High Brightness: The Fly In The Ointment

There’s one crucial aspect that researchers who conducted the viewer brightness preference studies we’ve shared overlooked, and that is 24p motion judder. We doubt that participants in the studies would have preferred 4,000 nits over 1,000 nits had they been shown clips of actors walking in front of bright windows, as students do in the Korean zombie series All Of Us Are Dead beginning at around 7 min. 30 sec. into the first episode. The effect is magnified by stutter (or strobing), an artifact most commonly seen in panning shots when viewed on displays with instantaneous response times like OLED. Judder increases with high brightness, high contrast displays, and what may appear acceptable at 48 nits can become disturbing at 1,000 nits or higher. You’ll never hear a colorist come out and say that they intentionally compromise the HDR grade in order to minimize judder, but according to Dolby, it’s a common industry practice. FlatpanelsHD spoke with PixelWorks at CES 2024 about TrueCut Motion and we look forward to hearing if they’ve made any progress getting any of the major studios onboard.