and shoulders. Choose a product that allows the screen to be lowered just above the table top and flexible tilt adjustments (photograph: EIZO"s FlexScan EV2436W.

The brightness of your display should not be left at the default setting but adjusted according to the brightness of the room where it"s installed. This can greatly reduce the strain on your eyes. For example, in an office with normal brightness of 300-500 lux, the display brightness should be adjusted to around 100-150 cd/m2.

But when you give specific numbers like this, most people have no idea what they mean. So what you want to remember is that the trick to adjusting the brightness is using white paper like copy paper. Compare the paper under the lighting in the room to the screen, and adjust the brightness of the display so that the brightness matches as closely as possible. This will put the brightness at about the right level.

Particularly, when using the display for work, you"ll often be comparing paper documents with documents on the screen, so by adjusting the brightness of the screen to the brightness of the paper under the lighting, you"ll reduce the strain on your eyes, making this an effective measure against eye fatigue.

Put white paper next to the screen as shown, and adjust the display brightness while comparing it to the paper. Screen too bright compared to the paper (left), and display brightness adjusted to appropriate level so that the brightness of the paper and the screen are roughly the same (right).

What you need to remember is that if the brightness of the room where the display is installed changes dramatically in the morning, afternoon and evening, the brightness of the screen needs to be changed accordingly, or there"s no point. If you have to adjust it frequently like that, doing it manually is bothersome, and keeping it up becomes difficult. Consider purchasing a display that comes with a function to automatically adjust screen brightness to the optimal setting according to external light.

The majority of LCDs today have LED backlights. In some cases, the brightness adjustment mechanism (dimming system) causes eye fatigue. Specifically, caution is required with the system called PWM (Pulse Modulation), which is employed by most displays. In this system, the LED element blinking time is adjusted to control the display brightness — extending the time that it"s on makes it brighter, and extending the time that it"s off makes it darker.

For some people, this blinking of the screen is experienced as flickering, leading to eye fatigue. There is a difference among individuals in how this flickering is experienced. Many people using the same display will not notice anything at all, so even in an office where the same model is purchased in bulk, it"s difficult to figure out that the display is the cause.

We"d like to add a note about the EyeCare dimming system. This hybrid system uses DC dimming at high brightness settings and PWM dimming at low brightness settings as it does a better job than DC dimming at reproducing colors at low brightness. PWM dimming is only used at low brightness settings, so the blinking luminance difference is smaller, thereby controlling flickering.

EIZO"s FlexScan EV series employs the unique EyeCare Dimming system. We put a small USB fan in front of the screen to check for flickering. At high brightness, DC dimming is used, and the light emitting elements do not blink, so the shape of the blades appears circular (left). At low brightness, PWM dimming is used, and the blades appear separate from each other, so you can see that high-speed blinking that can"t be perceived is taking place (right).

The reason it has recently been the subject of attention is that there are many LCD products with LED backlights that have a high color temperature display (white appears bluish), and there are more cases where the user is subjected to stronger blue light than with conventional displays, so this type of problem has come under closer scrutiny.

Some methods to address the problem are to wear blue light blocking glasses or to apply blue light reducing film to the LCD screen. Also remember that on products that allow the display picture quality to be adjusted, you can lower the color temperature on the display.

For example, results of an experiment (results of EIZO study) show that if you change the 6,500-7,000K color temperature used in common displays to 5,000K, the 400-500nm wavelengths corresponding to blue light can be cut by about 20%. Furthermore, by adjusting the screen brightness to a proper level that does not cause eye fatigue, you can reduce blue light by a total of 60-70%. Many of the aforementioned blue light blocking glasses only cut up to 50% of blue light, so this is more effective.

However, lowering the color temperature causes the screen display to change to reddish or yellowish in color, and color reproducibility is lowered. For that reason, it"s best if you can lower the color temperature for working with office documents and put it back to normal when doing creative work dealing with photographs and images.

Cutting down on PC and smartphone use before bedtime is also a surprisingly important point. The light put off by PC and smartphone screens, including the aforementioned blue light, is said to be effective in waking you up. Looking at these screens before bedtime tends to make it harder to fall asleep. Considering this, it"s actually not a good idea to read e-books on smartphones or tablets before bedtime.

For example, EIZO"s FlexScan EV series of LCDs places emphasis on addressing eye fatigue and has features to address points 1 (installation environment), 2 (posture during use), 3 (proper rest), 5 (brightness), 6 (flickering) and 7 (blue light) above.

In Paper mode, the color and contrast display is similar to paper. With this excellent feature, the color temperature is lowered instantly with the touch of a button, and blue light is substantially reduced (left). If you use the Auto EcoView function, the built-in illuminance sensor detects ambient brightness and automatically takes the display brightness down to the optimal level in real time (right). The aforementioned EyeCare Dimming system suppresses flickering of the screen display at the same time.

Auto EcoView automatic brightness adjustment function detecting ambient brightness with built-in illuminance sensor and setting display brightness to optimal level

Paper mode display features color and contrast similar to paper. EyeCare Filter software applies filter pattern that controls brightness and contrast.

The value of considering replacing the display itself is significant as a trump card for addressing eye fatigue. At home, it will help protect your eyes and the eyes of your loved ones, and at the office where you sit in front of the screen for long hours, it"s sure to contribute to greater efficiency and an improved working environment.

If your laptop screen is too dark even when it is at full (100%) brightness, then you’ve come to the right place. In this post we look at the different causes and fixes for a dark screen at full brightness.

If uninstalling and reinstalling the display driver still hasn’t fixed the issue, you can roll it back or update it. The screen darkness may be caused by a bug in the current driver. Rolling it back or updating it may solve the problem.

If the above tips did not work at all to fix your screen brightness improve, it is likely that the LCD inverter in your laptop is failing or has failed. This little piece of hardware is in charge of the backlight on your screen (i.e. the thing that makes your screen bright).

The LCD inverter, like any piece of hardware in your computer, can fail for unknown reasons. The best thing to do is take your laptop to a professional to have the LCD inverter replaced.

It is our recommendation that you take your laptop to a professional if the screen darkness continues after you try these fixes. They may be able to locate the exact cause of the issue and give you a better idea of what the possible fixes are.

Mac does not appear to have this issue as often as Windows laptops do but if you do find that your Macbook screen is dim at full brightness, one solution is to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) which, among other things, controls the backlit display of your Macbook.

A dim screen can be frustrating and difficult to troubleshoot when it occurs. Hopefully, some of these fixes worked for you. If these fixes did work for you, let us know which ones were most helpful in the comments.

TVs have an intimidating number of picture settings and adjustments, and sadly new TVs tend to come set to the wrong ones. You may be tempted to just leave them be, but that will prevent your TV from looking its best. You could get your TV calibrated by a professional, but that’s expensive. Making a few tweaks to specific settings will produce not only a better image but also one that’s probably more comfortable to watch, too.

Ideally, you should set up your new TV using a disc like Disney’s World of Wonder, which shows you how to properly adjust basic picture settings such as brightness, contrast, and sharpness. It’s available only on DVD, but that should be fine for most of the adjustments you need to make. If you have a 4K Blu-ray player, another option is Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark, which is a bit more advanced than the Disney disc.

Before you get started with the adjustments, make sure your sources are set correctly. Media streaming devices, Blu-ray players, and even satellite or cable boxes should automatically adjust their settings to output the proper resolution to match your TV, but it’s not a given. You can check this in the player’s settings menu, or you can usually hit the Info button on your TV’s remote control and get an onscreen display that shows what resolution the TV is receiving. Make sure it says 1080p or 2160p (if you have a 4K-capable TV and sources). Also, if you make these adjustments while watching cable or satellite content, make sure you’re watching a high-definition channel, not a standard-def one.

Contrast and brightness are two sides of the same coin. The contrast setting adjusts the bright parts of the image, while the brightness setting adjusts the dark parts. If you set the contrast too high, you will lose the fine detail in bright images. If you set it too low, the whole image will appear flat and lifeless. Set the brightness too high and blacks will get lighter, causing the image to look washed out. Set it too low and all the details in shadows will disappear into a murky mess.

Next, find some dark content with lots of shadows. Turn the brightness control down enough that the shadows look dark, but not so far down that the details disappear into blackness. Again, this may take a few tries with a few different shows. Shadows and contrast in shows on CBS, ABC, Fox, and NBC tend to have a more traditional, straightforward aesthetic. In shows on HBO or Netflix, shadows and contrast may have a more artistic look, which will make them less desirable for setting up your TV. However, once you have your TV set correctly, everything you view will look even better.

These three images show what happens when your brightness control is set correctly and incorrectly. This image is an example of a brightness control that’s set too high: The detail revealed may not be what the director had intended you to see, and, worse, the image looks flat and washed out. Photo: Geoffrey Morrison

These three images show what happens when your brightness control is set correctly and incorrectly. This image is an example of when the brightness control is set too low; see how the rooftops toward the bottom of the image have lost all detail as the shadows are “crushed” by the TV. Photo: Geoffrey Morrison

If you have a Sony LCD TV, be aware that Sony often uses the term “black level” for the functional brightness control and the term “brightness” to describe the control that adjusts the intensity of the LCD backlight—that is, how bright the TV is. (Many other TV manufacturers use a term such as “backlight level” to describe the control that adjusts the TV’s overall light output.) Although Sony’s terms are technically more accurate descriptions of what is being adjusted, they can cause confusion, because Sony is one of the only companies to use this terminology.

These three images illustrate how the sharpness control affects the picture. This image shows the edge enhancement and noise that are a result of a too-high setting. Photo: Chris Heinonen

These three images illustrate how the sharpness control affects the picture. This image shows how the picture can look soft if you set the sharpness too low on some TVs. Photo: Chris Heinonen

Ideally, you also want your TV to match this as closely as possible so that at home you’re seeing what the filmmakers had intended for you to see. Professional calibration is usually required to set the color temperature perfectly, but most TVs now include a few presets from which you can choose—oftentimes, they’re labeled “cool,” “medium,” and “warm.” On most TVs, the preset called “warm,” or “6500,” is the closest to D65. This is the preset that most Movie and Cinema modes will switch to. After giving your brain a day or two to adjust to the “warm” setting, if you still think the picture is too red, you can go to the next highest setting, often labeled “medium.” But you should avoid the “cool” setting.

Most TVs on the market today are LCD/LED TVs, which use a backlight that shines through a layer of liquid crystals to form the image you see. You can adjust this backlight to be as bright or dim as is appropriate for the situation. In a very bright living room with lots of windows, you may need to push the backlight level near its maximum. For nighttime viewing in a dim to dark room, the backlight level should be set much lower to avoid eyestrain and headaches.

You can usually adjust the brightness of a projector, too. In addition to high and low lamp modes, many projectors have an automatic iris that adjusts itself to suit the intensity of the onscreen image. Unless you see this iris working (pulsing with bright and dim scenes), you can leave it in auto mode. The eco or low lamp mode will extend the life of your lamp, and you should generally use it, unless you really want or need the extra light.

Today, the majority of TVs feature a sensor that can determine how bright your room is and then automatically adjust the TV’s light output accordingly. There are different names for this (for instance, LG calls it Automatic Power Saving, or APS). There’s a lot of variation in how effectively this function works. We recommend that you turn it off while you’re adjusting the other settings. Once everything else is to your liking, you can turn this on and see if you notice and like its effect.

Most TVs have settings labeled “dynamic” that analyze the video signal and adjust, on the fly, how the image looks. Generally speaking, you should turn or leave these off. Once you’ve got your settings adjusted correctly, the TV shouldn’t need to adjust anything on its own based on the video. These features will often do more harm than good. For instance, they could sense a dark scene and crank the brightness. Sure, you’ll get to see what’s in the shadows, but you could also end up seeing something the director hadn’t intended to show yet—for example revealing Pennywise or Jason before the scare was supposed to happen. Not to mention that the image will briefly look washed out and then return to “normal” in the next scene, which can be distracting. The one exception to this is Dynamic Tone Mapping for LG OLED TVs, which we discuss below.

Finally, you shouldn’t need to adjust your TV’s HDR settings, beyond perhaps choosing among a few preset HDR picture modes. Some settings may be locked, and trying to adjust things like brightness or gamma can do more harm than good. You may have the option to enable or disable Dynamic Tone Mapping, which affects how the TV handles HDR signals that are too bright for its light-output capabilities. You can adjust this to your preference.

If all of this is still too daunting for you, or you really want to eke every last photon out of your TV, consider hiring a professional calibrator. For a fee (which could be several hundred dollars), a trained tech will come to your house, make sure your TV is connected correctly, and use thousands of dollars of specialized test gear and software to make sure all of your settings are correct.

Staring at your phone"s bright blue screen at night can make it more difficult to fall asleep, and the harsh light can Dark Theme in Android Q becomes available on your phone, there are several ways to turn down screen brightness other than the usual brightness level slider to make your screen even darker. Keep in mind that different Android phones, say the Google Pixel 3

Night Light dims your screen light to a sepia color, making it less harsh on your eyes. You can access it through the settings menu or the quick settings area you can find by swiping down from the top of your phone.

Phones running Android Pie all have wind down mode, which you can turn on before bed to make your phone turn greyscale. Colors are muted this way, giving the overall impression of making the screen less bright.

Most Androids have the option to invert the colors on the screen -- white changes to black and the other colors change to be less harsh on the eyes. This does, however, affect the way the photos and videos look.

When you turn on battery save mode on your Android, the screen will get darker. You can turn this setting on through your settings menu or through the quick settings toggle. This won"t work if your phone is plugged into a charger.

When you plan to use digital signage and are wondering what screens to use, there are several aspects that you should consider. The most obvious one is the size of the screen.

The subject of a previous blog post is how to choose the best screen size. However, a second factor you should consider is the screen"s brightness, which can significantly influence the screen"s price and running costs. This article will explain what brightness is and what things you should consider in choosing a screen and includes a table of what screen brightness to best use in typical digital signage environments.

To understand the rest of this article and most screen vendor documentation, it is necessary to briefly define what we mean by "brightness" and "illuminance":

Brightness (also called luminance) is a measure of how much light is reflected or emitted from an object (screen), it is expressed/measured in "nits" (which is the same as cd/m2)

In short, brightness is the measure of light coming from a screen, and illuminance is the measure of light in a space. So, it makes sense that for content on a screen to be visible, it has to be brighter than the objects around it (which are illuminated by the ambient light).

The "correct" brightness of a screen is "enough to make the content of the screen overcome the brightness of its direct surroundings". Which, in its turn, depends on the illuminance of the screen"s location. When the illuminance around the screen varies, the maximum illuminance is considered. On the other hand, the brightness should not be too high; a screen that is too bright will be unpleasant to look at, unnecessarily expensive, and negatively influence the surrounding lighting indoors.

Since brighter screens have a higher purchase price, use more electricity, and, depending on the screen technology, need to be replaced more frequently, it makes sense to use a screen with just enough brightness for its location. In addition, some professional screens have a light sensor allowing them to adjust the brightness to the illuminance of the environment. Adaptive brightness ensures good visibility at the lowest energy use and can be valuable for screens in locations with variable lighting conditions.

for indoor screens; a brightness of at least 300 nits and double the illuminance - so if the illuminance in a room is 200 lux the brightness of the screen should be 400 nits.

The 2-to-1 rule holds for outdoor screens, but a maximum of 3000 nits is enough in most situations. Factor 2 can be adjusted down in cases with higher illuminance to 1,5. Since most outdoor conditions have an illuminance of 1000 lux a minimum brightness for outdoor screens is around 2000 nits, which rules out consumer TV screens. When using outdoor screens at night, they should not be brighter than 100-150 nits

Digital signage screens are available in several technologies; LCD, OLED and LED to name a few. There are some pros and cons to each of these technologies. Concerning screen brightness, there are a few things that you should take into consideration concerning these technologies:

Placing a screen behind a shopping window takes special care. A bright screen will probably solve visibility issues, but it is more expensive to purchase and use electricity. Placing the screen close to the glass and ensuring the surrounding light is adjusted can eliminate the need for high-brightness screens.

To support your decision-making, we include a table of typical ambient illuminance and the recommended screen brightness for that environment. Using this table, you will get more detailed advice than the "rule of thumb" explained above.

IndustryWorkspaceTypical ambient illuminance (in lux or lm/m2)Recommended screen brightness (in nits or cd/m2)Aviation and TransportationAirport departure hall350 – 5,000700 – 2,500

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky and less energy-efficient cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. The phosphors used in CRTs make them vulnerable to image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs do not have this weakness, but are still susceptible to image persistence.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

In the late 1960s, pioneering work on liquid crystals was undertaken by the UK"s Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern, England. The team at RRE supported ongoing work by George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull who ultimately discovered the cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals, which had correct stability and temperature properties for application in LCDs.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 North American Rockwell Microelectronics Corp introduced the use of DSM LCDs for calculators for marketing by Lloyds Electronics Inc, though these required an internal light source for illumination.Sharp Corporation followed with DSM LCDs for pocket-sized calculators in 1973Seiko and its first 6-digit TN-LCD quartz wristwatch, and Casio"s "Casiotron". Color LCDs based on Guest-Host interaction were invented by a team at RCA in 1968.TFT LCDs similar to the prototypes developed by a Westinghouse team in 1972 were patented in 1976 by a team at Sharp consisting of Fumiaki Funada, Masataka Matsuura, and Tomio Wada,

In 1983, researchers at Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) Research Center, Switzerland, invented the passive matrix-addressed LCDs. H. Amstutz et al. were listed as inventors in the corresponding patent applications filed in Switzerland on July 7, 1983, and October 28, 1983. Patents were granted in Switzerland CH 665491, Europe EP 0131216,

The first color LCD televisions were developed as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko"s R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with a small active-matrix LCD television.dot matrix TN-LCD in 1983.Citizen Watch,TFT LCD.computer monitors and LCD televisions.3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988.compact, full-color LCD projector.

In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to twisted nematic field effect LCDs (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates.Germany by Guenter Baur et al. and patented in various countries.Hitachi work out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels.

Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes (Super IPS). NEC and Hitachi become early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens. In 1996, Samsung developed the optical patterning technique that enables multi-domain LCD. Multi-domain and In Plane Switching subsequently remain the dominant LCD designs through 2006.South Korea and Taiwan,

In 2007 the image quality of LCD televisions surpassed the image quality of cathode-ray-tube-based (CRT) TVs.LCD TVs were projected to account 50% of the 200 million TVs to be shipped globally in 2006, according to Displaybank.Toshiba announced 2560 × 1600 pixels on a 6.1-inch (155 mm) LCD panel, suitable for use in a tablet computer,

In 2016, Panasonic developed IPS LCDs with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, rivaling OLEDs. This technology was later put into mass production as dual layer, dual panel or LMCL (Light Modulating Cell Layer) LCDs. The technology uses 2 liquid crystal layers instead of one, and may be used along with a mini-LED backlight and quantum dot sheets.

Since LCDs produce no light of their own, they require external light to produce a visible image.backlight. Active-matrix LCDs are almost always backlit.Transflective LCDs combine the features of a backlit transmissive display and a reflective display.

CCFL: The LCD panel is lit either by two cold cathode fluorescent lamps placed at opposite edges of the display or an array of parallel CCFLs behind larger displays. A diffuser (made of PMMA acrylic plastic, also known as a wave or light guide/guiding plateinverter to convert whatever DC voltage the device uses (usually 5 or 12 V) to ≈1000 V needed to light a CCFL.

EL-WLED: The LCD panel is lit by a row of white LEDs placed at one or more edges of the screen. A light diffuser (light guide plate, LGP) is then used to spread the light evenly across the whole display, similarly to edge-lit CCFL LCD backlights. The diffuser is made out of either PMMA plastic or special glass, PMMA is used in most cases because it is rugged, while special glass is used when the thickness of the LCD is of primary concern, because it doesn"t expand as much when heated or exposed to moisture, which allows LCDs to be just 5mm thick. Quantum dots may be placed on top of the diffuser as a quantum dot enhancement film (QDEF, in which case they need a layer to be protected from heat and humidity) or on the color filter of the LCD, replacing the resists that are normally used.

WLED array: The LCD panel is lit by a full array of white LEDs placed behind a diffuser behind the panel. LCDs that use this implementation will usually have the ability to dim or completely turn off the LEDs in the dark areas of the image being displayed, effectively increasing the contrast ratio of the display. The precision with which this can be done will depend on the number of dimming zones of the display. The more dimming zones, the more precise the dimming, with less obvious blooming artifacts which are visible as dark grey patches surrounded by the unlit areas of the LCD. As of 2012, this design gets most of its use from upscale, larger-screen LCD televisions.

RGB-LED array: Similar to the WLED array, except the panel is lit by a full array of RGB LEDs. While displays lit with white LEDs usually have a poorer color gamut than CCFL lit displays, panels lit with RGB LEDs have very wide color gamuts. This implementation is most popular on professional graphics editing LCDs. As of 2012, LCDs in this category usually cost more than $1000. As of 2016 the cost of this category has drastically reduced and such LCD televisions obtained same price levels as the former 28" (71 cm) CRT based categories.

Monochrome LEDs: such as red, green, yellow or blue LEDs are used in the small passive monochrome LCDs typically used in clocks, watches and small appliances.

Today, most LCD screens are being designed with an LED backlight instead of the traditional CCFL backlight, while that backlight is dynamically controlled with the video information (dynamic backlight control). The combination with the dynamic backlight control, invented by Philips researchers Douglas Stanton, Martinus Stroomer and Adrianus de Vaan, simultaneously increases the dynamic range of the display system (also marketed as HDR, high dynamic range television or FLAD, full-area local area dimming).

The LCD backlight systems are made highly efficient by applying optical films such as prismatic structure (prism sheet) to gain the light into the desired viewer directions and reflective polarizing films that recycle the polarized light that was formerly absorbed by the first polarizer of the LCD (invented by Philips researchers Adrianus de Vaan and Paulus Schaareman),

A pink elastomeric connector mating an LCD panel to circuit board traces, shown next to a centimeter-scale ruler. The conductive and insulating layers in the black stripe are very small.

A standard television receiver screen, a modern LCD panel, has over six million pixels, and they are all individually powered by a wire network embedded in the screen. The fine wires, or pathways, form a grid with vertical wires across the whole screen on one side of the screen and horizontal wires across the whole screen on the other side of the screen. To this grid each pixel has a positive connection on one side and a negative connection on the other side. So the total amount of wires needed for a 1080p display is 3 x 1920 going vertically and 1080 going horizontally for a total of 6840 wires horizontally and vertically. That"s three for red, green and blue and 1920 columns of pixels for each color for a total of 5760 wires going vertically and 1080 rows of wires going horizontally. For a panel that is 28.8 inches (73 centimeters) wide, that means a wire density of 200 wires per inch along the horizontal edge.

The LCD panel is powered by LCD drivers that are carefully matched up with the edge of the LCD panel at the factory level. The drivers may be installed using several methods, the most common of which are COG (Chip-On-Glass) and TAB (Tape-automated bonding) These same principles apply also for smartphone screens that are much smaller than TV screens.anisotropic conductive film or, for lower densities, elastomeric connectors.

Monochrome and later color passive-matrix LCDs were standard in most early laptops (although a few used plasma displaysGame Boyactive-matrix became standard on all laptops. The commercially unsuccessful Macintosh Portable (released in 1989) was one of the first to use an active-matrix display (though still monochrome). Passive-matrix LCDs are still used in the 2010s for applications less demanding than laptop computers and TVs, such as inexpensive calculators. In particular, these are used on portable devices where less information content needs to be displayed, lowest power consumption (no backlight) and low cost are desired or readability in direct sunlight is needed.

A comparison between a blank passive-matrix display (top) and a blank active-matrix display (bottom). A passive-matrix display can be identified when the blank background is more grey in appearance than the crisper active-matrix display, fog appears on all edges of the screen, and while pictures appear to be fading on the screen.

STN LCDs have to be continuously refreshed by alternating pulsed voltages of one polarity during one frame and pulses of opposite polarity during the next frame. Individual pixels are addressed by the corresponding row and column circuits. This type of display is called response times and poor contrast are typical of passive-matrix addressed LCDs with too many pixels and driven according to the "Alt & Pleshko" drive scheme. Welzen and de Vaan also invented a non RMS drive scheme enabling to drive STN displays with video rates and enabling to show smooth moving video images on an STN display.

Bistable LCDs do not require continuous refreshing. Rewriting is only required for picture information changes. In 1984 HA van Sprang and AJSM de Vaan invented an STN type display that could be operated in a bistable mode, enabling extremely high resolution images up to 4000 lines or more using only low voltages.

High-resolution color displays, such as modern LCD computer monitors and televisions, use an active-matrix structure. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) is added to the electrodes in contact with the LC layer. Each pixel has its own dedicated transistor, allowing each column line to access one pixel. When a row line is selected, all of the column lines are connected to a row of pixels and voltages corresponding to the picture information are driven onto all of the column lines. The row line is then deactivated and the next row line is selected. All of the row lines are selected in sequence during a refresh operation. Active-matrix addressed displays look brighter and sharper than passive-matrix addressed displays of the same size, and generally have quicker response times, producing much better images. Sharp produces bistable reflective LCDs with a 1-bit SRAM cell per pixel that only requires small amounts of power to maintain an image.

Segment LCDs can also have color by using Field Sequential Color (FSC LCD). This kind of displays have a high speed passive segment LCD panel with an RGB backlight. The backlight quickly changes color, making it appear white to the naked eye. The LCD panel is synchronized with the backlight. For example, to make a segment appear red, the segment is only turned ON when the backlight is red, and to make a segment appear magenta, the segment is turned ON when the backlight is blue, and it continues to be ON while the backlight becomes red, and it turns OFF when the backlight becomes green. To make a segment appear black, the segment is always turned ON. An FSC LCD divides a color image into 3 images (one Red, one Green and one Blue) and it displays them in order. Due to persistence of vision, the 3 monochromatic images appear as one color image. An FSC LCD needs an LCD panel with a refresh rate of 180 Hz, and the response time is reduced to just 5 milliseconds when compared with normal STN LCD panels which have a response time of 16 milliseconds.

Samsung introduced UFB (Ultra Fine & Bright) displays back in 2002, utilized the super-birefringent effect. It has the luminance, color gamut, and most of the contrast of a TFT-LCD, but only consumes as much power as an STN display, according to Samsung. It was being used in a variety of Samsung cellular-telephone models produced until late 2006, when Samsung stopped producing UFB displays. UFB displays were also used in certain models of LG mobile phones.

In-plane switching is an LCD technology that aligns the liquid crystals in a plane parallel to the glass substrates. In this method, the electrical field is applied through opposite electrodes on the same glass substrate, so that the liquid crystals can be reoriented (switched) essentially in the same plane, although fringe fields inhibit a homogeneous reorientation. This requires two transistors for each pixel instead of the single transistor needed for a standard thin-film transistor (TFT) display. The IPS technology is used in everything from televisions, computer monitors, and even wearable devices, especially almost all LCD smartphone panels are IPS/FFS mode. IPS displays belong to the LCD panel family screen types. The other two types are VA and TN. Before LG Enhanced IPS was introduced in 2001 by Hitachi as 17" monitor in Market, the additional transistors resulted in blocking more transmission area, thus requiring a brighter backlight and consuming more power, making this type of display less desirable for notebook computers. Panasonic Himeji G8.5 was using an enhanced version of IPS, also LGD in Korea, then currently the world biggest LCD panel manufacture BOE in China is also IPS/FFS mode TV panel.

In 2011, LG claimed the smartphone LG Optimus Black (IPS LCD (LCD NOVA)) has the brightness up to 700 nits, while the competitor has only IPS LCD with 518 nits and double an active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display with 305 nits. LG also claimed the NOVA display to be 50 percent more efficient than regular LCDs and to consume only 50 percent of the power of AMOLED displays when producing white on screen.

This pixel-layout is found in S-IPS LCDs. A chevron shape is used to widen the viewing cone (range of viewing directions with good contrast and low color shift).

Vertical-alignment displays are a form of LCDs in which the liquid crystals naturally align vertically to the glass substrates. When no voltage is applied, the liquid crystals remain perpendicular to the substrate, creating a black display between crossed polarizers. When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals shift to a tilted position, allowing light to pass through and create a gray-scale display depending on the amount of tilt generated by the electric field. It has a deeper-black background, a higher contrast ratio, a wider viewing angle, and better image quality at extreme temperatures than traditional twisted-nematic displays.

Blue phase mode LCDs have been shown as engineering samples early in 2008, but they are not in mass-production. The physics of blue phase mode LCDs suggest that very short switching times (≈1 ms) can be achieved, so time sequential color control can possibly be realized and expensive color filters would be obsolete.

Some LCD panels have defective transistors, causing permanently lit or unlit pixels which are commonly referred to as stuck pixels or dead pixels respectively. Unlike integrated circuits (ICs), LCD panels with a few defective transistors are usually still usable. Manufacturers" policies for the acceptable number of defective pixels vary greatly. At one point, Samsung held a zero-tolerance policy for LCD monitors sold in Korea.ISO 13406-2 standard.

Dead pixel policies are often hotly debated between manufacturers and customers. To regulate the acceptability of defects and to protect the end user, ISO released the ISO 13406-2 standard,ISO 9241, specifically ISO-9241-302, 303, 305, 307:2008 pixel defects. However, not every LCD manufacturer conforms to the ISO standard and the ISO standard is quite often interpreted in different ways. LCD panels are more likely to have defects than most ICs due to their larger size. For example, a 300 mm SVGA LCD has 8 defects and a 150 mm wafer has only 3 defects. However, 134 of the 137 dies on the wafer will be acceptable, whereas rejection of the whole LCD panel would be a 0% yield. In recent years, quality control has been improved. An SVGA LCD panel with 4 defective pixels is usually considered defective and customers can request an exchange for a new one.

Some manufacturers, notably in South Korea where some of the largest LCD panel manufacturers, such as LG, are located, now have a zero-defective-pixel guarantee, which is an extra screening process which can then determine "A"- and "B"-grade panels.clouding (or less commonly mura), which describes the uneven patches of changes in luminance. It is most visible in dark or black areas of displayed scenes.

The zenithal bistable device (ZBD), developed by Qinetiq (formerly DERA), can retain an image without power. The crystals may exist in one of two stable orientations ("black" and "white") and power is only required to change the image. ZBD Displays is a spin-off company from QinetiQ who manufactured both gra