lcd screen refresh rate quotation

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The refresh rate (or "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate", terminology originating with the cathode ray tubes) is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate, which describes how many images are stored or generated every second by the device driving the display.

On cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, higher refresh rates produce less flickering, thereby reducing eye strain. In other technologies such as liquid-crystal displays, the refresh rate affects only how often the image can potentially be updated.

Non-raster displays may not have a characteristic refresh rate. Vector displays, for instance, do not trace the entire screen, only the actual lines comprising the displayed image, so refresh speed may differ by the size and complexity of the image data.

Raster-scan CRTs by their nature must refresh the screen, since their phosphors will fade and the image will disappear quickly unless refreshed regularly.

In a CRT, the vertical scan rate is the number of times per second that the electron beam returns to the upper left corner of the screen to begin drawing a new frame.vertical blanking signal generated by the video controller, and is partially limited by the monitor"s maximum horizontal scan rate.

The refresh rate can be calculated from the horizontal scan rate by dividing the scanning frequency by the number of horizontal lines, plus some amount of time to allow for the beam to return to the top. By convention, this is a 1.05x multiplier.1280 × 1024 results in a refresh rate of 96,000 ÷ (1024 × 1.05) ≈ 89 Hz (rounded down).

CRT refresh rates have historically been an important factor in videogame programming. In early videogame systems, the only time available for computation was during the vertical blanking interval, during which the beam is returning to the top corner of the screen and no image is being drawn.screen tearing.

Unlike CRTs, where the image will fade unless refreshed, the pixels of liquid-crystal displays retain their state for as long as power is provided, and consequently there is no intrinsic flicker regardless of refresh rate. However, refresh rate still determines the highest frame rate that can be displayed, and despite there being no actual blanking of the screen, the vertical blanking interval is still a period in each refresh cycle when the screen is not being updated, during which the image data in the host system"s frame buffer can be updated.

On smaller CRT monitors (up to about 15 in or 38 cm), few people notice any discomfort between 60–72 Hz. On larger CRT monitors (17 in or 43 cm or larger), most people experience mild discomfort unless the refresh is set to 72 Hz or higher. A rate of 100 Hz is comfortable at almost any size. However, this does not apply to LCD monitors. The closest equivalent to a refresh rate on an LCD monitor is its frame rate, which is often locked at 60 fps. But this is rarely a problem, because the only part of an LCD monitor that could produce CRT-like flicker—its backlight—typically operates at around a minimum of 200 Hz.

Different operating systems set the default refresh rate differently. Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 (First and Second Editions) set the refresh rate to the highest rate that they believe the display supports. Windows NT-based operating systems, such as Windows 2000 and its descendants Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, set the default refresh rate to a conservative rate, usually 60 Hz. Some fullscreen applications, including many games, now allow the user to reconfigure the refresh rate before entering fullscreen mode, but most default to a conservative resolution and refresh rate and let you increase the settings in the options.

Old monitors could be damaged if a user set the video card to a refresh rate higher than the highest rate supported by the monitor. Some models of monitors display a notice that the video signal uses an unsupported refresh rate.

Some LCDs support adapting their refresh rate to the current frame rate delivered by the graphics card. Two technologies that allow this are FreeSync and G-Sync.

When LCD shutter glasses are used for stereo 3D displays, the effective refresh rate is halved, because each eye needs a separate picture. For this reason, it is usually recommended to use a display capable of at least 120 Hz, because divided in half this rate is again 60 Hz. Higher refresh rates result in greater image stability, for example 72 Hz non-stereo is 144 Hz stereo, and 90 Hz non-stereo is 180 Hz stereo. Most low-end computer graphics cards and monitors cannot handle these high refresh rates, especially at higher resolutions.

For LCD monitors the pixel brightness changes are much slower than CRT or plasma phosphors. Typically LCD pixel brightness changes are faster when voltage is applied than when voltage is removed, resulting in an asymmetric pixel response time. With 3D shutter glasses this can result in a blurry smearing of the display and poor depth perception, due to the previous image frame not fading to black fast enough as the next frame is drawn.

This gif animation shows a rudimentary comparison of how motion varies with 4Hz, 12Hz, and 24Hz refresh rates. Entire sequence has a frame rate of 24Hz.

The development of televisions in the 1930s was determined by a number of technical limitations. The AC power line frequency was used for the vertical refresh rate for two reasons. The first reason was that the television"s vacuum tube was susceptible to interference from the unit"s power supply, including residual ripple. This could cause drifting horizontal bars (hum bars). Using the same frequency reduced this, and made interference static on the screen and therefore less obtrusive. The second reason was that television studios would use AC lamps, filming at a different frequency would cause strobing.NTSC color coding) and 50 Hz System B/G (almost always used with PAL or SECAM color coding). This accident of chance gave European sets higher resolution, in exchange for lower frame-rates. Compare System M (704 × 480 at 30i) and System B/G (704 × 576 at 25i). However, the lower refresh rate of 50 Hz introduces more flicker, so sets that use digital technology to double the refresh rate to 100 Hz are now very popular. (see Broadcast television systems)

Similar to some computer monitors and some DVDs, analog television systems use interlace, which decreases the apparent flicker by painting first the odd lines and then the even lines (these are known as fields). This doubles the refresh rate, compared to a progressive scan image at the same frame rate. This works perfectly for video cameras, where each field results from a separate exposure – the effective frame rate doubles, there are now 50 rather than 25 exposures per second. The dynamics of a CRT are ideally suited to this approach, fast scenes will benefit from the 50 Hz refresh, the earlier field will have largely decayed away when the new field is written, and static images will benefit from improved resolution as both fields will be integrated by the eye. Modern CRT-based televisions may be made flicker-free in the form of 100 Hz technology.

Many high-end LCD televisions now have a 120 or 240 Hz (current and former NTSC countries) or 100 or 200 Hz (PAL/SECAM countries) refresh rate. The rate of 120 was chosen as the least common multiple of 24 fps (cinema) and 30 fps (NTSC TV), and allows for less distortion when movies are viewed due to the elimination of telecine (3:2 pulldown). For PAL at 25 fps, 100 or 200 Hz is used as a fractional compromise of the least common multiple of 600 (24 × 25). These higher refresh rates are most effective from a 24p-source video output (e.g. Blu-ray Disc), and/or scenes of fast motion.

As movies are usually filmed at a rate of 24 frames per second, while television sets operate at different rates, some conversion is necessary. Different techniques exist to give the viewer an optimal experience.

The combination of content production, playback device, and display device processing may also give artifacts that are unnecessary. A display device producing a fixed 60 fps rate cannot display a 24 fps movie at an even, judder-free rate. Usually, a 3:2 pulldown is used, giving a slight uneven movement.

While common multisync CRT computer monitors have been capable of running at even multiples of 24 Hz since the early 1990s, recent "120 Hz" LCDs have been produced for the purpose of having smoother, more fluid motion, depending upon the source material, and any subsequent processing done to the signal. In the case of material shot on video, improvements in smoothness just from having a higher refresh rate may be barely noticeable.

In the case of filmed material, as 120 is an even multiple of 24, it is possible to present a 24 fps sequence without judder on a well-designed 120 Hz display (i.e., so-called 5-5 pulldown). If the 120 Hz rate is produced by frame-doubling a 60 fps 3:2 pulldown signal, the uneven motion could still be visible (i.e., so-called 6-4 pulldown).

Monitors already do report their maximum refresh rate to your PC. Your computer then generally sends new frames at this maximum refresh rate, whether new data is available or not.

As for your variable framerate idea, this is another can of worms. The entire display chain, from applications to the operating system to the graphics card through the monitor are built on the concept that updates happen at a fixed, pre-defined interval. Changing this to a variable interval would require that we throw all of that out. Furthermore, how do you decide what framerate to use at any given moment? Suppose your monitor can update at 100Hz maximum, and you open a 60fps video in a window. Does that then force everything else to update at the 60fps refresh rate even if it wants to update the monitor at 100Hz or 90Hz? If you"re updating a portion of the screen at 60fps, then you no longer have any evenly-divisible time slices in which to do your 100Hz equivalent updates.

A much better solution is to just embrace the ubiquitous fixed-framerate system we have now and increase the refresh rate of our monitors to 120Hz or more. This maintains backwards compatibility for older monitors, but gives us small enough time steps that we can display any effective framerate we want. 120Hz is an even multiple of 24fps, 30fps, and 60fps and it"s fast enough that your eyes would never notice anything was amiss on other frame rates.

To show moving images, a television has to change out the pixels displayed on the screen. This is what we mean when we say the television refreshes the image -- it has to draw images in pixels so quickly that the human eye can"t detect the process. If televisions didn"t refresh the pixels, they could only display a still image. That"s not good TV.

The standard television refresh rate is 60 hertz. That means the screen displays an image 60 times every second. An interlaced television will refresh the odd and even lines 30 times a second each in an alternating pattern. Even at this rate, we don"t notice the screen refreshing because it"s too fast for us to detect.

Early LCD high-definition televisions had great resolution but experienced some problems when displaying fast-moving images on screen. Action movies and sporting events in particular gave early LCD sets problems. The images tended to blur as they moved across the screen. Plasma screens didn"t have the same problem, giving that format the advantage when it came to high-speed television content.

The solution to the LCD problem was to increase the refresh rate. A few years ago, the first 120 hertz sets showed consumers that by doubling the refresh rate, the set could reduce the blurring effect. By early 2009, sets with a 240 hertz or higher refresh rate were either on store shelves or scheduled for release.

The higher refresh rates indicate that the televisions refresh the screen more often each second. Whether the faster rate has a noticeable effect on the viewer"s experience is subjective. A viewer may not be able to tell the difference between a set refreshing at 120 hertz and one with a 240 hertz refresh rate.

This means that a single frame was divided into two fields containing the image’s odd-numbered lines and even-numbered lines, and the TV screen would display these fields in the correct order when displaying the video.

*** There is plenty of confusion about the NTSC 29.97 and 59.94 frame rates. Many people just round these up to 30 and 60 frames per second. But this isn’t actually correct because modern HD cameras can record at 29.97 or 30 and 59.94 or 60 frames per second. So, they are actually two different rates. However, you can just think about 30 and 60 Hz to make things easier. ***

By the way, Hertz is a standard for describing the frequency of something, i.e., the number of cycles per second, and it can describe the frequency of anything, not just video frame rates.

Content recorded on film is traditionally recorded at 24 frames per second (fps). Although some movies have been shot in higher frame rates, this still holds today.

Over time, it hasn’t changed much because people have become used to watching movies at 24 frames per second. It ‘looks like a movie’ at this frame rate – and most viewers prefer it.

Well, due to the standard video frame rates that we’ve just discussed, televisions were designed with a refresh rate to match the frequency of the video transmissions.

Now, these frame rates were developed for analog TV systems. Even so, they’ve remained the standard even with the new digital broadcasting systems – ATSC in the US and DVB in Europe.

The higher video frame rate will display smoother motion as there are more frames to capture it – and it is this which determines how smooth the action will appear on your television – not your TV’s refresh rate.

In some instances, movies can look smoother on a 120 Hz TV because each frame can be repeated exactly 5 times to mirror the 120 Hz refresh rate (24 fps x 5 = 120).

But, a 60 Hz TV can’t interpolate a 60 Hz source because it can’t show more than 60 frames per second – meaning it can only interpolate content with a lower rate than 60 Hz.

This annoys some people more than others. However, motion blur is caused by several factors, and the refresh rate of the TV will have little effect on these.

You just need to find out the native refresh rate – which you should find in the specifications on the manufacturer’s website – or in a technical review of that model.

It’s an essential issue related to TV refresh rates because people get confused between television refresh rates and the motion blur they see on screen.

If it says anything higher than 120 Hz, then it isn’t the real native refresh rate – and even with the correct numbers, there aren’t too many instances where a higher refresh rate will significantly affect your daily use.

There are only two native refresh rates for 4K TVs – 60 Hz and 120 Hz. Any number you see quoted above this isn’t the TV’s real refresh rate – it’s just created by image processing techniques. Most people will see little difference between 60 and 120 Hz refresh rates, so it’s not something to worry about too much.

The difference in performance between 60 Hz and 120 Hz is relatively small. In some circumstances, viewers may notice smoother motion on the screen, but it will make little difference for most people. You will only get the full benefit of a 120 Hz TV if you have content that is created at this frequency.

It can be challenging to know the native refresh rate of your TV because many manufacturers quote elevated numbers. The native refresh rate can only be 60 or 120 Hz. If a manufacturer quotes a ‘motion rate,’ the native refresh rate is often half that number, although this varies. Another way is to check quality reviews for that TV, which should quote the actual number.

If you have a game created at 120 Hz and can use the latest HDMI 2.1 specification on all your hardware, you will benefit from higher refresh rates. Otherwise, it will unlikely make much difference.

In most cases, the refresh rate has little effect on the performance of a TV. On TVs with a high refresh rate, the picture may appear smoother to some people – with less motion blur. But the main limitation is the frame rate of the content, which is unlikely to be created at higher refresh rates, so your TV’s refresh rate will make little difference.

CRT monitor must have a precise refresh frequency, due to its nature, it constantly redraws the picture. But since VGA that frequency is generated by the video card!

I always lived in 50Hz world and never encountered 50Hz computer monitors, so I"ve never seen a PC CRT monitor that actually syncs to the line frequency. Probably in the past (EGA and earlier) they were like this, but monitors don"t follow the line frequency for a quite long time and use Vsync signal from VGA to refresh instead.

In 1995 I"ve had a 14" CRT SVGA monitor that was able to sync at 1024x768 37.5Hz interlaced, which is half 75Hz and it was obviously generated by the VGA card clock. Other monitor I had around 2000 was 17", it was able to do 1024x768 at 85Hz (and that was extremely common); also it might do 1152x832 at 75Hz. Nothing like 60Hz, it never had such a recommendation. Since higher refresh rate lowered perceived flicker and eye fatigue, everybody wanted to have as much freq as possible. When LCD was introduced, it did not flicker at all. So was enough 60Hz (for the VGA signal, since there was no physical redraw at the panel) for it to be not eye-heavy. Everybody went 60Hz back, probably because the circuitry is cheaper when the frequency is lower, also the screen resolutions increased and there was always a tradeoff, if you want higher resolution, you can only achieve that at lower frequency.

Also, if you check the powering tract of the modern monitors, it is always switching power supply first, and the first thing SMPS does to the input voltage is to rectify it, then generate much higher frequency, to use smaller transformers. Then it transforms and rectifies it again. So there is nothing left from the input frequency.

It’s natural for anyone shopping desktop monitors to be swayed by size, shape, resolution and color quality. But depending on your business needs, you may also want to consider a less flashy feature: the monitor’s refresh rate.

Refresh rate is the frequency at which the screen updates with new images each second, measured in hertz (cycles per second). The content may look steady on the display, but what the viewer can’t see is how fast the content is changing — up to 360 times a second. The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the visual quality.

Super high monitor refresh rates aren’t all that important for office workers focused on lighter computing like word processing, spreadsheets and emails. But in more visual professions like creative production and game development, a high refresh rate for monitors is invaluable.

The standard refresh rate for desktop monitors is 60Hz. But in recent years, more specialized, high-performing monitors have been developed that support 120Hz, 144Hz and even 240Hz refresh rates, which ensure ultra-smooth content viewing, even for the most demanding visual processing needs.

Just buying a high refresh rate monitor doesn’t mean the display quality will magically improve. The monitor’s refresh rate reflects the maximum rate at which the display can change the visuals. What happens on the screen depends on the frame rate of the output — the number of video frames that are sent to the display each second.

A 120Hz monitor has obvious benefits, though, for modern gaming platforms that animate at 100 fps or higher. A high refresh rate helps the screen keep pace with the high-twitch inputs of players and translate them into super smooth actions on screen.

When refresh rate and frame rate are mismatched, it can result in something called screen tearing. If the computer’s graphic card is pushing out more frames than the monitor’s refresh rate can handle at a given moment, users may see two half-frames on the screen at once, bisected horizontally and slightly misaligned. In short, it doesn’t look good. Games are usually configured to automatically match the PC’s graphics capabilities to avoid tearing, but running high-action visuals more slowly than intended makes for a compromised viewing and playing experience.

Response time — the time it takes for a pixel to change color — also plays a role in refresh rate. A monitor can only refresh as quickly as the LCD display can make those rapid-fire color shifts.

Particularly for fast-paced visuals, higher refresh rates and faster pixel response times reduce ghosted visuals, and ideally eliminate them. With slower tech, a high-pace action sequence may come with trailing images that result in softer, even blurry on-screen visuals.

The appeal of high refresh rates is obvious for at-home gamers looking for a responsive, hyperrealistic playing experience. And this leisure use is part of a vast global industry. SuperData reported that the video gaming industry generated roughly $140 billion in 2020, up 12 percent from $120 billion in 2019. Statista estimates there are now more than 3 billion gamers worldwide.

In the U.S. alone, the video game industry employs 220,000 people across all 50 states, according to the Entertainment Software Association. That’s a lot of game developers, graphic artists and playtesters working in front of monitors, most of them in need of optimal visual quality and speed at their workstations. While 60Hz refresh rates may work fine for people in finance and human resources — and even the clerical side of gaming companies — people on the visual and testing side need at least 120Hz to do their jobs well.

And it’s not just gaming. While the film industry has long produced movies at 24 fps, that frame rate is a relic of times when there were different technical restraints on cameras and projection, so a faster frame rate required more expensive film. The 24 fps standard has stuck around largely because that’s what the public is used to. Today, filmmakers are increasingly pushing frame rates as high as 120 fps.

High-performance monitors with high refresh rates come with obvious visual improvements, but monitor upgrades in general bring a broader range of business benefits.

Premium monitors also come with built-in (adjustable) technologies that can reduce eye strain. Manufacturers, led by Samsung, have increasingly introduced curved widescreen monitors that equalize the focal distance of every part of the screen. The left and right edges are the same distance from the viewer’s eyes as the middle of the screen, reducing eye strain, as viewers don’t have to adjust their eyes as they scan the display.

High refresh rate monitors with high response times also tend to come with other premium features, such as full support for USB-C connections. With a single cable, the user can connect their PC to a monitor that functions as a USB hub for peripheral devices. This negates the need for expensive and often clunky docking stations, and can significantly reduce the number of cables at each workstation. In addition to tidier, streamlined workspaces, this also reduces the demand for IT support. With fewer connectors and devices, you tend to get fewer problems.

Around the workplace, anyone in a visually creative role will see immediate benefits from a higher refresh rate. And while those in non-visual roles probably won’t see any difference, the key may be futureproofing.

When IT and information systems (IS) teams plan capital purchases, they need to look several years ahead for potential technical requirements down the road. While high-refresh monitors may have a defined user community right now, it’s likely more use cases and worker needs will develop. Monitors with low refresh rates can’t get better, but higher-refresh monitors can serve your display needs both now and in the future.

The term "refresh rate" is hardly new, but over the last few years it"s become a prominent specification boasted by televisions and monitors. Each manufacturer wants to offer a higher refresh rate because it"s another big number they can put on the box.

Let"s start at the beginning, because you won"t be able to understand the rest of this article if you don"t know what refresh rate means. Fortunately, the term is not particularly complex. Refresh rate is simply the number of times a display refreshes the image it shows per second.

An easy way to understand this is by comparing it to frame rate in films or games. If a film is said to be shot at twenty-four frames per second, you"d understand the source content shows twenty-four different images each second. Similarly, a display with refresh rate of 60 Hz shows sixty "frames" per second. "Frames" is in quotes, though, because it"s not actually a frame. The display will refresh sixty times each second even if not a single pixel changes, and the display only shows the source fed to it. Still, the analogy is an easy way to understand the core concept.

A higher refresh rate therefore translates to the ability to handle a higher frame rate. Remember, though, that a display shows what is given to it. As such, a higher refresh may not always improve your experience if your refresh rate is already much higher than the frame rate of your source.

All video games, no matter their platform or graphics, are rendered by computer hardware. In most cases (particularly on the PC platform) frames are spit out as quickly as they can be generated. This is because higher frame rates usually translate to less delay between each individual frame. That in turn means more realistic gameplay and less input lag.

A problem occurs, however, when the rate frames are being dished out doesn"t sync well with the rate at which the display refreshes. Let"s say, for example, you have a 60 Hz display that"s used to play a game rendering at 75 frames per second. In this situation, the display, which accepts data from the GPU at regular intervals without communicating with it, is very likely to catch the hardware between frames. The result is screen tearing and jerky, uneven motion. Most games let you artificially cap the frame rate to prevent this problem, but that means you can"t enjoy your PC"s full potential.

The solution is a higher refresh rate. Today, this typically means buying a 120 Hz monitor. Such a display can manage up to 120 frames per second. It also nicely handles lower V-Sync caps like 30 and 60 FPS, as they are even multiples of the 120 Hz refresh rate. Upgrading from 60 Hz to 120 Hz is a very noticeable difference, but it"s also something you have see for yourself. You can"t see the advantage of a 120 Hz display by viewing a video of it on a 60 Hz display.

A new, cutting-edge refresh technology important to gamers is adaptive refresh rate. NVIDIA calls this feature G-Sync, while AMD calls it FreeSync. In either case, the idea is the same; unlike a conventional monitor, a display with an adaptive refresh rate asks the video card how quickly it is delivering frames, then adjusts its refresh rate to match. This eliminates screen tearing at any frame rate up to the monitor"s maximum refresh rate.

Viewing a video is much different then playing a game. A game is rendered in real time; a video is played back from a source. While film is generally shot at 24 frames per second, it is often converted to 30 or 60 frames per second by repeating certain frames. Only certain source files, played on certain hardware (typically, a Blu-ray disc on a capable Blu-ray player) have the ability to output 24 FPS. Even in those cases, though, the original 24 FPS is not exactly reproduced, but rather a higher frame rate is reproduced in a cadence that replicates the original 24 FPS motion.

The conversion of frame rate is purposely introduced to better match modern home displays, which typically operate at 60 Hz or some higher multiple thereof. It also reduces flicker, which is apparent if content is viewed in its 24 FPS form. Other video sources, like YouTube, typically operate at 30 frames per second (though YouTube recently announced support for 60 FPS video).

You may wonder, then, why you"d need a 120 Hz, 240 Hz or 480 Hz display for video. The cynical answer is "you don"t." If the display in question is a monitor, there is usually no benefit derived from the improved refresh rate. If the display is a television, it will likely "enhance" the original content by using an algorithm to generate entirely new frames between those fed by the original source content. This technique, known as motion interpolation, can smooth video, but critics often dislike the artificial look it adds to the source.

A less cynical answer, however, will correctly argue that displays with better refresh rate tend to have better motion performance. This is not an attribute of the refresh rate, but is instead a benefit derived from the fact more expensive displays with higher refresh rates often have high-quality panels that show less ghosting and lag than their cheaper siblings. This is not quantified by any specification, however, and there"s no guarantee a 120 Hz display will show better motion detail than a 60 Hz model. You need to dig into professional reviews to know the details. Even if a display claims proper reproduction of 24 FPS film cadence, for example, it may not actually deliver when tested.

Modern plasma displays are often quoted as having a 600 Hz refresh rate. This has nothing to do with the refresh rate figures quoted by other technologies. A plasma, in order to create a picture, has to turn individual pixels on and off extremely rapidly. Usually this is done ten times per second, and manufacturers multiple that by a typical 60 Hz cadence to deliver - presto! - 600 Hz.

In fact, the comparison is apples-to-oranges because plasmas are fundamentally different from LCD monitors and displays. What you really need to know is this; plasmas do not have motion issues, such as ghosting, which often plague LCDs. This is because unlike an LCD, which will wait until the next scheduled refresh to do anything at all, a plasma refreshes within a fraction of a millisecond.

If you play games, but generally don"t see a frame rate higher than sixty per second, then a higher refresh rate is not going to benefit you. You"ll also see little improvement if you like to keep things capped at a V-Sync maximum of 60 FPS.

Readers interested in video quality will not see any direct correlation between a better refresh rate and improved quality. Panels that handle higher rates may have better overall motion performance, but the refresh rate specification does not speak to that. You need to read a professional review of a television to properly understand how a set handles motion.

As such, refresh rate is mainly applicable to PC gamers who want the best motion performance possible from games. Anyone who fits into this category will find that better refresh rates are extremely important, and that goes double if you can snag a monitor and video card combo that supports an adaptive refresh rate.

Do you think about refresh rate when you buy a new display, and if you do, what do you hope a quicker rate will provide for you? Let us know in the comments.

The focus of this study is a description of features and artifacts of the LCD technology which are supposed to be relevant for psychophysical and neuroscientific experiments in general. A wide range of different monitor technologies and determinants of the temporal signal are compared. Three recent studies [30]–[32] approach the topic from the opposite side by focussing on well defined psychophysical requirements which they relate to only a few aspects on one or two LCD panels. In the following, we will briefly review these works and compare their approaches and results to the present study.

Kihara and colleagues [30] compare the performance in three psychophysical experiments which were performed on one LCD and two CRT devices, respectively. They statistically analyze the experimental results, fail to find significant differences for most of the conditions, and conclude that the three displays elicited similar performance profiles.

Wang and Nikolić [31] compared one CRT monitor and two different LCD panels, an old and a new model, with respect to both their spatial and temporal properties. The authors report that for the new LCD monitor the level of accuracy of timing and intensity was comparable, if not better to the benchmark CRT monitor, while the old LCD panel had a number of issues with respect to accuracy.

The study by Lagroix and colleagues [32] also analyses temporal properties. The authors investigate psychophysical estimates of visible persistence of stimuli immediately after their assumed disappearance on the display device. In their experiments, observers performed forced choice tasks on these stimuli, where a shutter controlled that the stimulus could not be seen during the period when it was (intendedly) displayed. They compared performance using a CRT and an LCD monitor. While there was considerable visible persistence on the CRT for white stimuli on black background, the authors did not find any perceptual persistence on the LCD panel.

Our study, however, demonstrates a number of artifacts due to improper DCC with some substantial effects on the luminance transition signal, such as luminance stepping or substantial overshoots. It remains important future work to study these artifacts with experimental paradigms as developed by Lagroix and colleagues, as it is likely that some of the artifacts presented in this work have considerable impacts on visual persistence.

Resolution is a key feature of any monitor. It measures the width and height of the screen in terms of pixels, or “picture elements”, the tiny points of illumination that compose an image. A 2,560 × 1,440 screen, for example, has a total of 3,686,400 pixels.

Common resolutions include 1,920 × 1,080 (sometimes called “Full HD” or FHD), 2,560 × 1,440 (“Quad HD”, QHD, or “Widescreen Quad HD”, WQHD), or 3840 × 2160 (UHD, or “4K Ultra HD”). Ultrawide monitors are also available with resolutions such as 2560 x 1080 (UW-FHD) and 3440 x 1440 (UW-QHD), 3840x1080 (DFHD), and 5120x1440 (DQHD).

The pixels being counted in these measurements are usually rendered the same way: As squares on a two-dimensional grid. To see this, you can either move closer to (or magnify) the screen until you perceive individual blocks of color, or zoom in on an image until it becomes “pixelated”, and you see a staircase of small squares instead of clean diagonal lines.

Beyond increasing the detail onscreen in games or movies, there"s another benefit to higher resolutions. They give you more desktop real estate to work with. That means you get a larger workspace on which to arrange windows and applications.

You might already know that a screen with 4K display resolution doesn"t magically make everything it displays look 4K. If you play a 1080p video stream on it, that content usually won"t look as good a 4K Blu-ray. However, it may still look closer to 4K than it used to, thanks to a process called upscaling.

Monitors can also change resolution. Modern screens have a fixed number of pixels, which defines their "native resolution" but can also be set to approximate lower resolutions. As you scale down, onscreen objects will look larger and fuzzier, screen real estate will shrink, and visible jaggedness may result from interpolation. (Note that it wasn’t always this way: older analog CRT monitors can actually switch between resolutions without interpolation, as they do not have a set number of pixels.)

Screens with 4K resolution and higher introduce another scaling concern: at ultra-high definition, text and interface elements like buttons can start to look small. This is especially true on smaller 4K screens when using programs that don’t automatically resize their text and UI.

Windows’ screen scaling settings can increase the size of text and layout elements, but at the cost of reducing screen real estate. There’s still a benefit of increased resolution, even when this scaling is used — onscreen content, like an image in an editing program, will appear at 4K resolution even if the menus around it have been rescaled.

Manufacturers measure screen size diagonally, from corner to corner. A larger screen size, in tandem with a higher resolution, means more usable screen space and more immersive gaming experiences.

Players sit or stand close to their monitors, often within 20”-24”. This means that the screen itself fills much more of your vision than an HDTV (when seated at the couch) or a smartphone/tablet. (Monitors boast the best ratio of diagonal screen size to viewing distance among common displays, with the exception of virtual reality headsets). The benefits of 1440p or 4K resolution are more immediately perceptible in this close-range situation.

Basically, you want to find a screen where you never perceive an individual pixel. You can do this using online tools that measure pixel density (in pixels per inch), which tells you the relative “sharpness” of the screen by determining how closely pixels are packed together, or the alternative pixels per degree formula, which automatically compares its measurements against the limits of human vision.

It"s also worth considering your own eyesight and desktop setup. If you have 20/20 vision and your eyes are around 20” from your screen, a 27” 4K panel will provide an immediate visual upgrade. However, if you know your eyesight is worse than 20/20, or you prefer to sit more than 24” away, a 1440p panel may look just as good to you.

A monitor"s aspect ratio is the proportion of width to height. A 1:1 screen would be completely square; the boxy monitors of the 1990s were typically 4:3, or “standard”. They have largely been replaced by widescreen (16:9) and some ultrawide (21:9, 32:9, 32:10) aspect ratios.

Most online content, such as YouTube videos, also defaults to a widescreen aspect ratio. However, you"ll still see horizontal black bars onscreen when watching movies or TV shows shot in theatrical widescreen (2.39:1, wider than 16:9), and vertical black bars when watching smartphone videos shot in thinner “portrait” mode. These black bars preserve the original proportions of the video without stretching or cropping it.

UltrawidesWhy opt for an ultrawide screen over regular widescreen? They offer a few advantages: They fill more of your vision, they can provide a movie-watching experience closer to the theater (as 21:9 screens eliminate “letterboxing” black bars for widescreen films), and they let you expand field of view (FOV) in games without creating a “fisheye” effect. Some players of first-person games prefer a wider FOV to help them spot enemies or immerse themselves in the game environment. (But note that some popular FPS games do not support high FOV settings, as they can give players an advantage).

Curved screens are another common feature on ultrawide monitors. These can correct one typical issue with larger ultrawides: Images at the distant edges of the screen look less distinct than those in the middle. A curved screen helps compensate for this and provides a clearer view of the extreme edges of the screen. However, its benefits are most noticeable on larger screens over 27”.

Contrast RatioContrast ratio, one of the most basic measures of a monitor"s performance, measures the ratio between the extremes of black and white that the screen can display. A baseline contrast ratio like 1,000:1 means that the white parts of the image are 1,000 times brighter than the dark parts.

Use caution when LCDs advertise very high “dynamic contrast ratios”, which are achieved by changing the behavior of the backlight. For gaming or everyday use, the standard “static” contrast ratio discussed above is a better marker of the monitor"s quality.

LuminanceBrightness is often measured in “luminance”, a precise measure of how much light is emitted by the screen. It"s given in candelas per square meter (cd/m2), a unit which is also called a “nit”. For HDR displays, the VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) has standardized a suite of tests for luminance using specific test patches. When comparing luminance specs, check to make sure they use this consistent test platform, rather than a proprietary metric.

Black LevelIn all LCD screens, light from the backlight inevitably leaks through the liquid crystal. This provides the basis for the contrast ratio: For example, if the screen leaks 0.1% of the illumination from the backlight in an area that"s supposed to be black, this establishes a contrast ratio of 1,000:1. An LCD screen with zero light leakage would have an infinite contrast ratio. However, this isn"t possible with current LCD technology.

“Glow” is a particular issue in dark viewing environments, which means that achieving low black levels is a major selling point for LCD monitors. However, an LCD screen can’t reach a black level of 0 nits unless it’s completely turned off.

OLEDs have incredible black levels because they don"t use backlights. When an OLED pixel isn"t activated by electricity, it creates no light at all. OLED screens may advertise black levels “below 0.0005 nits”, as taking measurements more precise is usually prohibitively expensive. However, the black level is usually much closer to 0 than 0.0005.

Color DepthMonitors need to display many subtle shades of color. If they can"t smoothly transition between slightly different hues, we see onscreen color “banding” — a stark shift between two different colors, creating visibly lighter, and darker bands where we should see a seamless gradient. This is sometimes referred to as “crushing” the colors.

A monitor"s ability to display many slightly different colors, and thus avoid banding and inaccuracy, is measured by color depth. Color depth specifies the amount of data (measured in bits) the screen can use to build the color of one pixel.

Each pixel onscreen has three color channels — red, green, and blue — illuminated at varying intensities to create (typically) millions of shades. 8-bit color means that each color channel uses eight bits. The total number of shades possible in a screen with 8-bit color depth is 28 x 28 x 28=16,777,216.

True 10-bit monitors are rare — many monitors use forms of internal color processing, such as FRC (frame rate control), to approximate a greater color depth. A “10-bit” monitor could be an 8-bit monitor with an additional FRC stage, often written as “8+2FRC”.

Some inexpensive LCD panels use 6-bit color along with “dithering” to approximate 8-bit color. In this context, dithering means the insertion of similar, alternating colors next to one another to fool the eye into seeing a different in-between color that the monitor cannot accurately display.

Frame Rate Control, or FRC, alternates different colors with each new frame to achieve this. While this can be implemented more cheaply than 8-bit True Color, color accuracy suffers, especially in low-light environments. Some screens also feature 8-bit color depth with an additional FRC stage (commonly listed as “8-bit + FRC”) to approximate 10-bit color.

Monitors sometimes feature a Look-Up Table (LUT) corresponding to a higher color depth, such as 10-bit color. This helps speed up color correction calculations that take place within the monitor as it converts color input to a color output appropriate for your screen. This intermediate step can help create smoother color transitions and more accurate output. These are usually reserved for more professional grade monitors than general consumer and gaming displays.

Monitors advertising "99% sRGB" are claiming the screen covers 99% of the sRGB color gamut, which is often considered indistinguishable from 100% when viewed with the naked eye.

In LCD screens, the backlight and color filters determine the color space. All of the light created by the backlight passes through a color filter with red, green, and blue spots. Narrowing the “band-pass” of this filter restricts the wavelengths of light that can pass through, increasing the purity of the final colors produced. Although this lessens the screen"s efficiency (as the filter now blocks more of the backlight"s output), it creates a wider color gamut.

HDR monitors display brighter images with better contrast and preserve more detail in both light and dark areas of the screen. Using an HDR monitor, you might be better able to spot something moving down a dark corridor in a horror game, or see more dramatic shafts of sunlight in an open-world title.

For LCD displays, a high-end backlight feature called local dimming is critical to HDR quality. Dimming zones for the backlight behind the screen control the brightness of groups of LEDs; more dimming zones means more precise control, less “blooming” (where light areas of the image brighten dark ones), and generally improved contrast.

Edge-lit local dimming relies on groups of LEDs clustered around the edges of the screen to brighten or dim the image in what is typically a fairly limited number of dimming zones.

Full Array Local Dimming (FALD), a more high-end option, uses far more dimming zones (typically hundreds) directly behind the panel rather than just at the edges of the screen. It can give more finite control of the HDR content and dimming of the screen as a result.

On the low end, a DisplayHDR 400 screen can have a peak brightness of 400 nits (compared to a 300-nit standard monitor), but only needs a standard 95% sRGB color gamut and 8-bit color depth. DisplayHDR 400 doesn"t require backlight local dimming.

On the higher end, a DisplayHDR 600 screen needs a brightness of 600 nits, 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut (providing a wider color space), 10-bit color depth, and some form of local dimming.

Refresh rate is the frequency at which your entire screen refreshes the image. Higher refresh rates make onscreen motion look smoother, because the screen updates the position of each object more rapidly. This can make it easier for competitive players to track moving enemies in a first-person shooter, or just make a screen feel more responsive as you scroll down a webpage or open an app on your phone.

Response rates are measured in hertz: A response rate of 120Hz, for example, means that the monitor refreshes every pixel 120 times per second. While 60Hz was once the standard for both PC monitors and smartphones, manufacturers are increasingly adopting higher refresh rates.

A higher refresh rate makes it easier to track moving objects with your eye, makes sharp camera movements feel smoother, and reduces perceived motion blur. Online communities are divided about the improvement provided by monitors over 120Hz. If interested, it"s worth checking one out in person to see how much of a difference it might make for you.

Frame rate, measured in frames per second (FPS), tracks the number of images your graphics hardware draws. This online motion test demonstrates the improvements players will see when tracking moving objects at higher frame rates and refresh rates.

However, you"ll only actually see those extra frames onscreen if you have a refresh rate that matches or exceeds them; similarly, you only benefit from a high refresh rate screen if you have a CPU and graphics card capable of high frame rates. Plan your build accordingly to get the full benefit from your hardware.

Response times must be fast enough to keep up with the refresh rate. On a 240Hz screen, for example, a new frame is sent to the screen every 4.17 milliseconds (1000/240 = 4.17).

Players sometimes confuse response time with input lag, a measurement of the delay before your actions appear onscreen, similarly measured in milliseconds. Input lag is felt rather than seen, and is often a priority for players of fighting games and first-person shooters.

Input lag is a side effect of the processing done by the monitor scaler and the screen"s internal electronics. Selecting “Game Mode” on your monitor"s adjustment menu often switches off image processing features and lessens input lag. Disabling VSync (which prevents some visual artifacts) in in-game option menus can also help reduce input lag.

Adaptive SyncScreen tears will be instantly familiar to most players: A graphical glitch that appears as a horizontal line on your screen, with slightly mismatched images above and below it.

The glitch involves both your graphics card and monitor. The GPU draws a varying number of frames per second, but the monitor refreshes its screen at a fixed rate. If the GPU is midway through overwriting the previous frame in the frame buffer when the monitor reads the frame buffer to refresh the screen, the monitor will display the mismatched image as-is. The top of the image might be a new frame, but the bottom section will still show the previous frame, creating the “tear”.

VSync (vertical sync) provides one solution to this issue. This in-game feature reduces the speed at which frames are drawn in order to match your monitor"s refresh rate. However, VSync can cause stuttering when the frame rate drops below that cap. (For example, the GPU may suddenly drop to 30fps when it can"t deliver 60fps). The increased load on the GPU can also result in input lag.

G-Sync monitors use NVIDIA"s proprietary G-Sync scaler chip to match monitor refresh rates to GPU output, as well as predict GPU output based on recent performance. It also helps prevent stutter and input lag, which can result from duplicate frames being drawn as the first one waits to be displayed.

AMD Radeon FreeSync monitors operate along similar lines, matching the display to GPU output to avoid screen tearing and stutters. Rather than using a proprietary chip, they"re built on open Adaptive Sync protocols, which have been built into DisplayPort 1.2a and all later DisplayPort revisions. Though FreeSync monitors are often cheaper, the trade-off is that they aren"t subject to standard testing before release, and vary widely in quality.

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) is a general term for technologies that sync up your monitor and GPU. Adaptive Sync is an open protocol included in DisplayPort 1.2a and later revisions. Recent Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA graphics technologies can all work with Adaptive Sync monitors.

Both LCDs and OLEDs "sample and hold", displaying moving objects as a series of static images that are rapidly refreshed. Each sample remains onscreen until it"s replaced with the next refresh. This "persistence" causes motion blur, as the human eye expects to track objects smoothly rather than see them jump to a new position. Even at high refresh rates, which update the image more often, the underlying sample-and-hold technology causes motion blur.

Motion blur reduction features use backlight strobing to shorten the time that frame samples are displayed onscreen. The screen turns black after every sample before displaying the next, reducing the time that a static image is held onscreen.

This mimics the operation of older CRT monitors, which worked differently than current LCD technology. CRT screens were illuminated by phosphors that rapidly decayed, providing brief impulses of illumination. This meant that the screen was actually dark for most of the refresh cycle. These quick impulses actually created a smoother impression of motion than sample-and-hold, and motion blur reduction features work to replicate this effect.

Because the backlight is being rapidly turned off and on, these features also lessen the brightness of the display. If you"re planning to use motion blur reduction backlight strobing, ensure that the screen you"re buying has high peak brightness.

These backlights should only be enabled for gaming and fast-moving content, as they will deliberately cause the backlight to flicker, which may be annoying during day-to-day tasks. They also can typically only be used at a fixed refresh rate (like 120Hz), and won"t work at the same time as VRR.

CRTs used three bulky electron guns to send a beam to excite red, green, and blue phosphors on the screen. These phosphors decayed within a few milliseconds, meaning the screen was illuminated by brief impulses on each refresh. This created a smooth illusion of motion, but also visible flickering.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)In TFT LCDs (thin-film-transistor liquid crystal displays), a backlight shines light through a layer of liquid crystals that can twist, turn, or block it. The liquid crystals do not emit light themselves, which is a key difference between LCDs and OLEDs.

Older LCDs used Cold-Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFLs) as backlights. These large, energy-inefficient tubes were incapable of controlling the brightness of smaller zones of the screen, and were eventually phased out in favor of smaller, energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

LCD panels are available in a range of technologies and can vary widely in color reproduction, response time, and input lag, especially among high-end options. However, the following generalizations about panels usually hold true:

Oldest and most affordable LCD panel type. High refresh rates and response times for high-speed gaming such as first-person shooters or fighting games.

Widest viewing angles. Most stable image quality. Deeper blacks and better contrast ratios than TN panels. Most are 6-bit+2, but 8-bit and 8+2 panels exist. Often highly rated premium panels.

Pale glow, known as “IPS glow” visible when viewing screens in dark rooms from off-center angles. Response times usually worse than TN panels, but better than VA panels. Lower contrast ratio than VA panels.

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED)OLED screens are emissive, meaning they create their own light, rather than transmissive screens that require a separate light source (like LCDs). Here, the application of electric current causes a layer of organic molecules to light up on the front of the screen.

Backlights may be imperfectly blocked by the liquid crystals in an LCD, causing black areas of an image to appear gray. Because OLEDs have no backlight, they can achieve “true black” by simply turning off a pixel (or at least 0.0005 nits, the lowest measurable brightness).

OLEDs therefore boast very high contrast ratios and vibrant color. The elimination of the backlight also makes them slimmer than LCDs. Much as LCDs were a thinner, more energy-efficient evolution of CRTs, OLEDs may prove a thinner evolution of LCDs. (They can also be more energy-efficient when displaying dark content, like movies, but less energy-efficient with white screens, such as word processing programs).

You"ll find a multitude of ports behind or beneath your monitor. Display interfaces connect your screen to graphics output from your PC, while USB and Thunderbolt™ ports provide data and power to external devices.

Dual-Link DVI: This revision doubles the bandwidth of single-link DVI. It displays up to 2560 × 1600 resolution and supports refresh rates up to 144Hz (at 1080p).

Figuring out what to look for in a gaming monitor depends heavily on the choices you"ve made about the rest of your computer. Modern monitors can generally help you avoid the dropped frames, input lag, and visual artifacts common in older technologies, but the value of increased resolution, color depth, and motion smoothing features will vary from player to player. It"s down to you to separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.

Last year, the high refresh rate screen is still a major selling point, when a 120Hz screen refresh rate release, everyone’s reaction is the same “awesome! If a flagship phone is released without mentioning the screen refresh rate, everyone’s first reaction becomes, “Oh, this screen does not even support the high refresh rate, do not buy!”

It can be said that the cell phone’s 120Hz screen has become an important direction for future development, everyone’s point of view such a shift this is why?

In the last year, we can still say that the mainstream cell phone screen refresh rate of 60Hz, but this year, 90Hz refresh rate screen new machine pile up, 120Hz screen become the mainstream flagship machine, so for consumers, high refresh rate screen good where?

More intuitive is a second to refresh 60 images, 90Hz refresh rate screen can refresh 90 images a second, to 120Hz, a second to display the screen is twice 60Hz. More screens available for transition, can bring more smooth and coherent screen display effect, which is also a high refresh rate screen can bring us the most direct visual changes.

For example, in the desktop, microblogging and other use scenarios when sliding, the content moves more smoothly and coherently, looks comfortable and natural. As you can see from the above slow-motion comparison between the normal 60Hz screen and the 120Hz screen, the 120Hz screen is much smoother and more coherent when sliding. This smooth experience will run through most daily use scenarios, and the actual experience will be related to optimization.

Speaking of high refresh rate, here you must not get around a big factory – Samsung. At present, the world’s two largest suppliers of cell phone screens, one is Samsung, one is China’s BOE. Samsung has always been the industry leader in screen display, and most of the 120Hz refresh rate cell phones on the market, the screen supply is Samsung Electronics.

In the supply of high refresh rate screen, Samsung’s major advantage lies in its high quality OLED screen. Currently on the market, 120Hz refresh rate in addition to the OLED screen produced by Samsung, there are some LED screens. the biggest difference between LCD screen and AMOLED screen is that the former is by the LCD panel light, while the latter is organic self-luminous. Due to the LCD inversion problem, resulting in LCD screen response time is significantly higher than the OLED screen, so even if the LCD screen refresh rate to 120Hz, it will make the high refresh rate brings a sense of smoothness discount.

As Samsung’s latest flagship model, the masterpiece of Samsung technology, the Samsung S20 Ultra was released after the well-known screen testing agency DisplayMate also quickly did a test of the product’s screen, the test results were not unexpected, this product has by far the best screen in the smartphone.

From the Samsung S20 Ultra we can also see the advantage of Samsung in screen display, and this lead is difficult to surpass, because Samsung has occupied the core position in the OLED screen supply chain. Even top giants like Apple use Samsung’s screens, and the screens Samsung uses on its own products are definitely better than those provided to other brands.

As a screen supply chain occupies the core position of Samsung, in the research and development of high refresh rate has never stopped. displayMate mentioned that since 2010 began testing OLED display, Samsung has been systematically improving the screen display performance of each generation of products, and never seen the state of standing still in Samsung.

Called 120Hz screen to become the future direction of development and a big reason is that, even with a high refresh rate screen, sometimes can not experience the advantages of high refresh rate, after all, if the program does not support the high frame rate, in addition to the game on the smoothness of considerations, many programs currently have restrictions on the frame rate, this situation can not play the advantages of high refresh rate screen.

Of course, it is generally the hardware that keeps up first, and with the release of more phones with 120Hz refresh rate, the application ecology of 120 fps will also keep up. At present, “” already supports 120Hz, “Peace Elite” and other mainstream games also already support 90Hz high frame rate mode, with smoother game graphics in high frame rate mode. In the future, the program already supports higher refresh rates, but because of the limitations of the cell phone hardware can not get the best experience, it must be said that it is also a pity.

Of course, to say that in 2020 the high refresh rate screen can be popularized, become the standard cell phone, the biggest reason lies in with the technological breakthrough, the upstream supply chain capacity has been improved – screen giant Samsung has a mature high refresh rate screen manufacturing process. The maturity of the supply chain, technical problems overcome, production capacity, all pave the way for the popularity of high refresh rate screen, so the popularity of high refresh rate screen has become an inevitable process.

Whether it is the upstream supply chain, or the user experience, and the gradually improving 120Hz ecology, the high refresh rate screen has become a mainstream trend, which is a happy thing for consumers.

For the cell phone industry, the previous high refresh rate can be said to be a “differentiation” selling point, but in the future, 120Hz start, high refresh rate will become the standard for mainstream flagships. With the upstream supply chain production capacity in the near future, mid-range products will also be equipped with a high refresh rate screen starting at 120Hz as standard, a high refresh rate high frame rate ecology is on the way.

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