3 ms·

Maybe you're misunderstanding the usage of "flicker" here. I'm not saying that I can see my monitor flickering, because nobody can past a certain refresh rate.

Maybe you're misunderstanding the usage of "flicker" here. I'm not saying that I can see my monitor flickering, because nobody can past a certain refresh rate. What I'm saying is that any monitor inherently flickers because of its refresh rate, independently of our perception.

sho_hn 4y ago
Refresh rate is not the same as flicker. Refresh rate is the rate at which new information is displayed. Flicker is things turning on and off. As the parent mentioned, some screens use fast cycles of turning on/off to modulate perceived brightness, but this is not always the case.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  I'm not entirely sure if what's being said is true but I believe the intention is to stay: All LCDs "flicker" in the same way all movies "flicker". The technology simply displays or flashes a series of still images quick enough to be perceived as fluid motion or video.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    I'm not sure that's the intention, because they said that "e-ink doesn't flicker". But e-ink certainly has a refresh rate. So I think they attribute some other form of flickering to LCD. (And in fact, some of the e-ink readers with optional display lighting will use PWM to modulate its brightness, and then exhibit flicker. This is a super dumb engineering choice, though, so it's not very common. The Kobo Forma was an offender.)
    - shanebellone 4y ago
      Fair point. E-ink does refresh the entire screen though, correct? It's closer to a old-school slide projector than a monitor. I admittedly know little about this topic. As an aside, I'd love a secondary e-ink monitor. Hopefully the technology improves so prices come down.
      - sho_hn 4y ago
        > E-ink does refresh the entire screen though, correct? No, e-ink displays and controllers support partial updates.
        shanebellone 4y ago
        Thank you for the correction.
    - AstixAndBelix 4y ago
      >But e-ink certainly has a refresh rate of course it has a refresh rate when there is a change in the image, but if I'm reading something completely static then literally nothing changes whereas an LCD screen still does things in the background
      - sho_hn 4y ago
        On an LCD also nothing changes when the display image is static. When the image is not static, because an LCD updates line by line, if you don't coordinate your data updates to the refresh rate you can get artifacts such as "tearing", where different sections of the monitor show different data that doesn't fit together. However, e-ink displays doing differential or fast partial updates have similar problems (and some exciting new ones, making refresh overall quite bad). You just usually don't try to display fast moving imagery on them. e-ink displays are what is known as "bi-stable", meaning you don't need to apply a voltage to keep a pixel in a particular state, only when you want to change that state. This is not true for LCD, where you do need to keep supplying a voltage. This however doesn't result in any visual change if the voltage isn't changing. The real difference here is that LCDs aren't reflective, unlike e-ink. So you need a backlight, and that light shining at your eyes is more tiring than how things work with an e-ink display. That either doesn't need a backlight (in a bright ambiance), or the LED lighting isn't behind the display and doesn't shine directly at you, but rather bounces through the display surface. This is a nice quality.

sho_hn 4y ago

Refresh rate is not the same as flicker. Refresh rate is the rate at which new information is displayed. Flicker is things turning on and off. As the parent mentioned, some screens use fast cycles of turning on/off to modulate perceived brightness, but this is not always the case.

shanebellone 4y ago
I'm not entirely sure if what's being said is true but I believe the intention is to stay: All LCDs "flicker" in the same way all movies "flicker". The technology simply displays or flashes a series of still images quick enough to be perceived as fluid motion or video.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  I'm not sure that's the intention, because they said that "e-ink doesn't flicker". But e-ink certainly has a refresh rate. So I think they attribute some other form of flickering to LCD. (And in fact, some of the e-ink readers with optional display lighting will use PWM to modulate its brightness, and then exhibit flicker. This is a super dumb engineering choice, though, so it's not very common. The Kobo Forma was an offender.)
  - shanebellone 4y ago
    Fair point. E-ink does refresh the entire screen though, correct? It's closer to a old-school slide projector than a monitor. I admittedly know little about this topic. As an aside, I'd love a secondary e-ink monitor. Hopefully the technology improves so prices come down.
    - sho_hn 4y ago
      > E-ink does refresh the entire screen though, correct? No, e-ink displays and controllers support partial updates.
      - shanebellone 4y ago
        Thank you for the correction.
  - AstixAndBelix 4y ago
    >But e-ink certainly has a refresh rate of course it has a refresh rate when there is a change in the image, but if I'm reading something completely static then literally nothing changes whereas an LCD screen still does things in the background
    - sho_hn 4y ago
      On an LCD also nothing changes when the display image is static. When the image is not static, because an LCD updates line by line, if you don't coordinate your data updates to the refresh rate you can get artifacts such as "tearing", where different sections of the monitor show different data that doesn't fit together. However, e-ink displays doing differential or fast partial updates have similar problems (and some exciting new ones, making refresh overall quite bad). You just usually don't try to display fast moving imagery on them. e-ink displays are what is known as "bi-stable", meaning you don't need to apply a voltage to keep a pixel in a particular state, only when you want to change that state. This is not true for LCD, where you do need to keep supplying a voltage. This however doesn't result in any visual change if the voltage isn't changing. The real difference here is that LCDs aren't reflective, unlike e-ink. So you need a backlight, and that light shining at your eyes is more tiring than how things work with an e-ink display. That either doesn't need a backlight (in a bright ambiance), or the LED lighting isn't behind the display and doesn't shine directly at you, but rather bounces through the display surface. This is a nice quality.