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LCD Pixel Response Time Halved

Posted by Hemos on from the speeding-things-up dept.

kagaku writes "Japanese newspaper the Nihon Kaizai Shimbun (evil registration required) said that Mitsubishi has mastered a technology to improve the response speed of pixels on LCDs by 100 per cent or more. It's done this by getting rid of the afterimages on screens which known as "ghosts", said the newspaper, and invented a proprietary system called Dual Domain Bend. It cites unnamed sources at Mitsubishi saying that this method produces a response speed of one millisecond when power is applied and five milliseconds when the lights go off and the power goes down. That, the paper said, compares to up to forty milliseconds to switch pixels on and off. While the technique, when it gets to the manufacturing stage, will have immediate benefits for PC monitors, it will also help narrow the gap between LCD TVs and plasma displays, which have a quicker response speed. Here's a non-registration required link."

38 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. I like the link by bert.cl · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, the non-registration link really tells me a lot more than the blurb... or not ... them evil registrations...

    1. Re:I like the link by flonker · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, you read the article?

    2. Re:I like the link by bert.cl · · Score: 5, Funny
      Why yes,

      I am new here, can you tell?

  2. but isn't 100%... by phantasma6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    doesn't a reduction of 100% mean it has been reduced to 0ms?

    1. Re:but isn't 100%... by bert.cl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      response improved 100% procent, time wasn't reduced 100% i guess time was reduced 50%, however it's still early, so you can brag with numbers if you know better :)

    2. Re:but isn't 100%... by jejones · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it is a increase of 100% in response time, aka a redution of 50%.

      If response time increases by 100%, they've succeeded in making it twice as slow.

    3. Re:but isn't 100%... by mlyle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      response speed of pixels on LCDs by 100 per cent

      Or speed, to be more precise. I don't know why this is so hard for everyone to understand.

      If I normally drive home at 30 MPH, and I increase my speed by 100% (to 60MPH), I will get home in half the time. So if the rate at which pixels change luminosity increases by 100%, the transition time will fall by a factor of 2.

  3. Not exactly an explanation by beeglebug · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's done this by getting rid of the afterimages on screens which known as "ghosts"
    The pixel response time has been reduced by getting rid of ghosts? Surely that's an effect of the reduction, not a cause?
    1. Re:Not exactly an explanation by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well they tried exorcism on the individual pixels first and that didn't seem to work.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
    2. Re:Not exactly an explanation by T-Kir · · Score: 5, Funny

      Although the swivel base kept turning the display unit around in circles.

      ;-)

      --
      Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
    3. Re:Not exactly an explanation by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, but who wants a monitor that keeps spitting grean soup at you and telling you that your mother is in there?
      I'll keep my 16ms thank you.

      --
      Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
  4. Improving outdated technologies by Tennguin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I thought LCD technology was being replaced by DLP? Is this not the case?

    1. Re:Improving outdated technologies by TheGavster · · Score: 3, Informative

      DLP is a technology replacing the LCDs in high-end projectors. It is also used to replace the CRTs in high-end rear-projection televisions. This innovation improves backlit LCDs used for notebook and desktop computers. The competing tech in that arena is OLED, which is both thinner and does not require a backlight (once it gets rolling, it will also be easier to scale to larger screen sizes because of the inkjet process used to manufacture the displays)

      --
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  5. read again by Gentlewhisper · · Score: 5, Funny

    "100 per cent or more"

    It is actually less than 0ms. The images will appear on your screen before your GPU is even done with it!

    Perfect for duke nukem forever!

    --
    Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
  6. Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by John_Allen_Mohammed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sucks to be me. Bought a 42" plasma television 9 months ago and the brightness has dropped significantly in that time, probably a half of what it was when I bought it. Thats under heavy use, maybe 16-18 hours/day it's on. Anybody else here have the same experience ?

    --

    Skype Me! username: john_allen_mohammed
    1. Re:Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by neonstz · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...or maybe your eyes are just tired of watching TV 16-18 hours every day in 9 months?

    2. Re:Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yep, but it it was rather easily fixed when I realized my cat had been playing with the remote control.

    3. Re:Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by mikael · · Score: 5, Informative

      Plasma TV's will only last around five years. During that time the brightness will continue to decline. This makes them great for outdoor displays/public events, since there is more chance of a unit being rendered inoperable through transportation/assembly than there is through normal use. The following paper has a graph demonstrating the decline.

      --
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    4. Re:Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by brentl · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sucks to be you indeed. A normal, recent (made in the last few years) plasma should have a life of about 30,000 hours if I remember correctly. About three years of continuous use, at which time the brightness will be about half.
      I've had a Fujitsu Plasma for about a year, on for a several hours a day. Still looks the same. Perhaps you had yours set in "Exibition mode", with the brighness upped to extreme levels, and you've worn it out too soon. If not, maybe something's wrong with it and you can get it fixed under warranty.

    5. Re:Plasma Televisions are not ready for primetime. by mgoff · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm starting to wonder if this a myth propagated by local LCD manufacturers.

      I don't think it's that sinister. Plasma display technology has made great improvements over the past 5 or so years. This is not to say that there are not still major issues with them, but there are fewer than there used to be. Phosphor life, contrast ratio, and burn in (mitigation) are a few they've managed to fix. There are still issues with image retention and high power demand. LCD has problems with black levels, saturation, (to some extent) ghosting, and cost.

      Of course, this is not to say that plasmas and LCDs don't have their irrational fanboys. AVSForum is pretty civil, but they still come out every now and then.

  7. Article Text... by OzRoy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow! This is a great way to preempt a dying web server. Post the entire article in the summary instead of relying on karma whores.

  8. marketing... by taj · · Score: 4, Insightful


    100% work*time improvement - Everyone goes what?
    50% of the time to display - Everyone says what? then gets it.
    twice as fast. - Everyone says oh, OK.

    Each increasing easier to understand but decreasingly attractive to marketing droids.

    Sigh.

  9. Better numbers by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the pixels can respond to any signal within 5 ms, that means the highest framerate that can be displayed without ghosting is 200 fps (1 / 5ms = 200 Hz). Which is more than you should ever need, and a big improvement on current LCD displays (a good consumer display has a ~20ms response time; 1 / 20ms = 50 Hz, not even 60 fps, but good enough for TV's 30 fps.)

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  10. The Samsung 710T has basically no ghosting. by UranusReallyHertz · · Score: 5, Informative

    After days of agonizing between it and the 20 inch Dell, I bought the Samsung 710T and I am pretty happy with it. And I have never noticed any ghosting whatsoever while playing games like Far Cry and Doom 3 and watching movies like Hell Boy. So I think the Response Time is already adequate, at least on the 17 inch sizes.

    --
    Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
    1. Re:The Samsung 710T has basically no ghosting. by Ianoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That monitor has a claimed 12ms response time, which is equivilent to 83Hz (1 / 0.012s), which is as good as if not better than most CRTs out there, although some people claim to be able to see flicker right up to 85Hz (although much of the time I think the problem is about 5cm behind the eye, not in the eye itself).

      I can see flicker at 70Hz, but I can usually get on with 75Hz or 80Hz. I hate CRTs anyway, wouldn't touch them unless forced to nowadays. The geometry and sharpness of an LCD more than make up for any ghosting you see when playing FPS, which I hardly notice even with a 20ms screen.

    2. Re:The Samsung 710T has basically no ghosting. by Nahor · · Score: 2, Funny
      And I have never noticed any ghosting whatsoever while playing games like [...] Doom 3 [...]
      It's easy, switching from a black image to a back image never flickers. I can even play without turning the monitor on!!
  11. Who ya gonna Call? by Justabit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No ghosts and (suposedly) heaps better responce time is much better than the second hand CRT I was using last lear, which had burn in of previous companys logo. I guess the guy who worked on it went on holiday and left his screen on... Wonder if new LCDs will have a hidden down similar to plasmas (colour fade) ? I'm just waiting till direct neural wireless interface is invented so I can burn out my optic nerves watching ultraviolet!

    --
    "Persistance is Fertile" - Me. I can quote myself if I want to.
  12. Bragging with percentages by shoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I've seen some games played with percentages:
    Product A costs 40% more than product B!

    Product B costs 29% less than product A!
    Both are true... A is $14.00, B is $10.00. The difference is the same arithmetically, but doing it fractionally only serves to confuse things (usually, confuse the customer...)

    Things get really out of hand when there's a factor of two:

    We are 50% faster than the competition!
    From this it's not too far to say
    We are twice the speed of the competition!
    Which then gets twisted further to
    We are 100% faster than the competition!
    It's that last step that's most dubious to me, arithmetically (or geometrically) there's no justification.
    1. Re:Bragging with percentages by RealProgrammer · · Score: 3, Informative
      Things get really out of hand when there's a factor of two:
      • We are 50% faster than the competition!
      From this it's not too far to say
      • We are twice the speed of the competition!

      In your example, that's where the deception is:

      • "50% faster" means 1.5 times faster.

      • "100% faster" means 2 times faster.
      --
      sigs, as if you care.
    2. Re:Bragging with percentages by khrtt · · Score: 2, Informative

      Suppose he's talking about speed as time per event. By "50% faster" he means "time 50% shorter", which is really "twice as fast".

      Here, all of a sudden, we start defining speed as "events per time unit". Then, "twice as fast" means "twice as many events per time unit", i.e. 100% faster.

      Now, if you think about it, "50% shorter time per event" really does mean "100% more events per time unit", so my argument is correct and complete. I've just proven that "50% faster" is the same as "100% faster" :-)

    3. Re:Bragging with percentages by mav[LAG] · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The authorities played a similar sort of game in Mexico City in the late 70s by repainting the lines on the roads to carry more lanes and then boasting that they had "increased capacity by 50%!" - from four lanes to six IIRC. Then when the inevitable happened and far more accidents happened because of decreased room to manoeuvre, they reduced it back to four and claimed that there was now "33% less congestion!" Of course, nothing had changed (and certainly not the physical width of the road): 6 lanes is 50% more than 4 lanes, and 4 lanes is 33% less than six lanes.

      I'd welcome the exact details of this story - googling picks up the Economist's link but I can't get it to open.

      --
      --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
    4. Re:Bragging with percentages by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Insightful
      "50% faster" means 1.5 times faster. "100% faster" means 2 times faster.

      Even this is not true! '50% faster' means 150% times the original, i.e. 1.5 times as fast.

      This is a common confusion, but it makes one hell of a difference. 'N% faster' means '(100+N)% as fast', because faster is always more than the original.

      It should be obvious that '50% as fast' is less than the original, but '50% faster' is more than the original.

      100% faster means twice as fast, not 2 times faster.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  13. Great: by headqtrs · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just in time for Doom 3....

  14. But.. by adeyadey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Faster switching == more power needed? Not good for laptops..

    --
    "You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
    1. Re:But.. by j3110 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most of the power used by LCD is still going to be the backlight. The LCD itself doesn't even get warm itself. You may loose a few few minutes of battery life, who knows.

      --
      Karma Clown
  15. Article copied almost verbatim by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From The Enquirer.net.

    --
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  16. Meanwhile by berkut7 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Meanwhile Samsung is readying 8ms 19" LCDs for production in Q4 , 2004. 12ms LCDs produce almost no noticeble ghosting, 8ms should be even better at closing the gap to CRTs.

  17. If only by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If only those numbers weren't just pulled out of some marketroid's arse just because they look good.

    Remember that it's from the same guys who brought you the 14" display with only 10" visible. Or 16ms TFT panels which actually show about 120ms worth of ghosting.

    Or 18 bit colour TFT panels + dithering being sold as 24 bit panels. On account that surely making the display shimmer and flicker as it approximates colours by switching between other colours, is exactly what you always wanted in a TFT.

    (Someone remind me why a 20-30 Hz shimmer on TFT is better for my eyes than the 85 Hz flicker of a CRT? No really, I keep forgetting.)

    The computer industry as a whole is a pretty sad display of lies, shameless lies and IT marketting. But the display part of the industry has got to take the cake.

    At least half of the progress since the days of 120ms panels is just more creative ways to measure it, and/or to fudge the numbers.

    So basically what I'm getting at is: when you'll see a 5ms display on sale, you can rest assured that it's really a 30-40ms real latency fudged down to 5ms by the marketting department. And after the dithering is applied too, you can probably count on 40-50ms or more.

    I really wouldn't set my hopes too high about being able to display 100 fps without ghosting anywhere in the next 5 years.

    --
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