Where does MotionFlow Impulse fit?

[Retibra]

Hi all, and a big thanks to the Chief for this most fantastic forum. Blur is yuck!

Having used a Samsung s27a950d with its version of Lightboost, I understand and have appreciated the benefit of 120hz strobe backlighting. However, I'm looking for bigger and more, especially outside the TN panel limitation.

I've looked at the chart re sample-and-hold motion blur amounts: http://www.blurbusters.com/wp-content/u ... -graph.png

A simple question - where does the Sony MotionFlow Impulse LCD TV fit within this framework? is 60hz @ 60fps with MotionFlow enabled faster than 144hz @ 144hz no-strobe? I am guessing that it would be, perhaps around the 4.5 - 5 ms mark? Would this be right? Seems to me that getting one of these excellent displays would be a great way to get a great, large image with significantly reduced motion blur.

Also, I've seen some discussions about Plasma screens and their CRT-like behaviour, which is useful for reducing motion blur. Would merely grabbing a plasma @ 60hz be an upgrade over the standard 60hz screen? Does it compete with 120hz non-strobing screens with respect to reducing motion blur?

Sorry if this has been answered, but I've not seen similar answers to this anywhere in my short internet search.

Essentially I'm debating getting a couple of QNIX screens and overclocking to 96hz, or grabbing a Bravia with MotionFlow Impulse. Aside from the desktop realestate, the number of pixels, etc etc, just from a motion blur perspective, which is the better choice?

Thanks all.

[Retibra]

So, having continued my research, I'll half-answer some of my questions:

- MotionFlow Impulse (MFI) reduces blur by about 75% compared to LCD 60hz blur. This seem to equate to 4.2 ms (or thereabouts) equivalent motion blur.
- This is better than non-strobing 120 / 144hz at the relevant framerates, meaning MFI at 60hz should feel smoother
- The word 'should' is important here, as there are benefits to running at 120 / 144hz beyond motion blur reductions, such as more frames being drawn causing a smoother experience (important for twitch gaming where accuracy is critical), as well as a general reduction in input lag

However, I now have further queries:

- I recognise that plasma, like CRT, operates in such a way as it is similar to an LCD with backlight strobing. (Or, rather, backlight strobing emulates a CRT / plasma in that there's no sample-and-hold in CRT / plasma as there is in LCD tech - I'm sure I'm not quite explaining this right, hence my questions ). So if I have a plasma outputting 60hz, where might that sit with respect of the motion blur table provided in my previous post? In other words, how much does a quality plasma (like the ST50 / VT50 / VT60 or other panasonic) reduce motion blur compared to a bog-standard 60hz LCD with no backlit strobing effect?

- There are a number of plasmas that can overclock to 120hz, though mostly it seems only at 720p. 1080p can get to 72hz or so. Would 120hz on a plasma be substantially better than 60hz, given the above? In other words, the difference between 60 and 120hz in LCD is understood to halve the motion blur. Would this be the same in a plasma?

- Many have complemented the QNIX 2710, Catleap 2B and other 1440p monitors for their overclocking ability, though notably they still blur much more than the 120hz Lightboost monitors (understandably). Given all of the above, and depending of course on the answers to the above questions, my theory is that, if MFI is really that good, surely it would be best for large-screen PC gaming to use a Sony with MFI over the QNIX if motionblur is the critical issue one wishes to eliminate, as a) 1080 is easier to run than 1440, b) 1440 @ 96 / 120hz requires that the fps be 96 / 120 to obtain the full benefit of the motion blur reduction, and c) assuming that one's video cards are not Titan / R9 290x / GTX 780ti capacity, motion blur in modern games will be more reduced on the Sony than the overclocked QNIX when run with the highest playable settings. Correct?

The science behind all of this is fascinating, though it really is not my area of expertise. I hope that, in asking these questions, I have not missed an obvious point previously answered or have misunderstood a basic principle of how motion blur operates. I understand that other factors will go into a person's selection of monitor for their gaming needs, such as ppi, resolution, etc. Downsampling can assist, though a 1440p / 4k picture will generally always look nicer than the lesser 1080p - but blur! - but graphics horsepower required!

I suppose what I'm looking for is, at the end of the day, I want to be able to game with minimal blur. I've played on the s27a950d with its version of Lightboost, and no blur was great. But I want size! and I want to ensure that I can in fact run the game with eyecandy. Your thoughts on this matter are most appreciated and welcomed.

[Chief Blur Buster]

- The word 'should' is important here, as there are benefits to running at 120 / 144hz beyond motion blur reductions, such as more frames being drawn causing a smoother experience (important for twitch gaming where accuracy is critical), as well as a general reduction in input lag

And huge reduction in flicker. 60Hz strobe backlights can be pretty difficult on the eyes. It's like watching a CRT at 50Hz in the UK.
Also a slight lag. But plasma has lag too -- sometimes a bit more than Sony's lowest-latency interpolation-free Motionflow Impulse (MFI).

In other words, how much does a quality plasma (like the ST50 / VT50 / VT60 or other panasonic) reduce motion blur compared to a bog-standard 60hz LCD with no backlit strobing effect?

The limiting factor would be the phosphor itself, as on a lot of plasmas, phosphors can take 5-8ms to decay. Some faster ones have shorter-persistence phosphor and start to approach closer to CRT motion quality. You still have the various plasma artifacts to contend with (e.g. noise/banding during motion) but you may or may not prefer the plasma look even during close-distance computer gaming use cases.

- There are a number of plasmas that can overclock to 120hz, though mostly it seems only at 720p. 1080p can get to 72hz or so. Would 120hz on a plasma be substantially better than 60hz, given the above? In other words, the difference between 60 and 120hz in LCD is understood to halve the motion blur. Would this be the same in a plasma?

Being an impulse driven display, 60Hz versus 120Hz behaves very differently from a sample-and-hold display. If the persistence is the same, then there can be the same amount of blur difference -- much like CRT 60fps@60Hz can have no difference in motion blur to CRT 120fps@120Hz. However, I'm not sure if the subfield refreshes are compressed closer together or not during 120Hz, when running at 120Hz, and if they are, you will have *SOME* reduction in motion blur.

- Many have complemented the QNIX 2710, Catleap 2B and other 1440p monitors for their overclocking ability, though notably they still blur much more than the 120hz Lightboost monitors (understandably). Given all of the above, and depending of course on the answers to the above questions, my theory is that, if MFI is really that good, surely it would be best for large-screen PC gaming to use a Sony with MFI over the QNIX if motionblur is the critical issue one wishes to eliminate, as a) 1080 is easier to run than 1440, b) 1440 @ 96 / 120hz requires that the fps be 96 / 120 to obtain the full benefit of the motion blur reduction, and c) assuming that one's video cards are not Titan / R9 290x / GTX 780ti capacity, motion blur in modern games will be more reduced on the Sony than the overclocked QNIX when run with the highest playable settings. Correct?

Yes, you'd have less motion blur with MFI than on a QNIX. However, the MFI would flicker a lot more and be much darker than the QNIX, so those tradeoffs have to be accounted for.

I suppose what I'm looking for is, at the end of the day, I want to be able to game with minimal blur. I've played on the s27a950d with its version of Lightboost, and no blur was great. But I want size! and I want to ensure that I can in fact run the game with eyecandy. Your thoughts on this matter are most appreciated and welcomed.

If you want size without the blur at the moment, you're almost certianly looking at plasma or Sony's game-compatible MFI. There are other options slowly coming, but currently I'm not sure what the status of Panasonic/Samsung equivalent on their current high-end HDTVs in game mode, but none I have seen so far comes close to Sony's Motionflow Impulse in eliminating motion blur without latency during video games.