Monitor colors "flicker" when scrolling

[Smitty2k1]

I've been noticing this for a while (maybe forever?) but there are certain webpages I regularly go to that have a center column of content surround on either side by a solid color background (so the website plays nicely with different resolution monitors) and when I scroll up and down the colors on the side seem to flicker and change to a lighter shade while scrolling. As soon as I stop scrolling they return to normal.

I'm not sure if I've seen this any other time (such as Word documents, video games, Photoshop, etc) but it is definitely noticeable at certain times in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I have a dual monitor setup driven by a GeForce 460GTX. Both displays run DVI cables and I notice the flicker on either display (Acer x223w and Dell u2412m - both LCD screens). The screens are different resolutions and I run them in "extended desktop mode". I use a program "DisplayFusion" to extend my Windows taskbar to both screens.


Anyone else notice this and is there a way to stop it? It's pretty darn annoying!

 

[Avatar82]

i'm no expert but:
it sounds to me like its just the response time of your lcd monitors. it's an inherent flaw in the technology. make sure your monitors are running at their native resolution to minimize this as much as possible.
Technically on an 8bit panel, if each pixel can change from any of the 16.7 million colors to any other color at under 16.67ms there shouldn't be any blur or flickering at 60hz / 60fps.
all the panel manufacturers greatly exaggerate their monitors response times just like they do with contrast ratio. i'd complain more but its not like i can make a panel better

the only way to stop it is to go back to an old crt monitor as there are no new or up and coming technologies that even attempt to fix this flaw in all lcd displays that i'm aware of.

marketing will try and get you with promises of lower response time, higher refresh rates, and more frames per second, but at the end of the day the human eye sees in real time and not in frames. well...unless you blink a lot...

 

[spine]

Some cheaper LCD panels use dithering in an attempt to emulate a 24-bit colour output as they aren't actually capable of rendering all the colours fully. They often have adaptive algorithms which can cause artifacts with a moving scene, but makes static images appear better than the panel would otherwise be capable of rendering.

You get what you pay for.

Mainstream LCD panels circa 2012 - still inferior to CRT screens.

Maybe next decade...

 

[mdrejhon]

The technology already exists today.

They managed to reduce a lot of this in high-end LCD/LED HDTV's that utilize scanning backlights -- makes then far more CRT like -- e.g. high end videophile $5000 Samsung LCD/LED HDTV's with a "960Hz" Clear Motion Rate. (advanced backlight technologies -- zone backlight with local dimming *and* scanning). Text looks much better on these (e.g. blu-ray rolling credits on colored backgrounds, alternating between pause and play, no longer shows color effects anymore, that you describe)

I'd love to see computer monitors with scanning backlights. Although the primary purpose of scanning backlights is to reduce motion blur, it apparently also greatly solves most of the color smearing that you describe, by blacking out backlight while refreshing the LCD pixels - the effect is that it waits for the LCD pixels to "smear" between color values. (hiding color defects during motion). So color accuracy, during fast motion, is greatly improved, with scanning backlights.

More info in this thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1711216