120 Hz OLED TV and Vertigo/motion sickness

[Clokwork]

I thought temporal dithering was solely my issue, but I am watching HDR content from the PS5 outputting 10 but color to the Epson projector without issue. I really don't know what my issue is with all current Apple products and the LG CX OLED I returned. Could it be temporal dithering algorithms are not created equally? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

One thing I can say for certain is that my old iPad Pro 10.5 which used to be my trusty device became unusable after iPadOS 15. Thankfully I have 2 of the same iPad. It made me feel the same exact way the iPad Pro 11 (2021) did that I had to return. There is something software related going on that they won't state in their release notes. I've never known myself to be sensitive to PWM, but who knows.

This adds to my list of things to buy. Initially it was an ultra high speed camera and macroscope. I would also like a PWM meter now that is accurate for displays. I can A/B my two iPads for testing.

[Chief Blur Buster]

I thought temporal dithering was solely my issue, but I am watching HDR content from the PS5 outputting 10 but color to the Epson projector without issue. I really don't know what my issue is with all current Apple products and the LG CX OLED I returned. Could it be temporal dithering algorithms are not created equally? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

One thing I can say for certain is that my old iPad Pro 10.5 which used to be my trusty device became unusable after iPadOS 15. Thankfully I have 2 of the same iPad. It made me feel the same exact way the iPad Pro 11 (2021) did that I had to return. There is something software related going on that they won't state in their release notes. I've never known myself to be sensitive to PWM, but who knows.

This adds to my list of things to buy. Initially it was an ultra high speed camera and macroscope. I would also like a PWM meter now that is accurate for displays. I can A/B my two iPads for testing.

I was also very doubtful that LCD temporal dithering was the culprit for you, because I know LCD temporal dithering is several orders of magnitude fainter than PWM (PWM is binary on/off versus LCD temporal dithering color flickers of ~1/64 to ~1/256th differences in intensity).

But I'm always keeping an open mind, because we're Blur Busters and we always are anal about milliseconds -- The Amazing Human Visible Feats Of The Millisecond, because some milliseconds (And even microseconds) surprises us scientifically.

However, I think I may have found a potential nausea pattern for you:

You *might* have some nausea from latency.

-- OLED has higher lag than almost all desktop LCD monitors.
-- Newer iOS often has more lag than older iOS.

Have you verified if latency might be the cause of your nausea?
You may not feel the latency but your brain might feel it in an odd way (even if it's just 8ms-16ms of extra lag).

Microsoft Research did some effects on lag-behind effects on touchscreens, which might also explain things too:

phpBB [video]

[Clokwork]

Have you verified if latency might be the cause of your nausea?
You may not feel the latency but your brain might feel it in an odd way (even if it's just 8ms-16ms of extra lag).

Theoretically speaking, that makes sense. Unfortunately, my car has a sizable laggy display (regarding touch input). I recall earlier android phones and some of the first iPads that I owned that had quite noticeable touch input lag as well.. I never noticed any symptoms with these devices.

From reading your well laid out articles, touch input lag isn't the entire story. The response time is affecting blur as well. On my Panasonic Plasma, I recall always noticing left to right jitter (I hope I am using that term correctly) that I attributed to response time. It seemed heavily noticeable when watching animated content. While it irked me, it didn't cause any similar symptoms. I could only imagine how terribly it would fail the UFO test.

My apologies if I am missing the point.

[Chief Blur Buster]

Theoretically speaking, that makes sense. Unfortunately, my car has a sizable laggy display (regarding touch input). I recall earlier android phones and some of the first iPads that I owned that had quite noticeable touch input lag as well.. I never noticed any symptoms with these devices.

Hmmm, it's worth a stone checking.

Animations on a large screen can also be another cause of nausea.
- Screens are getting bigger than yesterday's screen, adding nausea
- Animations are getting fancier, adding nausea

Have you tried these:
- Increasing viewing distance; and
- "Reduce Animations" accessibility setting on iPad?
- Smaller tablets such as iPad Mini or 9.7" iPads and 40"-55" TVs instead of 65-75" TVs.

Also some people get motion sick by the continual sudden changes in clarity (static resolution and moving resolution), do you get nausea when playing DVD or 720p HD material on your 4K TV? The motion resolution is unchanged, but the static resolution is softened to get closer to the motion resolution. TVs and screens are getting sharper, so the behavior of stationary image blendiing to moving imagery and back, sometimes is even more jarring today (because of super-high static resolutions, and the still-unimproved motion resolution).

So, over the years, a person's gradual screen upgrades may be accidentally inching the person into nausea territory from motion ailments. So a person can get more motion nausea than they used to, because of today's increased animations on ever-bigger contrastier screens.

[Clokwork]

So, over the years, a person's gradual screen upgrades may be accidentally inching the person into nausea territory from motion ailments.

This was on my mind after returning the OLED TV.

Have you tried these:
- Increasing viewing distance; and
- "Reduce Animations" accessibility setting on iPad?
- Smaller tablets such as iPad Mini or 9.7" iPads and 40"-55" TVs instead of 65-75" TVs.

I have tried all of these steps with the exception of a smaller iPad. With the 11" 2020 iPad pro, I could feel the affects from the still home screen. The 60" LG LED/LCD TV I have in my office is roughly 5-6 years old. It's edge lit and accepts 4k, but I believe it may only be 2k. I sit a lot closer to it than I should (~5ft/1.5m). I play console games on this TV. Surprisingly I have no issues with this TV at that close distance.

Edit:
I thought I would dig into PWM more and find a good meter to detect changes in brightness, but I remember that the LG CX didn't have any PWM and had slight dips every 60Hz (according to TFTCentral). I recanted the statement in this edit stating I was looking for a reliable tool that measures PWM on displays.

Here are what the problematic devices have in common (LG CX, current iPads, iPhones, and iOS 15)
I understand that the issues may not be mutual.

• They are a mix of LCD and OLED

• OLED and current iOS versions have higher latency

• They are all 8 bit panels

• They all have a form of HDR compatibility

[roynahum]

I am having similar issues to the OP

Recently bought and returned two highly rated OLED TVs because the stutter was giving me insane motion sickness.
- LG C1 (48") and Sony x85j (50")

For games I played with all manner of settings, reducing clarity, increasing blur, inserting BFI, turning off VRR, turning off HDR, turning off 4k, reducing 120hz to 60hz settings on the xbox. The only times i was able to get a smooth looking picture that didn't make me nauseous on the xbox was by turning off all the expensive picture enhancing features, adding a ton of smoothing and introducing unreasonable lag

For movies, even with the highest smoothing settings and BFI there was still such an unbearable stutter even for slow moving scenes.

My last TV was a samsung UA48H6400AKXXS, also 48", same viewing distance. I never had motion sickness from them before.

Are there any 4k HDR options that won't give me this motion sickness?

Thanks in advance!

[Chief Blur Buster]

I am having similar issues to the OP

Recently bought and returned two highly rated OLED TVs because the stutter was giving me insane motion sickness.
- LG C1 (48") and Sony x85j (50")

For games I played with all manner of settings, reducing clarity, increasing blur, inserting BFI, turning off VRR, turning off HDR, turning off 4k, reducing 120hz to 60hz settings on the xbox. The only times i was able to get a smooth looking picture that didn't make me nauseous on the xbox was by turning off all the expensive picture enhancing features, adding a ton of smoothing and introducing unreasonable lag

For movies, even with the highest smoothing settings and BFI there was still such an unbearable stutter even for slow moving scenes.

My last TV was a samsung UA48H6400AKXXS, also 48", same viewing distance. I never had motion sickness from them before.

Are there any 4k HDR options that won't give me this motion sickness?

Thanks in advance!

Fast pixel response amplify stutter visibility, especially for 60fps and below.

For BFI you need permanent framerate=Hz to eliminate stutter.
For non-BFI you need slow pixel response to soften low-framerate stutter (e.g. 60fps and below)

1. If you stick to OLED, make sure your framerates are permanently 90fps or above (or if using BFI, permanent framerate=Hz)
2. If you want to reduce stutter motion sickness, use a slow-pixel display such as LCD.
3. If you hate low framerates, your only choice is to go PC instead of XBox, get a good GPU, and keep framerates triple-digit on your OLED to avoid OLED motion sickness. Playing 100fps+ on LG OLED solves stutter motion sickness, but this is not an option for Xbox games as most will dip below triple digit frame rates needed to avoid stutter motion sickness of low framerate stutter.

I recommend an Apple LCD -- excellent color, HDR, and low stutter visibility (Apple LCD shave slow pixel response). The iPad Pro with local dimming is an excellent display for people with stutter-based motion sickness. The big-screen equivalent would be the VRR-capable Samsung big screen LCD TVs.

You will want a slower-pixel-response display if you want to reduce stutter of low frame rates (30fps) without using interpolation. Also, some Samsung displays have a low-latency game interpolation mode, that is far lower lag than the OLED interpolation mode.

There is a stutter-to-blur continuum - TestUFO Animation Demo (Variable Speed Eye Tracking). Low framerates stutter and high framerates blur. There is a framerate threshold where low framerate stutters (like slow vibrating guitar string) blends to motion blur (like fast vibrating guitar string). This threshold is lower on LCDs and higher on OLEDs, which is why 60fps looks like stutter on OLEDs but not on LCDs, because fast pixel response moves the stutter-to-blur continuum threshold higher.