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Technology

Making LCD Displays Snappier 146

Posted by timothy from the faster-please-faster dept.
newSlashUser points out a very interesting article at ExtremeTech about a new means of more quickly controlling LCD panel response, so the old complaint that LCD panels make poor displays for gaming and high-motion video may be whittled down a bit. As a bonus, the change is all in the controller, so it doesn't require any change in the way the panels are manufactured.
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Making LCD Displays Snappier More

Making LCD Displays Snappier

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  • My biggest complaint about LCD screens (Score:3, Insightful)

    by minus23 ( 250338 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @01:51PM (#2368383)
    is the fixed resolution they come with. Many applications I use for 3D require at a minimum 1280X1024, but work best at 1600X1200. So I wouldn't say that slow draw is the only problem, as this site states.
    • Not to be nitpicky, but the article stated that this is one of the major obstacles to bringing the LCD into the consumer television market. In that case it's fixed resolution anyway, so that's not a real drawback. I agree with you, though, that that fixed resolution is an obstacle for PC's.
    • What do you mean, fixed resolution? Are you saying that you cannot change resolutions at all on LCD screens (which I seem to be able to)?
      • There's a "real" resolution and a "logical" resolution.

        You can set any resolution you like, up to the maximum, which is the physical or "real" resolution. Any other resolution is an interpolated resolution.

      • Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 )
        What do you mean, fixed resolution? Are you saying that you cannot change resolutions at all on LCD screens (which I seem to be able to)?
        You can change resolution, but it looks like crap since the image has to be scaled (and pixels interpolated) to fill in. The worst displays used to be 800x600 panels run at 640x480; the available controllers usually just doubled some rows/columns to produce a chunky, uneven image. Newer displays interpolate the pixels so it doesn't look as nasty, but the image still has a blurred appearance at anything other than its intended resolution (typically 1024x768).
        • Technically speaking, doesn't a CRT basically do the same thing?

          I mean sure, the "pixels" are a lot smaller, and it's done with analog hardware, but it's still the same thing, ain't it? So just wait for lcd res to go waaay up!

          Can you still tell the display to just use a smaller, centerred portion of the display?
          • not really, you see in a crt, the main display is a phosphorous covered part that you see, as well as an electron beam. (plus there's the differen't color "spots" that produce the color that you see) When you change the resolution on a CRT, it just changes where the electron beam scans, among other variables. You can start to get pretty fuzzy if you push your monitor too hard though. Most of the monitors that I've seen say that they support 1600x1200 are fuzzy at that res, same for older ones that max out at 1024x768..

            As for lcd's, just imagine a matrix of LED's, They are fixed pixels, basically just lights. LCD screens aren't LEDs.. they are just like "normal" LCD's, but with a backlight, but follow me here.

            if your display runs at 800x600, then you go to 640x480, then something that took 1:1 pixel on 800x600 would take something like 2:1 or 2:2 pixels on 640x480. I can't really explain this easily without 'showing' you, but I think you can get the idea.

            BTW, yes you can tell it to use a smaller central portion, rather than scaling or interpolating, but then you don't use the entire display.

            I hope I could be of some help?

            • (plus there's the differen't color "spots" that produce the color that you see)

              Right, I'm comparing these spots to the pixels on a LCD. There's a finite number of them, in a fixed location, with a fixed size. The difference is that they're smaller, more numerous, and never correspond to exactly one pixel.

              I do understand how cheap bitmap scaling works, but it was kind of you to explain.

              BTW, yes you can tell it to use a smaller central portion, rather than scaling or interpolating, but then you don't use the entire display.

              Ah, well the comments here made it sound like that was no longer being given as an option. thx

    • You CAN change resolutions, its just that they (like most monitors) have a MAXIMUM resolution, on laptops for example, they start to make the desktop larger than the physical MAXIMUM resolution.

    • My oh-so-beautiful T22's LCD is at a wonderful 1400x1050, 14.1". The biggest problem is getting nice wallpaper for it, but it's damn crisp. Beautiful screen. So not all LCDs are limited to a horrid 1024x768 or so.

      • My oh-so-beautiful T22's LCD is at a wonderful 1400x1050, 14.1". The biggest problem is getting nice wallpaper for it

        1. Get wallpaper for any size display up to 1280x1024.
        2. Rescale it in GIMP, GIMP for Windows platform [gimp.org], or any other paint program so that width == 700 and height changes proportionally. Because you're creating a half-size bitmap, the wallpaper will lose a little detail, but that just makes your icons stand out more.
        3. If you started with 1280x1024 wallpaper, you now have a 700x560 picture. Crop off the top 35 pixels.
        4. Convert to 256 colors using optimal palette and the best dither settings. (A 256-color wallpaper takes less space in RAM.)
        5. Save it in c:\windows or wherever your OS keeps its wallpaper.
        6. In Windows, right-click the desktop and choose Properties; it should put you on the wallpaper tab. In any other desktop environment, find the analogous control panel. Choose your new wallpaper, tell the system to scale it to the full screen, and click OK.
    • About 3-6 months ago I went looking for notebooks with 1600x1200 screens (and built-in CD-RW drives) and after noticing that Dell had em, I checked to find out who else did. HP, Compaq, Gateway, and Sony didn't, but IBM (and Dell) did.

      Check out the Dell Inspiron 8100 [dell.com] (also sold with Linux on it through Emporer Linux [emperorlinux.com].) And IBM has a somewhat more expensive ThinkPad A Series A22p [ibm.com].

      While the font size is small, it is configurable and I appreciate the greater screen real estate.

      --LP
  • This would really be fun :) Imagine playing Quake, or Flight Sim, and not worrying about missing things because the display was too slow?

    I want one *drool* :)
    • Sounds good, except they said the controller can do this because it buffers... So there would still be some lag between what it going on and what you see. Not much, just about as much as if you were using a regular LCD with the poor pixel color change rate, I assume.

      Someone please correct me if I got that one wrong.

      • The buffer lag should be less than the transition lag. The silicon buffers should have a quicker response than the LCD components, but this is just an educated guess.

        Also feel free to correct if wrong.
      • i thought the article said it was keeping the last frame in a buffer, so it can compare it with the frame coming down the wire, and use the appropriate voltages for the transition...

        which wouldn't increase delay at all
        • "Mitsubishi works this magic by buffering each frame in the controller's memory. The shade of each sub-pixel is compared to that of the current frame, and these pairs are then applied to as lookup table stored in ROM that provides the correct voltage required for that change."

          I can see this improving visual quality, but the gaming improvement should be negligable all things concidered.

        • Actually, that's exactly what it meant. It however neglected to say it exactly. It said that the frames were buffered, and the current compared to the new. This would require the current to be stored somewhere, not the new, therefore the last frame, not the next frame, is buffered...the pipeline looks like this.

          pixel-->compare to current pixel at location (from buffer)-->look up value-->pass value to FFD controller-->put pixel into buffer, overwriting the last frame at that location-->get next pixel-->repeat.

          Just my $0.02.

  • Active LCD Screen (Score:2, Informative)

    by ZenJabba1 ( 472792 )
    Having just upgraded all my CRT monitors to LCD, The difference in refresh was only noticable after the first week or so. But the clarity of the LCD screen makes all the difference. I look forward to this coming forward and letting me spend more money :)

    One Key question is how does microsoft's ClearType work with this, as is uses Aliasing across pixels, does it effect the the refresh rate as well?

    • Re:Active LCD Screen (Score:2, Informative)

      by Edgewize ( 262271 )
      Microsoft's ClearType technology is really very simple, and contrary to what they say, it doesn't use direct sub-pixel addressing. At least not in the way they make you think it does.

      It simply relies on the fact that each LCD pixel has three separate cells (for red, green, blue). It adjusts the colors of any pixels that border glyphs, lowering or removing color components depending on which area of the pixel should be darkened. There are some color adjustments to neighboring pixels as well, to avoid obvious color distortion.

      But as long as a LCD display is made of sub-elements for RGB, and that display can take raw RGB data, ClearType will work.

    • Re:Active LCD Screen (Score:2, Insightful)

      by torgosan ( 141603 )
      OT and screw the karma:

      The market-droids have gotten to you. You didn't upgrade, you replaced. Big difference.

      Semantics, sure, but this mind-set plays into the spew of the market-droids just a bit too much for comfort.
    • One thing I do find working with LCDs for long periods of time is its not as tiring on my eyes as CRTs. Many factors, refresh rates and the static generated from the CRTs drying my eyes up.

    • Does anyone have any insight into whether some of the issues surrounding different hemispheres affect LCDs the same way as CRTs? Or do they retain 100% functionality when the same unit is used in either hemisphere? Do they have their own unique issues when used in another hemisphere?

      I came across this tidbit [nz.com] (scroll waaay down to B3.5.2 TV Info) which I shall excerpt:

      In the Southern Hemisphere, the locally-vertical component of the field is in the opposite direction to where it would be an equivalent distance north of the equator.

      This affects the colour convergence of video monitors. It's not a *huge* difference, and it took computer companies until the late 1980s' to wake up to the difference and ship different monitor versions to New Zealand, South America, and Australia. Northern hemisphere monitors *work* but the colours won't be as crisp as you'd expect.

  • LCDs for gaming? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What the hell? If you can afford an LCD screen you sure as hell won't use it for gaming, are you?

    Why is it that everything has to be measured in "how the hardware runs Quake 3"?

    Scientific computing is the real hardware test!

    • What scientific work require LCDs on the desktop? At work we have 8088s, 486s and PPC601s for our scientific applications. Most of them are on VGA 14" monitors to 17" SVGA monitors. No, we can't afford LCDs or P4s or G4s. Putting a P4 - 2 GHz next to a 1980 GC /mass spec looks a bit silly. The data that comes out these machines is pretty easy for a 486 to handle. There are SGI and Sun workstations in the building. That's where most of the big money goes.

  • It's about time... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dmarcov ( 461598 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @01:55PM (#2368399) Homepage
    The number of areas where CRTs were superior to LCD displays continues to dwindle. It used to be they were only smaller/lighter. But in exchange for that, you paid 4x as much, and if you typed faster than 40wpm all you'd see is a grey smudge for 15 seconds (I remember the monochrome, passive matrix screen on my Powerbook 145b). Now the prices are becoming dollar-for-dollar competitive with CRTs, they are still smaller/lighter, and now they might actually be able to handle Quake 3 Arena and look as good as my 20" monitor (and yeah -- they are pretty close to that now, especially with a still image, but...). I think the days of the CRT really are numbered this time around.

    • There is only one real problem with LCDs: their colors are generally not as vivid (saturated) as the ones produced by a CRT screen. Most of them lack proper color calibration
    • Find me a 20" LCD that does 1600x1200 and looks as good as an aperature grille for $200. It doesn't exist, so LCD's are not that close. CRT's are dropping in price very nicely to so competing with CRT's is a moving target. My monitor cost $60 to ship, and is a practically a space heater, but it was a great deal.
      • Yeah - it's pretty retarded. You can find 15" laptop displays that have 1600x1200 pixels, but the dumb industry refuses to release these as standalone monitors.

        They could produce an 1800x1400 17" monitor at that resolution!
  • This might finally make LCD panels usable for action gamers. Those of us addicted to quake/CS/UT have put off upgrading to the spiffiness of LCD's for a while because they've been utterly useless for gaming. I really would like the sharpness of an LCD on my desktop, and now I may have a good reason to get one!
    • I'd say that price is still a more important factor; I play UT on my laptop (15" UXGA panel) all the time, and I don't have any blurring problems.

  • Sounds fishy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dingo ( 91227 )
    the whole article struck me as a little bit "telemarket shopping"ish i think i will reserve judgement untill i see one in action
    mind you, a monitor on the wall would be nice :)

  • Software ``feed-forward'', feedback, overmod (Score:5, Interesting)

    by po8 ( 187055 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:07PM (#2368443)

    If you can get your LCD controller to run at 60-80Hz, you should be able to implement this technique in software: compute change-corrected frames, where the ``feed-forward'' bits disappear faster than the human persistence rate. There's plenty of CPU for this, and the psychovisuals help: any reasonable transient errors in the LCD response are likely to be masked by the fact that the changing pixels are likely changing due to motion...

    I had always just sort of assumed that controllers already did this, since it's so obvious. Even better would be to have the controller actually measure the pixel modulation (which it it should be able to do using the same mechanism it uses to change it) and use feedback, which would likely provide even faster response.

    Sadly, at the end of the day, the 40Hz limit on skewing reasonably priced panels over the full range will continue to be a problem. With feedback and feedforward techniques, can one use higher pixel modulation voltages to improve this as well? I don't know, but I would guess one could...

    • This does seem obvious; it's certainly used in many other electronics. Simply determine the frequency response of the line and load and build a filter (could even be a simple digital filter in this case) to `overdrive' attenuated frequencies. Sure you need a tiny bit of storage [essentially driving about 1M digital filters all in parallel] but it does seem straightforward.

      I hope this wasn't patented, or we'll be in a situation like with the Trinitron (where Sony had a monopoly on that technology for a long time and thus could charge a lot . . .)

      -tom

  • LCDs lifespan limited by OLEDs anyway (Score:3, Informative)

    by bryan1945 ( 301828 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:13PM (#2368452) Journal
    Organic LEDs are on the way in probably about 5 years or so, and I am willing to wait for them. Cheaper to produce, no backlight, and flexible. Production screens for cell phones and camcorders are being produced, so it's only an engineering step to up-size them. They are also more durable and scaleable than LCDs.

    It's nice that LCDs are getting better, but even better stuff is just down the pike.
    • Scaling the size isn't really the issue. Given current OLED technolology and average use you wouldn't get even a year of service out of a monitor or television display before the OLED layer started to break down and signifcantly damage picture quality. With cell phones and camcorders the display isn't active anywhere near as much as on a TV or monitor so they are being tested in these applications first. Once they get the lifespan issues resolved, though, OLED's will no doubt be a viable alternative to other display technology.
      • This is a good point, but I think I read in IEEE's Spectrum that they thought that they had a some insights into how to lick the breakdown problem. Something about adding a certain chemical which stabalized the whole thing. Of course, it's still in testing, so they don't know if it will work.
    • In my car i have a pioneer DEH-P9300(http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/caraudio/ product.asp?sku=11656) head unit. This has an organic EL display and it really is a cut above any other display tech ive seen before. It has a visualiser, and the refresh rate of the screen is pretty impressive. Much better, then say a similar visualiser on my thinkpads TFT screen.

      I cant wait till i can have a big one of these on my desktop. That said, I just bought an 15' lcd for my desktop, and my eyes love me for it. I spend pretty much 9 hours a day stareing at the Visual C++ interface, and the clarity is a true relief.
  • From the article: One key result to note, however, is that switching from any gray shade to black is the fastest of all. This is because switching to black simply requires that the voltage to the cell be set to maximum, and the cell responds quickly.

    What the hell? Don't they mean the voltage is turned off to get black? Or maybe they're confusing it with white? I don't understand why you need power to produce black...

    ...unless they give it so much voltage that the thing responds quickly and pops - producing a gaping black hole in the cell's place.
    • I believe that this is because LCDs are backlighted, and applying a voltage causes the pixels to align and block the light, thereby giving black.

      • Re:WTF (Score:2, Informative)

        by toast0 ( 63707 )
        that is correct...

        as an example, most digital watches use LCD technology and when you take out the battery, everything turns white (or greenish, or whatever color it is :), but when you have the battery in, some areas are black

        the voltage 'turns on' the liquid crystal, and blocks out the light

    • Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)

      by tcc ( 140386 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:37PM (#2368508) Homepage Journal
      Two polarizing filters encase the liquid crystals in the LCD. One filter is etched with horizontal lines; the other with vertical. Light enters the liquid-crystal compartment parallel to the first filter's lines and follows the path of the liquid crystals. If the liquid crystals become energized, the crystals and light rays do not twist to become parallel with the second filter. Light rays reach the second filter perpendicular to its lines and cannot pass through to the viewer's screen image. If the crystals are not energized, they twist themselves and the light rays to allow light to pass through and illuminate the LCD.

      taken from

      http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article. as p?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fg0903%2F36g03%2F36g 03%2Easp

    • Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)

      by statusbar ( 314703 ) <jeffk@statusbar.com> on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:42PM (#2368518) Homepage Journal
      As others have pointed out, the LCD stops the transmission of light when voltage is applied, hence giving you black.

      But one other nit-pick: "I don't understand why you need power to produce black" - No you don't need power. You need Voltage. The LCD cell acts like a capacitor and does not pass DC electricity though it. So no current, and hence no power used.
      Leakage would probably be in the micro-amp range.

      --jeff
      • Correct, but this only true in the static case, i.e. when the voltage for black has reached the desired value. But, strictly speaking, you will need some power to set the capacitor on the desired voltage. Various things, like the resistance of the wires and the energy needed to move the crystals around (align them or whatever) between the capacitor plates will make you spend some power. The power plug of the LCD is not only for the back light :-)
    • In it's normal state, an LCD cell is transparent, letting (close to) 100% of the light from the backlight or reflector to pass through, producing white.
      Placing a voltage across an LCD cell makes it opaque, thus blocking out the backlight, making it appear black.
      In this state the LCD is producing power to BLOCK the backlight. Therefore the most efficient use of power is when the LCD is off, ie a white screen :)

      Look at your calculator screen sometime.
      A neat trick on an LCD calculator is to rotate one of the polarizing filters about the horizontal axis, so the calculator screen is now white-on-black :)

  • First, why the hell did this new item draw a flood of offtopic firstpost/trolls/flames/WTC-jewish-conspiracies?

    Maybe I'm the smartest person on the planet. Or maybe this "new technology" is bloody obvious and should have been implemented ages ago. In my oppinion the technique is blantant once you see the response time graph. Large changes respond faster, so you overdrive the pixel and stop when you get to the desired brightness.

    This obviously warrants many broad patents. Oddly, the word patent never appears in the article.
  • I may be missing something, but wasn't the article talking about greyscale only? Looks like it's going to be even longer before we see the same thing in all 32k color shades.
    • teh way lcd screens work is (through magic) they seperate the white backlight into vertical bands of red, green, and blue (not necessarily in that order).... so you have three sub pixels per pixel, each one is individually controlled.

      (that is what microsoft's cleartype(tm) leverages... since, the order of the subpixels are known, you can render to individual subpixels by using color values... and stuff)

      (grc.com has a better explination of cleartype)

  • Amazing displays (Score:2, Informative)

    by ZaneMcAuley ( 266747 )
    http://www.panoramtech.com/

    The ultimate monitor :D pretty close to it :D

  • Look to Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Simba ( 15214 ) <(moc.xunil) (ta) (abmis)> on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:51PM (#2368540) Homepage

    Apple's LCD displays are probably the best that exist, beating out SGI by a large margin. I've never had a moment's problem playing Quake or Unreal Tournament on my TiBook or G4, using either the Studio or Cinema display.

    Perhaps the solution isn't more hacks, but better hardware. Sure, it comes at a price, but I'd rather drop an extra couple hundred for something that actually works.

    • Re:Look to Apple (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Paul Komarek ( 794 ) <komarek.paul@gmail.com> on Saturday September 29, 2001 @03:10PM (#2368567) Homepage
      Aren't pretty much all consumer LCD screens produced by the same company, and remarked by Apple, NEC, etc?

      -Paul Komarek
      • Most Apple LDC-Panels are produced by LG Electronics - thats the reason why the Apple Cinema Display and LGs 22" are more or less the same...
    • The SGI displays you are comparing the Apple displays to are several year old designs; of course, Apple's displays are better, as are many other LCD monitors on the market. In fact, the 17" PC LCD I'm sitting at has a better contrast ratio than any of the Apple LCDs and costs around $630. The Apple LCD monitors are beautiful designs, but you still pay a premium for the brand, style, convenience, and the non-standard connectors.

  • Improve the dark-color range! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @02:58PM (#2368550)

    I think LCDs could be improved a little bit in the dark color range. Unlike a CRT, which is a black surface on which color is added, LCDs are a white surface on which color is subtracted by blocking the light.

    IMO, the image on LCDs already looks a lot better than that of CRTs, and doesn't fatigue me as much. In fact, no matter what refresh rate I was using with my CRT, I could always see the flicker for some reason. My eyes actually hurt after looking at the monitor for a few hours. This problem got worse proportionally with larger displays, so graphical work was always very tiring. The LCD fixed that. Yes, there is a refresh rate, but it works differently than that of a CRT, so I cannot see the LCD refresh.

    I think the advantages of LCDs outweigh the disadvantage of slower animation. Most work I do is either textual (writing or coding) or graphical. There is rarely any fast action going on. (I occasionally play Quake II, the only game I ever bought, but with a CRT. I just don't play for very long. Why should I? There's so much to life that if I'm not working, I prefer to do things unrelated to computers.)

    As for television (and this is a weak argument as I rarely watch TV), I think LCDs already accomodate that format quite well. The colors look great. Yeah, fast action isn't as good, but oh well. :-)

    Like I said before, the only thing I would improve about the LCD is its reproduction of really dark colors--that is, better blocking of the light.

  • DOH! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why didn't I think of that first?

    I mean, if you're merging your car onto the freeway, you floor it until it you catch up with traffic, then let off to maintain constant speed.

    You wouldn't even think of going 0 to 60 by applying only the amount of throttle that sustains 60 mph; it would take ages.

    • Re:DOH! (Score:2, Funny)

      by mabinogi ( 74033 )
      > You wouldn't even think of going 0 to 60 by applying only the amount of throttle that sustains 60 mph; it would take ages.

      No....but the person in front always seems to think that's the best way to go......arrgh..

  • Seen it, it does work... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by philipsblows ( 180703 ) on Saturday September 29, 2001 @03:13PM (#2368571) Homepage

    My time spent with Philips Flat Displays in Philips Components allowed me time to see this and many other LCD-ish technologies. If you look here [philips.com] at the papers about Motion Compensation, that is the stuff I saw, and in fact, our group was working on the drive electronics to make it work. David Parker, one of the authors on a couple of those papers, is a very cool guy, as were all of the guys at PRL in Redhill, England.

    Unfortunately, the LCD panel business slipped into commodity mode too quickly, where 15-inch panels and the displays containing them had to be super-cheap, and that was where Philips wanted to be, so we tabled the project. The simulations, though, showed a drastic difference is clarity and response time, resulting in sharp images suitable for television or video gaming.

    As an aside, someone asked about applying voltage to get black. This works best with active matrix displays, while passives use the normally-black approach (apply voltage to get white). If you remember your old laptop displays from back then, dark vertical lines in dialog boxes and the like created vertical lines that ran the height of the screen thanks to voltage leaking to all of the dots in a column, which is not a big problem for actives.

    There is a lot of cool stuff in the future of displays. LCD tech of today sorta sucks/ Look for some very cool stuff in multidomain displays and OLED/PolyLED displays.

    • I work in this area... actually, just about all the big panel makers (including LG/Philips!) are looking at this. The research is most definately still going on, though its now moved on to the "Development" stage. All I can say is people I know in Philips are funding quite a bit of R&D in around "front of display" image processing (addressing essentially all the points people have mentioned here).

      The improvement is pretty drastic in older panels but unfortunately the newer panels reduce the gains a *lot* (they're faster anyway). Combine this with big cost hits (you currently need a custom chip with a frame buffer between scaler and timing control or a new timing controller) and this simply won't appear in manstream priced panels.

      It will go mainstream, but when it does it will be integrated earlier in the pipeline where you *already* have a frame buffer anyway - in the graphics controller or for LCD/TV capable monitors in an integrated scaler/timing controller.

      Andrew

  • LTPS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shibut ( 208631 )
    LTPS (low temperature polycrystalline silicon)is a new technology that improves the quality of small LCDs (e.g., for handhelds). Supposedly Sony, Toshiba [toshiba.co.jp] (watch out for the fonts), and Sanyo are early adopters and should start mass production in 2002. Palm-3D-games anyone?
  • I just wanted to add that this technique while very nice is not entirely free.

    The "voltage spike" used to lower the response time means that there is an increase in power consumption (sp?).

    So laptop users may not want this feature enabled while they are traveling..

    Of course it depends it the increase of power consumption is large or not..

    • Not really. The field-effect transistors on a TFT screen have gates which behave like capacitors. You pump charge into the gate of the transistor to set the pixel on or off.


      All this does is charge the capacitor faster by using a bigger current for a shorter time period.The same amount of current is used, so it has the same power cunsumption.

  • Put them in the fridge?
  • Does anyone know why 1400x1050 and 1600x1200 displays, which are now commonplace in mid and high end laptops, can't be found anywhere as stand-alone monitors? You can pay through the nose for the best in lcd displays and still be stuck with a 1280x1024 monitor (with good angle, bright image, dadada...) Why???

    • Re:1600x1200 displays (Score:2, Informative)

      by benh57 ( 525452 )
      Sure they are. The 22" Apple Cinema Display - 1600x1024.

      Get It here. [apple.com] [Apple Store]

      Price: $2499. To run this on a PC you will also need a 3dlabs card with the ADC connector. I think those are over $1k as well.

      • Or you could use a DVIator [drbott.com] adapter, or get one that has the DVI connector (the old version). These work really well with GeForce cards like the Hercules Prophet II Ultra or Gainward GeForce 3.

  • as in liquid crystal Display [techtarget.com] Display?

    This might not seem important, but if you (read: /.) want to be taken seriously by the (printing) press, you might want to have your acronyms straight...

  • I'm surprised this wasn't done long ago. Most controlled devices that have some equivalent of inertia, no feedback, repeatable performance, and a speed problem are driven by a suitably ramped signal. Stepper motors, for example.

    One of the big problems with "TV" on flat panels comes not from the flat panel response time, but the conversion from 24 FPS film to 30Hz video, often followed by some kind of compression. All the fooling around to accomodate interlaced displays adds artifacts. Movies transmitted by television or stored on DVD ought to be sent at 24FPS 1080p HDTV, then shown on a flat panel at 24FPS. That's rarely the case today, but we're getting there.

    What's needed are some good, simple 21" flat panel HDTV sets that cost about $450. Then HDTV will take off. But we're probably five years away from that price point.

  • Just got my hands on a new Sony M61 DVI TFT, sitting alongside my Vision Master Pro410 CRT. Lets just say that under all circumstances (games as well) the sony TFT is a million times better - its clearer, perfect colour matching (DVI works a treat) and perfect geometry. For the money (£500) this Sony is smashing. All those people who think TFT sucks, just keep thinking that way, I'm going to buy shares in an opticians ASAP!

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