External BFI Injection -- I am working with Retrotink 4K!

[Chief Blur Buster]

If you have a 240Hz display, please stare at the laws of physics of TestUFO Variable-Persistence BFI (designed for 240Hz displays) -- these are the single-strobe BFI choices Retrotink can give you for any 240Hz display. This educational scientific animation, helps demonstrates that pulsewidth dictates persistence display motion blur.

on a 240Hz LCD, that 60fps + 3x BFI looks clearer motion than 240fps

Oh, that effect!

Normally, 60fps with 3:1 black:visible ratio is identical blur to 240fps.

Occasionally, LCDs can behave 'better' because GtG pixel response behaviors to black color is usually fast, and away from black color is usually slower. This can create an effect where BFI'd 60fps or 120fps (Without a strobe backlight) has clearer motion than 240fps 240Hz.

This is only because of LCD GtG's asymmetry for different pixel color pairs. With GtG fast-to-black and GtG slow-away-from-black, will prolong the BFI slightly, and create the effect that you describe.

I have seen this happen before with some LCD panels. It's really interesting how asymmetric GtG problems (that normally causes ghosting) can create some... 'happy accidents' like these.

[NeonPizza]

So when exactly is RetroTink4K arriving this year?

And it's been conformed to not work with 30fps content like broadcasted TV shows from the 80's and 90's? Just 24fps/aka movies?

[Chief Blur Buster]

So when exactly is RetroTink4K arriving this year?

And it's been conformed to not work with 30fps content like broadcasted TV shows from the 80's and 90's? Just 24fps/aka movies?

I have given Mike (Retrotink creator) the algorithm for 2:2 inverse telecine and I think he'll add that feature. (PAL 25fps and NTSC 30fps).

Remember, Retrotink 4K is a firmware upgradeable box.

The best way to ask Retrotink 4K questions is on the Retrotink 4K discord: https://discord.gg/kAn6w6FD ... I am simply helping Mike with the algorithms and I don't have answers on release dates.

[whiskersnout]

That's because it converts retro SDR video input (e.g. Super Nintendo) to a HDR colorspace, then applies HDR brightness-boosting. We found that in certain cases, we can brighten 50%-cadence 60Hz BFI to become brighter than 60Hz non-BFI.

Can you elaborate further on the certain cases? In one of your Twitter posts you mentioned the LG OLED TV's, but have you also found the same in any of the OLED PC monitors?

[NeonPizza]

So when exactly is RetroTink4K arriving this year?

And it's been conformed to not work with 30fps content like broadcasted TV shows from the 80's and 90's? Just 24fps/aka movies?

I have given Mike (Retrotink creator) the algorithm for 2:2 inverse telecine and I think he'll add that feature. (PAL 25fps and NTSC 30fps).

Remember, Retrotink 4K is a firmware upgradeable box.

The best way to ask Retrotink 4K questions is on the Retrotink 4K discord: https://discord.gg/kAn6w6FD ... I am simply helping Mike with the algorithms and I don't have answers on release dates.

Nice! I'm itching to get one of these. I just can't stand watching movies on my LG C1 OLED anymore, I've given up. The high motion blur just kills it for me. It almost feels like I'm watching movies on an LCD with perfect blacks. Back to the plasma until Tink4 eventually releases this year. And if it does the trick, I'll finally be ditching my S60.

With RetroTink4K i'm assuming I'll be able to get the motion persistence down to 6.2ms for 24 & 30fps, since that's what the C1's Motionpro High is limited to, for 60fps content. Not entirely sure how that translates over, but the C1 can also get persistence down to 3.2ms when playing games at 120fps and using MotionPro High. I'd be pretty content with 6.2ms for now for movies & TV shows, although i wish it were 4, ala Retrotink4's max persistence.

[Chief Blur Buster]

With RetroTink4K i'm assuming I'll be able to get the motion persistence down to 6.2ms for 24 & 30fps, since that's what the C1's Motionpro High is limited to, for 60fps content. Not entirely sure how that translates over, but the C1 can also get persistence down to 3.2ms when playing games at 120fps and using MotionPro High. I'd be pretty content with 6.2ms for now for movies & TV shows, although i wish it were 4, ala Retrotink4's max persistence.

It depends on your TV, and whether you can combine the hardware BFI and the software BFI.

However, for a pure software-only BFI approach, your minimum persistence is max Hz refresh time. So if your display is capable of 144Hz, your minimum persistence achievable via software-only means is 1/144sec = 6.94ms.

That being said, some people can combine hardware BFI and software BFI for some different results -- like turning 120Hz hardware strobe into 60Hz hardware strobe by using software BFI to black out every other hardware strobe. Then your persistence in that case, is what the hardware offered you.

Now C1 is limited to 120Hz, so your minimum persistence with software BFI will be 8.3ms (at 120Hz).

Now if you use 96Hz double strobe, to simulate a 35mm film projector -- you will get 10ms+10ms (double image effect, using 96Hz to generate 48Hz BFI flicker to mimic a 24fps double-strobed film projector)

[GammaLyrae]

I wonder what this box would look like connected to any of the pc oled monitors out there. A quick glance at rtings reviews on the current lot suggests that the full rise out of black time takes one refresh cycle, with no special pixel overdrive or compensation available to accelerate this (ie, rising out of black at 60hz takes 16.xxms, suggesting that the first pixel change is moving from black to whatever dark Grey it can muster, then the next refresh only has to move from that dark Grey to another color, a much faster switch)

It's a notable difference as the rise times measured on LG tvs is much faster, suggesting their firmware engineers spent a good degree of time finding out how to accelerate rising out of black times with minimal visible artifacting at 60hz/120hz.

I would speculate that the retrotinks software bfi would look good on a TV oled but may end up undesirable on an oled monitor. I think the best circumstance for an oled monitor would be 60hz software bfi with the monitor itself accepting a 240hz signal, this way you can get an on/on/off/off cadence, allowing for at least one frame's worth of time to display the intended final image. Could even offer better than expected mprt if that first frame spends the bulk of its time closer to black than it does the intended image.

[NeonPizza]

With RetroTink4K i'm assuming I'll be able to get the motion persistence down to 6.2ms for 24 & 30fps, since that's what the C1's Motionpro High is limited to, for 60fps content. Not entirely sure how that translates over, but the C1 can also get persistence down to 3.2ms when playing games at 120fps and using MotionPro High. I'd be pretty content with 6.2ms for now for movies & TV shows, although i wish it were 4, ala Retrotink4's max persistence.

It depends on your TV, and whether you can combine the hardware BFI and the software BFI.

However, for a pure software-only BFI approach, your minimum persistence is max Hz refresh time. So if your display is capable of 144Hz, your minimum persistence achievable via software-only means is 1/144sec = 6.94ms.

That being said, some people can combine hardware BFI and software BFI for some different results -- like turning 120Hz hardware strobe into 60Hz hardware strobe by using software BFI to black out every other hardware strobe. Then your persistence in that case, is what the hardware offered you.

Now C1 is limited to 120Hz, so your minimum persistence with software BFI will be 8.3ms (at 120Hz).

Now if you use 96Hz double strobe, to simulate a 35mm film projector -- you will get 10ms+10ms (double image effect, using 96Hz to generate 48Hz BFI flicker to mimic a 24fps double-strobed film projector)

Gotcha!
Well, 6.94ms on a 144hz S90C QD-LED for the pure software only bfi approach should do the trick. I just wish Retrotink4K pulled it off at 4K rather than 1080p, because I'd love to make the jump to a 77" QD-OLED. I just don't feel comfortable going with a 77 unless I'm feeding it native 4K for movie/TV content. Plus, 1080p being upscaled to 4K at 65" still won't look quite as good as 1080p being displayed natively on a 1080p TV. But that's ok, because dropping the persistence down to about 7ms from 16ms is going to be a god send.

BTW, how much would 6.94ms from 16ms be percentage wise in terms of blur reduction if 8.3ms is nearly 50%?

[gameman272]

I'm curious how this would look on a capture card. Passthrough at 1080p120 would be okay, given the capture card supports at least HDMI 1.4 input and output, but what about the frame rate in capture software being limited to 60 or 30 frames per second? One of the early previews looked at a direct capture of the BFI implementation at 120Hz, and it got me thinking about what the capture would look like at lower capture frame rates and higher monitor refresh rates. Would color frames always be captured? Would it be a random selection of the two frames at 120Hz or four frames at 240Hz? I guess it would depend mostly on the how the capture card firmware and capture software were written.

Ideally, I'd love to record and stream at 120+ FPS using the least compressed color format supported by the capture card, but bandwidth and color space limitations on various video hosting and livestreaming platforms make 30 FPS with an 8-bit 4:2:0 format the cleanest option in terms of image quality.

[NeonPizza]

So, i was messing around with MotionPro High/BFI on my Roku for streaming apps like Netflix and whatever else the other day and ultimately I'm feeling pretty split. And yes, I'm aware internal OLED BFI doesn't work for 24 & 30fps content, but i wanted to get a feel for the BFI flicker(Which should be the same or slightly worse using RT4K's dual strobe BFI) and how much brightness i was losing. So I skimmed through a few movies, but mostly stuck with that awful Matrix sequel Revolutions because there was a scene that showed a lot of white in the background...And man oh man, the OLED BFI flicker was just too harsh and bothersome to my eyes. I then rewatched the same exact scene on my Panasonic S60 Plasma, and it's flicker wasn't bothersome at all. It's almost comparable to having BFI 'off' on OLED and watching a movie. It's not just whites either, any lighter shade of color be it light grey, blue(etc) all suffer the same issue.

It's great that RT4K offers even brighter BFI than internal OLED BFI, because the C1 could definitely use a bit of a boost. And going from 16ms down to 8.3ms(And better yet, 6.94ms with 144hz OLED's) using RT4K should be fantastic strictly in terms of reducing persistence. But in the end it's truly a double edged sword. It's like...reduce half or more motion blur with RT4K @1080p 'while' suffering with the harsh BFI flicks...OR just settle for that high 16ms persistence with no harsh strobe flicks. Plus it can't do it at 4K, so i have to settle for 65" instead of 77" and we're still stuck with that excess choppy film judder. sigh*

Isn't there a way for these TV manufactures to reduce BFI flicks & low frame rate film judder without have to resort to motion interpolation?