Chamber wrote: ↑13 Jul 2022, 02:44
Isn't QD-OLED perfect for backlight strobing?
Short answer: Potentially, with an asterik, depending on how the panel is layered.
Generic Considerations
The neat thing about QD-OLED and QLED (in general) is that it's two stage. The "backlit" terminology is not correct, but we'll accept it for the purpose of answering this question generally. It's 2-layers of lighting control (light emission followed by spectrum conversion). Basically it's a monochrome OLED, lighting up a quantum dot phosphor layer, essentially.
A blue light (or ultraviolet) excites the red/green/(blue) pixels. Theoretically the blue light layer can be turned on/off, as long as the red/green pixel Quantum Dot Phosphors don't continue to glow for long (KSF afterglow effect like
www.blurbusters.com/red-phosphor ...) but the good news is QD is very fast-responding.
The key challenge is which layer is the TFT layer, and whether an LCD is also involved. It can be either or both (locally-dimmed OLED-backlit QD LCDs). TFT layers complicate strobing, so if the blue light layer is the TFT layer, it's not easy to strobe. But if the blue light layer is a global illumination layer for the other TFT layer, then it's easy to strobe.
Various Ways of Layering a Screen That Includes An OLED and Includes Quantum-Dots
When QD is involved with OLED, there are many combinations where OLED and LCD can help each other, or can be pure OLED:
- Global OLED light, TFT-matrix phosphor (OLED-backlit phospor-pixel LCD).
OLED is just a global light source for an LCD that uses QD-phosphor-subpixels instead of normal color filters. Better color gamut.
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- TFT-matrix OLED light, non-TFT phosphor (Blue-OLED excited non-TFT phosphor pixels).
OLED blue subpixels lights up phoshors. Fastest GtG but hardest to strobe. No LCD is involved.
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- Locally dimmed OLED light, TFT-matrix phosphor (TFT OLED-backlit FALD for phosphor-pixel LCD).
OLED is zone-controlled light source for an LCD that utilizes QD-phosphor-subpixels.
.
- Etc.
There are other engineering permutations possible of a hybridized OLED / OLED+LCD
Including unreleased new layering formulations -- the hybridization possible of OLED+LCD working together, makes discussion a little complicated, and requires a deep-dive on how the display is manufactured, and manufacturers sometimes are tight-lipped at the beginning, especially when they're only showing off prototypes.
The problem is that some of the layering diagrams doesn't seem to show it as a possibility, while others do, but there are many ways to layer a two-stage OLED (a "backlight" layer for short-wavelength light, and a "phosphor" layer to create the color gamut).
Samsung has not released detailed engineering specs of their panel and the locations of all of their TFT layers (though there might be a public white paper PDF somewhere that I haven't looked yet at SID.org). Currently, it is my initial my understanding Samsung is a TFT-matrix blue OLED, and if so, that will be potentially difficult to strobe without rolling scan electronics in the OLED drive, since it's not something you can necessarily globally strobe easily, depending on how the transistors operate (TFT OLED).
Simple single-transistor and Darlington-transistor pixel drives are generally not globally strobeable, because you need to row-column addressing several million subpixels to turn off the pixels for strobing. While other OLED panels have an ability to refresh in the dark and a single-wire global illumination voltage applied (some OLEDs do this to allow PWM dimming). There are many ways to design the TFT circuit of a TFT OLED (1 transistor, 2 transistor, or 3+ transistor per subpixel).
The PWM dimming logic can be easily commandeered to function as motion blur reduction strobing (by using 1 PWM pulse per Hz). TFT OLEDs with PWM capability requires a different transistor wiring in the active matrix (TFT layer) to allow pixels to refresh to a color value independently of illumination voltage. It is not known if Samsung's QD-OLED panel is capable of this.
Consideration: Layering Construction Affects Ease Of Strobing
In order from easiest to hardest to strobe:
- OLED global illumination backlight for an LCD layer (as long as LCD is fast-GtG "1ms" tech);
- PWM-controlled OLED illumination voltage for a pure TFT OLED that is capable of PWM;
- Non-PWM-capable OLED with OLED TFT being blue subpixels (because you have to refresh all pixels one at a time, to turn them off, far more complicated than simply turning off a single PWM wire or single backlight wire).
PWM dimming is evil but makes strobing capability far easier.
If the panel is constructed right AND there's a strobeable feature in the blue/ultraviolet layer, this can theoretically produce deliciously good OLED strobing, although (calibrateable) color distortions can occur with the different phosphor decay speeds of the different quantum dots (which might or might not be negligible).
However, with short MPRTs like 0.25ms, even a 0.02ms phosphor decay is up to 10% color distortion because of the pulsewidth:decay ratio that varies between R/G/B.
Consideration: QD Phosphor Decay Differences + Color Shifts During Strobing
QD is a very fast phosphor so this is usually insignificant. However, at least minor color shifts will occur, because this is where microseconds become human visible because of a twist:
Regardless of global or per-pixel strobing, Strobing a phosphor-excitation layer requires custom color calibration for each pulsewidth. If you use 2ms MPRTs the pulsewidth:phosphordecay ratio is protected more and color distortions are much more invisible. For voltage-boosted strobing (same nits), color distortions at 0.2ms MPRT is 10x worse than color distortions from 2ms MPRT when using strobeable phosphor-excitation layers -- Since at 0.2ms MPRT you need to strobe 10x brighter for same Hz, to get as bright as the same 2ms MPRT, but phosphor decay dramatically worsens despite same average screen brightness.
And if Red or Green decays slower, you will have color tinted ghosts during strobing. Probably not as bad as KSF, but the pulsewidths will need to be carefully calibrated, and then color-recalibrated to compensate for the colorshifts of the different phosphordecay speeds of R/G/B, because colorshifts occur if pulsewidth:phosphordecay ratios varies between the color channels.
A 0.01ms phosphor decay divergence in a 1ms strobe -- that's 1% of 1ms. That is bigger than the color tint difference of RGB(128,128,128) and RGB(128,128,130). TEN microseconds, but it's 1% of the photons! Because of tiny ratios involved, this is where microseconds become human visible (a famous example of
The Amazing Human Visible Feats of The Millisecond)
Consideration: OLED Brightness Limitation & Bright Strobe Pulses
Talbot-Plateau Law strikes back again with its evil red light saber!
Another major problem with blue OLED is brightness compared to the brightest LCD backlights. Using blue OLED light excitation sources for QD layers (whether it be phosphor-on-TFT-OLED, or an LCD-driven phosphor layer), is that voltage boosting the OLED layer can degrade their lifetimes faster than an LCD backlight, if you want short MPRTs without losing brightness. So you need to use very durable blue OLEDs that are burnin and wear resistant, in order to brightly strobe them without being too dark.
Hope this answers the technical questions of strobing a multilayered screen technology involving OLED in one of its layers...
Long Term Ultrabight HDR OLEDs + Rolling Scan Strobe
Ultrabright HDR-capable OLEDs, with rolling-scan logic, can do a lagless strobe. Far more complex to strobe than global strobing, but fully lagless like a CRT tube. Requires blue/ultraviolet TFT OLED backplanes with individually controllable subpixels, lighting up simple QD phosphors that is just simple inkjet printed paint onto OLED subpixels (one stage of inkjet printing an OLED -- this is currently starting to make cheaper OLEDs possible, as Samsung uses inkjet printing to print the phosphors onto the OLED subpixels).
The 2000-nit OLED backplanes are now becoming possible with custom formulations in some OLED lab screens, so in theory...
The current-carrying backplane can't HDR-bright all pixels simultaneously (windowing) but if the rolling scan window is tight (e.g. 10% of OLED height), you can use the nit headroom of 2000 nit HDR to get 200 nits of high quality strobing -- while only needing to strobe 2000nit for only 10% of pixels at any one time. The HDR-illumination-power windowing design needs to accomodate the needs of strobing. Done this way, this does not overheat the OLED, as 200nit strobing of a 2000-HDR never (A) exceeds the momentary HDR window due to the rolling nature; and (B) average brightness is only, say 200nits (for a 10% rolling scan window). This of course assumes that you can do 2000nits in a 10% HDR window. Alternatively, you could go 5% HDR window, and settle for 100nits. But regardless, strobed will be HDR-less, despite using the HDR nit surge headroom to keep rolling strobes bright.
This is actually easiest/safest done with built-in automatic pixel-turnoff logic built into each TFT subpixel, so you simply program a pixel-off delay, and now the panel is self-strobing with only a single scanout. Some OLED BFI designs are starting to experiment with TFTs that automatically turns off transistors, without needing a separate de-illumination scanout pass.
Also see
Custom OLED Rolling Scan Patterns for related discussion about TFT-driven rolling-scan strobing (for CRT-matching lagless strobing since panel scanout can theoretically be in sync with cable scanout).