LCD,LED screens 'burn" my eyes! What is the solution?

Is not the lightboost or pwm itself that causes the eye strain, is the amount of time the screen goes black between lights, cause the longer it takes the harder is for eyes to adjust to the amount of light actually incoming. Eye adjusts to the fact that screen goes black and gets hit again and again by a very bright light, is like looking at the sun. So ye, the question remains here, is lightboost able to do its job when using a very short black screen time? If not, you can start blaming LCD technology like I do.

This entire LCD technology is wrong, they should have not accepted to go with a tech that can't light/darken pixels fast enough, so that those artifacts aren't needed. They should have come instead with ANY technology that actually is able to lighten/darken the pixels fast enough, and start from there. But that is how ppl are...
 
brightness or pwm doesnt have much to do with it
it is probably something more basic in the technology.
 
Hey I'm years late to finding this thread but I too suffer from the same problem, have been on CRT's ever since.. back around when you made this post I bought a 21.5'' acer monitor, was relentless with fighting symptoms thinking it was "my eyes needed to adjust to the new technology" after severe pain behind the eye (felt like someone was pulling on my eye from the inside) and then seeing floaters, also colors/angles looked really weird in real life I went to the doctor (ophthalmologist) and was pretty much told I had several retina tears in my eyes, something he only seen in old people and boxers (trauma to the eye/ or old age deterioration) I tried to explain to him I knew for a fact is was my monitor but at the time he was super ignorant to the fact and denied it being the monitor. I was about 25 at the time. (I had perfect eyes until this point and still till this day don't wear glasses to see)

I went back to crt after a month or something my brain blocked out my floaters and I moved on, vowing to not look at lcd's again. As years passed new technology LCD/LED came out I thought it might make a difference also I kind of forgot the situation while looking at new tv's to buy (I had a 50'' plasma that didn't hurt my eyes at all) I bought some high tech 55'' led tv. About three days later the pain in the eye resurfaced bringing back to memory the problem with LCD's i had and I returned the TV at once. Bought another Plasma and was fine.

Again years pass more discoveries are found with "blue light" and "pwm flickering" I thought I could buy an IPS panel with low blue light / no pwm flickering and possibly weed out the problem. Just this month I bought a Asus monitor with all the criteria and used it with gamma ray glasses about 99% of the time (one week) just today I started noticing the colors/angles problem with just a slight pain behind the eye, so I have to stop using it.

So what the hell causes the problem?? it happens on phones,lcd monitors,lcd tv's.. I can literally watch a plasma all day long or look at a crt monitor for 24 hours straight and no problem whatsoever.. as soon as its LCD its like a direct method of killing my eyes.

Technically what are the differences?

How much more blue light comes off an LCD than a CRT or Plasma anyways? (if it was blue light wouldn't ASUS low blue light and gamma ray glasses chop that down anyways)

Crts have their own flicker themselves although maybe different from PWM, this New monitor had no pwm even at lower brightness levels.

Could it have something to do with the crystals?

Even at lower brightness levels on white screens LCD's seem to be pretty bright.. Could it be that they're just letting too much light through?

I'm throwing around ideas but someone with technical experience could possibly solve this issue for us because being on a 1080p for a week and coming back to this crt is pretty sad.
 
Snowdog said:
Brightness on many LCDs at ZERO, is higher than an old CRT at Max.

This was the biggest adjustment for me when I first moved to LCD.
Click to expand...

My 27QW can go to zero - if I set brightness and contrast to 0, the screen goes black.
 
icor1031 said:
My 27QW can go to zero - if I set brightness and contrast to 0, the screen goes black.
Click to expand...

You are quoting me from 2011, when most Monitors still used CCFL and they had much higher minimum brightness. My NEC had >150 Nits on it's lowest setting when I got it. It's a non issue today with LED backlights that go to 50 nits or less.
 
I'm extremely sensitive to light. LCDs don't get dark enough for me, even at zero brightness.

I worked around the incredible brightness of my LCDs two ways:

1. FOR TVs, turn on power-save mode. I switch between medium and maximum power save, and can lower the brightness even further in the picture settings.

2. for monitors, you can crank the brightness to zero, and then take it even lower using your video card's brightness settings. I find that these two combined give me the perfect brightness setting.
 
whateverer said:
I'm extremely sensitive to light. LCDs don't get dark enough for me, even at zero brightness.

I worked around the incredible brightness of my LCDs two ways:

1. FOR TVs, turn on power-save mode. I switch between medium and maximum power save, and can lower the brightness even further in the picture settings.

2. for monitors, you can crank the brightness to zero, and then take it even lower using your video card's brightness settings. I find that these two combined give me the perfect brightness setting.
Click to expand...

How about a darkening filter, (physical) like window tint?


Snowdog said:
You are quoting me from 2011, when most Monitors still used CCFL and they had much higher minimum brightness. My NEC had >150 Nits on it's lowest setting when I got it. It's a non issue today with LED backlights that go to 50 nits or less.
Click to expand...


Yes, saw that right after I posted. How did you even know I replied to you? Lol.
 
trustlove said:
Hey I'm years late to finding this thread but I too suffer from the same problem, have been on CRT's ever since.. back around when you made this post I bought a 21.5'' acer monitor, was relentless with fighting symptoms thinking it was "my eyes needed to adjust to the new technology" after severe pain behind the eye (felt like someone was pulling on my eye from the inside) and then seeing floaters, also colors/angles looked really weird in real life I went to the doctor (ophthalmologist) and was pretty much told I had several retina tears in my eyes, something he only seen in old people and boxers (trauma to the eye/ or old age deterioration) I tried to explain to him I knew for a fact is was my monitor but at the time he was super ignorant to the fact and denied it being the monitor. I was about 25 at the time. (I had perfect eyes until this point and still till this day don't wear glasses to see)

I went back to crt after a month or something my brain blocked out my floaters and I moved on, vowing to not look at lcd's again. As years passed new technology LCD/LED came out I thought it might make a difference also I kind of forgot the situation while looking at new tv's to buy (I had a 50'' plasma that didn't hurt my eyes at all) I bought some high tech 55'' led tv. About three days later the pain in the eye resurfaced bringing back to memory the problem with LCD's i had and I returned the TV at once. Bought another Plasma and was fine.

Again years pass more discoveries are found with "blue light" and "pwm flickering" I thought I could buy an IPS panel with low blue light / no pwm flickering and possibly weed out the problem. Just this month I bought a Asus monitor with all the criteria and used it with gamma ray glasses about 99% of the time (one week) just today I started noticing the colors/angles problem with just a slight pain behind the eye, so I have to stop using it.

So what the hell causes the problem?? it happens on phones,lcd monitors,lcd tv's.. I can literally watch a plasma all day long or look at a crt monitor for 24 hours straight and no problem whatsoever.. as soon as its LCD its like a direct method of killing my eyes.

Technically what are the differences?

How much more blue light comes off an LCD than a CRT or Plasma anyways? (if it was blue light wouldn't ASUS low blue light and gamma ray glasses chop that down anyways)

Crts have their own flicker themselves although maybe different from PWM, this New monitor had no pwm even at lower brightness levels.

Could it have something to do with the crystals?

Even at lower brightness levels on white screens LCD's seem to be pretty bright.. Could it be that they're just letting too much light through?

I'm throwing around ideas but someone with technical experience could possibly solve this issue for us because being on a 1080p for a week and coming back to this crt is pretty sad.
Click to expand...


The low quality 21.5" panels use cheaper panels I just picked up a 21.5" Asus Pro made in 2016 IPS and boy does it suck it gets really dark but it just sucks.
Try out the ASUS VE228H I just had one go bad 6 years later so I picked up two backups and using one as I type this. Alot of the lower quality led lcd panels are not very good
but the ASUS VE228H is a good one uses some of the same parts 6 years later I use a LED bias light strip on it as well. It pays to have a deep desk not placing the monitor right in front of you.
Also be aware no two sets of Nvidia drivers are the same the latest ones gave me problems so I rolled them back to the last set from May. 1440P monitors might be better for you in smaller form factors just stay away from IPS panels cause they emit more light than a TN due to the increased viewing angles that spew out more light in all directions. I wish desktop monitors were just as good as cell phone screens.
 
I think it has something to do with how LCD works and peripheral vision not being able to cope well with it, which causes damage to the eyes. Literal damage as in retina tearing. After I use LCD my vision becomes very odd; bowing effects around corners and edges mainly in the peripheral regions.

Things I've tried or previously assumed.
1. Blue light. This didn't seem to have no affect on me I used blue light filter and had gamma ray glasses.
2. PWM flicking. Thought the way it might make the eyeball pulsate on the effect could be the cause of severe pain behind the eye. Wasn't the case I got a flicker free monitor on my last go.
3.Brightness. I first thought maybe I burned out my eyes with having it too bright or something but multiple times I used really low brightness. Also I noticed my plasma is pretty bright and it doesn't bother me at all.

I don't mean to reiterate but these are my findings. I'm now convinced its more to do with the actual LCD technology and how it works oppose to plasma and crt. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has this issue, Would love to hear any findings.
 
I've had more eye issues with CRTs than LCDs. Considering LCDs as PC monitors/laptops make up over 99% of what people use, I'd say the technology is solid and probably healthier for the eyes than CRTs which can also flicker badly. Notwithstanding, there are bound to be a few who do not take kindly to LCDs for whatever reason. I myself had eye fatigue from one LCD monitor until I bought a colorimeter and found that brightness even at 40% was around 170 cd/m2. Also color temp was over 7000k (slightly bluish). Brought it down to 120 cd/m and 6500k after calibration and all was OK afterwards.

Some LCDs may have PWM at low frequency which can be bothersome. I would try to find a review of the monitor you are using and see if PWM is being used as a backlight dimming method. If it is, then replacing it with a better display that doesnt would seem a logical option.
 
For me it was going from the "strobing" of CRT to LCD which didn't actually refresh... And in games I would get severe migraines, especially World of Warcraft. Turns out that, for me, the smearing effect of movement on LCD compared to the silky smooth movement on a CRT is what was causing it.. So I got a strobing monitor and play any game that supports it at 85Hz strobing, gets rid of the feeling like I'm looking through Vaseline while gaming. Instant dramatic reduction in headaches and virtually eliminated the migraines.

To me it's strange that so many people don't even know what I'm talking about, then when I show them on my monitor, they're like, whoa, yeah, that's much easier on the eyes!
 
UrielDagda said:
For me it was going from the "strobing" of CRT to LCD which didn't actually refresh... And in games I would get severe migraines, especially World of Warcraft. Turns out that, for me, the smearing effect of movement on LCD compared to the silky smooth movement on a CRT is what was causing it.. So I got a strobing monitor and play any game that supports it at 85Hz strobing, gets rid of the feeling like I'm looking through Vaseline while gaming. Instant dramatic reduction in headaches and virtually eliminated the migraines.

To me it's strange that so many people don't even know what I'm talking about, then when I show them on my monitor, they're like, whoa, yeah, that's much easier on the eyes!
Click to expand...

Hey can you explain more? which monitor do you have?
 
For some time I have serious issues with my current 4 years+ old TN LG panel when reading text (which is kind of blurry, should have changed it years ago), causing eye strain, lowering brightness used to help but last month this is not helping anymore. Also lowering blue light with sofware does not help either, it seems to worsen it, making it harder to read the text. While watching movies does not cause any strain at all, even without lowering the brightness.

It seems that the general consensus is that TN panels are worse for the eyes compared to IPS and VA panels. Since I am primary interested in using the screen for reading and words what is the experience of people between IPS and VA or AMVA panels when reading text (and clarity) and having eye strain?
 
LCD panels are hit or miss I find tn nicer than ips less light hitting the eye because of the limited viewing angles. The ips on my smart phone is great though just too small for text but looks great.

You want to take in desk size the more distance between you and the monitor the better. 30-40" desk depth wise chair also makes a difference higher is better.

Always go Asus or Dell and don't go over 24" wide I find 27" too big extra light you are taking in looks nice for some games.
 
I have never had a problem with screens - TVs or monitors but now I have a very hard time with my panasonic 50ex700 TV and eye strain/headaches. I thought I could ask here any help would be nice from you guys. I don't want to rewrite evertyhing here so I will give you link to my post from AVforums, please read and if you could advice anything then please do so. maybe some of you had similar experience and solved it somehow...

https://www.avforums.com/threads/panasonic-50ex700e-ps4-problem.2117708/#post-25334622
 
Go smaller you might have to exchange or sell it I can't even use TVs myself too much light hitting the back of the eye.
 
I'm lucky that PWM backlights don't bother me, or that they've reached a high enough refresh rate that I can't tell.

I used to get headaches from CRTs running under 85 Hz, so you would think PWM would bother me? But I've been using an Asus 2ms TN panel with PWM just fine for the last two years.
 
I don;t know about this panasonic what causing this but the symptoms were not from start I have bought it. But after couple of days I started to feel tired eyes then my eyes started to feel with tears. Then I started to reduce brightness and turning off all the processing on this TV and headaches started...Also I felt VERY TIRED after like 1 hour using it just very sleepy. I thought I had to adjust and was still using it till one day when I have been playing on this TV in the evening went to bed and have been aweken in the middle of the night with killer headache and couldn't sleep till morning. In the morning when I took my car ride to work it was dark and rainy and lights from oposite cars were glare / blinding me I have felt I can get accident any moment. Then I stopped and in +2 days went to eye-doctor and he heard all my story. He examined me for 1 hour but couldn't find anything - my eyesight is same as year before and no eye illnes. So I have overloaded eyes im resting now + using eye-drops.
I have noticed on this TV is somehow connected to brightness (lowering it caused more PWm i think) and to light in room and the screen being glossy because when I have played with daylight I felt mostly ok and could play much longer and in the evenings when I have turned room light after 30min. -1h I have felt the glare/light room is making my eyes tired.
I know it's this screen because after making switch to my FS2434 for couple of days everything was gone - eyes fine and no headaches. But this eizo don't use PWM at all (i have tested it with ufo test) and is matte. Also it's W-LED used for backlight while all new 4k TV use mostly PFS LCD led which are much stronger to cover more color palette for HDR.
One guy said to me to test it after I will rest up with backlight to 100%! but then reduce brightness of the screen using contrast down a lot. The picture will probably be very bad but at 100% there will be no flickering at all and I will be able to know if it's the PWM that caused it for me.
I have read PWM affect some people but it;s not like all PWM's will affect one person because on many tvs/monitors PWm is at different frequency. And I have checked not only eizo but also my HP 24 monitor at work which I use at 40% brightness and it uses PWM it's clearly visible on ufo test but I don't know on what frequency but it doesn't bother me at all.
I would be happy to just use my EIZO more but I have another problem which stops me from doying it - I can't sit at desk for too long so I can't game comfortable at desk and I have stopped doying it because of it.
That's why I need a bigger screen to play at recliner/bed/standing at it and feel no pain.

So I guess it's just buy new screens with option to return it and have hope to get a screen neutral to our eyes.
 
I have checked screens and my Panasonic uses PWM at 250hz and I have headaches/eye strain from this screen... My monitor at work uses PWM too but it's frequency is 430hz and it doesn't bother me at all. FS2434 as i said above don't use PWM at all so propably that's why I can sit at it all days and no problems...
 
c1001 said:
turn down the brightness. i think manufacturers have really cranked up the brightness in the past few years. now it actually hurts when i turn a new monitor on.
Click to expand...

They like to max out peak brightness as far as possible as it helps to A: sell their panels in retail viewing conditions and B: inflate their contrast ratios without providing better black levels.
 
CANTUSELCDLED said:
I am using CRT monitor with 120hz resolution with no problems,i can use it all day without a problem.
I bought a new LED screen,TN panel,5 ms,expensive one and soon my eyes started to hurt,i would get a headache,then i noticed the "red eye symptom"
Click to expand...

Is this forum dead? I am really suffering from this.

CRT displays... really?? I need to try this. Idk if i can sensibly get one in 2018, living space is tight.

These advanced smart phones have brought more technologies to access in the comfort of a bed with the screen 7 inches from my face. My eyes are in so much pain for months now.

I would like to explore the idea of bluelight mentioned earlier. The flux program allows the emitted spectrum to shift away from the higher energy wavelength spectrum that makes up blues and violets. But even if the rgb pixels are software adjusted to rg only, the leather sewing needle piercing through my retina feeling off this backlight is still bleeding through, as the backlight can not be adjusted to a lower energy redish spectrum and still bleeds into my eyes.

I think i am going to try an OLED display, as they have NO backlight, and software can make the pixels emit nomblje light.

I dont think this can provide the best possible result tho. Sunlight is greater as a whole than the visible light removed and your eyes exposed to only the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum.

Maybe someome else can feed some knowledge in this area, or ill google it later. Knowledge in that how come the broad smoothed distribution of frequency light is safer. One reason for sure, is that the more visible light, the smaller your pupils, limiting the intake of more damaging rays. But does the smoothed spectrum help reduce the pain compared to specific specrum bands in these LEDs. Maybe thats when CRT ratings would be an advantage. Color rendition accuracy. And maybe some software to butter out any bluey contrasts.

Does anyone spend weekends depressed in bed watching youtube and browsing facebook for 72 hoirs with a cell phome against their eyes? Pain. Does anyone do this with an iphone X with oled or a galaxy phone with oled? Is the pain different?

This is making me explore the obsolete laser displays that created smooth diagonal lines like the game asteroids back before i was born. Or laser shows... that single laser could give more flexibilty with brightness and cojld be easier on the eye. I hope for an advancement in smart glasses soon. They are the only tech thst can apply the laser display. You heard it here, smart glasses are the next most important thing. As soon as they make one without a camera facing forward
 
Your eyes need a break from watching videos.

I can't watch videos for more than a few hours at a time.

Even at minimum brightness on my LCD montor/OLED phone or OLED TV, there's an upper-limit to how long I can watch (typically 6-8 hours a day).

And I make sure to break that u[ by doing other things,. The human eye was never meant to stare directly at a bright light for an entire day.

I do find myself having higher use stamina when using OLED, but it's only a slight difference.
 
defaultluser said:
Your eyes need a break from watching videos.
...
I do find myself having higher use stamina when using OLED, but it's only a slight difference.
Click to expand...

Ok fair enough. Have you used a program like flux or light shift to make your screen more red and yellow? Do you think thst would i crease stamina? Does the oled Phone have a super dim option that backlit screens cant reach making watching videos in bed not so bright? Thank you for responding
 
If not already mentioned, if you use eyeglasses have your prescription checked. I've seen a lot of people use really old eyeglasses and then squinting to see things - of course that is going to cause some headaches. Poorly fitting eyeglasses can also cause this as they press on the temples.
 
kasakka said:
If not already mentioned, if you use eyeglasses have your prescription checked. I've seen a lot of people use really old eyeglasses and then squinting to see things - of course that is going to cause some headaches. Poorly fitting eyeglasses can also cause this as they press on the temples.
Click to expand...
Really seems unlikely any human being would not be able to tell the difference between eye inflamation and enflamed skull blood vessels from the pain of sore face muscles from squinting all day. Or from wedges where your glasses put too much pressure.
 
Skinnipeniz said:
I think i am going to try an OLED display, as they have NO backlight, and software can make the pixels emit nomblje light.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to see how that affects you. OLED displays a little bit differently, but uses the same sample and hold method of displaying an image as LCD does. You may also have to test different OLED panels. For instance LG uses a WRGB subpixel arrangement and you either can have RWB or WBG on at once, but you cannot get all WRGB subpixels on at the same time. Sony OLED subpixels can be either WBG or GRW arrangements. Samsung's new OLED TV tech will use only blue subpixels, and have color filters with quantum dot tech for red and green. So it would be interesting to see if the OLED arrangement was a factor affecting eye strain as well.
 
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I'll throw in my 2 cents. I work with 3 monitors for 8-10 hours a day at work and had alot of headaches for some time. I got my eye prescription redone and made sure to get the blue light block coating added. It made a world of difference for me. I also have the Blue Light Filter setting enabled on my Samsung S8+.
I've done a bit of research and there seems to be enough information that blue light will damage your retinas over long periods of time. https://www.preventblindness.org/blue-light-and-your-eyes
It may not be what is immediately affecting your eyes but it should be the first thing you look into if you are using cell phones and lcd/led monitors extensively on a daily basis. OLEDs apparently emit alot less blue light than the other two technologies.
Now to try and justify replacing my 55" tv with an OLED tv. :)
 
Skinnipeniz said:
Is this forum dead? I am really suffering from this.

CRT displays... really?? I need to try this. Idk if i can sensibly get one in 2018, living space is tight.

These advanced smart phones have brought more technologies to access in the comfort of a bed with the screen 7 inches from my face. My eyes are in so much pain for months now.

I would like to explore the idea of bluelight mentioned earlier. The flux program allows the emitted spectrum to shift away from the higher energy wavelength spectrum that makes up blues and violets. But even if the rgb pixels are software adjusted to rg only, the leather sewing needle piercing through my retina feeling off this backlight is still bleeding through, as the backlight can not be adjusted to a lower energy redish spectrum and still bleeds into my eyes.

I think i am going to try an OLED display, as they have NO backlight, and software can make the pixels emit nomblje light.

I dont think this can provide the best possible result tho. Sunlight is greater as a whole than the visible light removed and your eyes exposed to only the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum.

Maybe someome else can feed some knowledge in this area, or ill google it later. Knowledge in that how come the broad smoothed distribution of frequency light is safer. One reason for sure, is that the more visible light, the smaller your pupils, limiting the intake of more damaging rays. But does the smoothed spectrum help reduce the pain compared to specific specrum bands in these LEDs. Maybe thats when CRT ratings would be an advantage. Color rendition accuracy. And maybe some software to butter out any bluey contrasts.

Does anyone spend weekends depressed in bed watching youtube and browsing facebook for 72 hoirs with a cell phome against their eyes? Pain. Does anyone do this with an iphone X with oled or a galaxy phone with oled? Is the pain different?

This is making me explore the obsolete laser displays that created smooth diagonal lines like the game asteroids back before i was born. Or laser shows... that single laser could give more flexibilty with brightness and cojld be easier on the eye. I hope for an advancement in smart glasses soon. They are the only tech thst can apply the laser display. You heard it here, smart glasses are the next most important thing. As soon as they make one without a camera facing forward
Click to expand...

In my experience, most people's subconscious blink rate is lower with LCDs, which leads to dryness and irritation. I'm not sure why, but it's worse with high contrast and high brightness.
 
Eyestrain can be caused by multiple things, which can be very hard to diagnose -- and hugely vary from person to person.

- PWM dimming
- Excess brightness
- Excess blue light
- Excess screen size (screens are bigger than they used to be)
- Excess stutter
- Motion blur eyestrain (for some of us, more strain than PWM dimming when viewing tons of motion-heavy material)
- Etc.

I have generally recommended to the most-sensitive readers/forum -- to try to get a jack-of-all-trades monitor. A monitor with PWM-free backlight mode, blur reduction mode, VRR mode (GSYNC or FreeSync), low blue light mode, window boxed mode (smaller image), ultra wide brightness adjustment range, etc. This gives a user many options to try to reduce eyestrain. Lots of fiddling later, and they find a sweet spot.
 
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