[LCDs] make my eyes [hurt]

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elec999
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[LCDs] make my eyes [hurt]

Post by elec999 » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:23 pm

Every time I go on my LCD monitor, my eyes hurt pretty badly after a while. This never happened to me on CRTs.
Thanks

walle
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Post by walle » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:33 pm

I'm wondering if it can't be caused by a poorly tuned screen in terms of light settings, sharpness and so on. How's the LCD picture compared to your CRT screen?

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:11 pm

tune down the brightness or better yet, if you have an access to that setting - the backlight

Matija
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Re: Lcds make my eyes hurts

Post by Matija » Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:12 pm

elec999 wrote:Every time I go on my LCD monitor, my eyes hurt pretty badly after a while. This never happened to me on CRTs.
All LCD monitors or just some?

People are sensitive to a lot of things. Some cannot stand CCFLs, some might be sensitive to backlight flickering at 200 Hz, but not 250 Hz... Also, LCDs are generally much too bright, and unless you are working under direct sunlight, you need to drop brightness to 0 (it's questionable if even that will be enough, as the manufacturers seem to be competing in the area of burning people's eyes) and fiddle around with the contrast.

A thing that might help would be to use the LCD at a non-native resolution. For some reason, I cannot stand using native resolutions on most LCDs. A couple of minutes, and I feel like my entire head starts throbbing. Dropping them a notch so the text blurs makes the problem disappear.

Greg F.
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LCD

Post by Greg F. » Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:16 pm

exactly as mcoleg states, the brightness was set on my monitor at about 50 out of 100. It is now set at 8. Yes, 8. And the contrast is turned down, too. If that sounds too low, well I don't care, they are my eyes. And the color and rendition is just fine. I watch a lot of porn and the skin tones are still just excellent.
That is how I calibrate my monitor.

elec999
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Post by elec999 » Fri Jan 11, 2008 6:04 pm

I adjusted the settings a bit on mine, it is better, but after long use my eyes still hurt badly. Never happened to me on crts. Happens to me on both my LCDS, the Dell 22 IN and the Samsung 24IN. My Old Old 17IN CRT is fine, even after long hours, and even at school I sit in front of a 17IN CRT for hours and I am fine.
Thanks

P>S>Am I alien, I never heard anyones eyes hurts due to LCD.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Fri Jan 11, 2008 7:48 pm

Hello,

Are you running the LCD's at their maximum (also known as native) resolution? If you do this, and keep the refresh rate at 60Hz, they will look as good as they ever will.

If you run them at less than their maximum resolution, then the interpolated pixels makes the image look much worse.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:04 pm

All of the above, and the sheer size difference. If they are widescreen TFTs and you're used to 17" CRTs then that's one thing to consider.

I haven't heard of people complaining about TFTs making their head hurt, quite the opposite, but I do agree on their brightness often being ridiculously high, especially with these new shiny covers. Matte for the win, as well as reasonable brightness and native resolution (a must). Colours are usually alright at some preset or the other, make sure you scale through with brightness adjustments to see the change in test images, especially the tone of white and light colours.

Turn on ClearType if you haven't already.

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:58 pm

there are numerous cases, Das_Saunamies; i occasionally see it on one forum or another; encountered it myself. we are basically staring at a bunch of fluorescent lights through a layer of plastic.

good point about the resolution, Neil; have to keep it native.

another thing - adjust the font size. make it larger. it will waste some space but it's easier on the eyes.

and keep tweaking the brightness.

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Post by Bluefront » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:08 am

My 2 cents.....When watching TV or computer screens of various types, I am bothered by daylight through a window. And depending on the sun's angle, it can be so bad, I have to close the blinds completely. If the window is behind the monitor, so that you can also see the window when you look at the monitor.....it's even worse, at any time of day.

Then there's the LCD screen itself. For me the LCD types that have a shiny glass screen rather than a matte finish, cause reflections that are very bothersome. Those shiny screens look neat.....but only when the LCD is off. :)

The worse part.....as you get older, these minor annoyances increase, as your vision changes (it will)).

:(

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:49 am

Well, fluorescent lights alright, but better than some cannon firing tiny charged particles at you in waves! :lol:

Though this does remind me that some people are sensitive to hard white, so no wonder if some if not all TFTs are unsuitable. I'd try and get a matte-finish, quality display for comparison. I personally advocate ViewSonics from the Professional series - expensive, but really, really good.

Oh, and one more pointer: a display with light-shaded edges creates less contrast for the viewer than one with dark edges. So get a "silver-lined" display if you can.

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Sun Jan 13, 2008 7:39 pm

Das_Saunamies wrote:a display with light-shaded edges creates less contrast for the viewer than one with dark edges. So get a "silver-lined" display if you can.
this sounds interesting. could you please elaborate on this a bit more, some links perhaps?

jwickers
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Post by jwickers » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:48 am

I have to agree that most screens are just way too bright out of the box. The first thing to do is to decrease that, even if it will seem a bit "dark" just after you set that down, it will feel much more confortable after a while.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:58 am

mcoleg wrote:
Das_Saunamies wrote:a display with light-shaded edges creates less contrast for the viewer than one with dark edges. So get a "silver-lined" display if you can.
this sounds interesting. could you please elaborate on this a bit more, some links perhaps?
Sure thing! Just come to Finland and visit the MaestroYhtiöt office in Lappeenranta. I'm sure they'll be happy to tell you what's what. This is based on experience.

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:50 pm

ah.

thanks, later on perhaps.

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Post by djkest » Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:48 am

I believe this could be caused by the non-native resolution and the insane brightness. Did you test it out to see if that helps?

Most people find that LCDs are much easier on the eyes than CRTs. I found this 21" CRT at work so I plugged it into my computer. For some reason it really made my eyes hurt looking at it, so I unhooked it and pawned it off on someone else.

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Post by Yomat » Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:57 am

I've had some similar experiences. I always used CRT at home. I was working for a while on an old 17" TFT which was fine. Then I switched to a newer 19" TFT and my eyes cracked to pieces. Had to go back to the 17".

I think this could be a possible cause together with the whiteness and the brightness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_door_effect

And this effect I think should be reduced by a TFT montior with higher native resolution. I have to get something new eventually so that is what I will go for. High res display.

Although everything will get smaller and thus harder to read but I tend to scale up fonts everywhere I can anyway. I read this forum right now with Opera set to 150% and system fonts to 125%. With a TFT I probably will have to go alot higher even. Some programs and homepages are crap with those kinds of settings but what the hey.. the glitches are endurable. Eye-pain.. not so endurable.

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Post by LAThierry » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:58 am

Greg F. wrote:I watch a lot of porn and the skin tones are still just excellent. That is how I calibrate my monitor.
If there ever was a ranking of most [insert adjective of your choice here] SPCR quotes, I suspect this one would top it.

MaZa
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Post by MaZa » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:14 am

LAThierry wrote:
Greg F. wrote:I watch a lot of porn and the skin tones are still just excellent. That is how I calibrate my monitor.
If there ever was a ranking of most [insert adjective of your choice here] SPCR quotes, I suspect this one would top it.

It seems really good way to test monitor colors, and hassling with calibration settings wont get boring and tedious either, I figure... :lol:

walle
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Post by walle » Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:10 am

Greg F. wrote:I watch a lot of porn and the skin tones are still just excellent. That is how I calibrate my monitor.
On the case right now, hmm? ah, olalaaaa, wow..wOOOOW, its butiful on the puter screen right now, darn, your calibration philosophy lules :lol:

TheGreening
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Post by TheGreening » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:53 am

I see this thread is nice and dead. However, I am bored and need to contribute to the support my eyes-being-damaged-by-LCDs brethren.

I too cannot look at LCDs for over 30min without feeling the the frontal lobe of my brain is beginning to cave in. It's as almost as its being slowly microwaved. I wish it wasn't this way, but after a year trying to convince myself that it was in my head, I finally said "screw it" and bought a used CRT off Craigslist -- and now no problems at all.

My theory was that somehow my eyes were "sculpted in" by CRTs from years of TV watching and computer use, and as a result I cannot make the jump -- but that's pretty dumb.

If refresh rate is not a culprit, then it must be something within the lighting itself.

What is the difference between the lighting source of a CRT and and LCD? Certainly filament bulbs VS florescent are different, just as Balanced Full Spectrum bulbs are better than standard florescent.

If no one cares, I understand. But something is awry for some (not crazy!!!! well..) people. Sort of like how if my sister eats wheat, she gets stinky farts and explosive diarrhea.

Will

cloneman
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Post by cloneman » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:03 pm

Maybe its not the LCD that's making you blind...

yefi
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Re: LCD

Post by yefi » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:34 pm

Greg F. wrote:And the color and rendition is just fine. I watch a lot of porn and the skin tones are still just excellent.
That is how I calibrate my monitor.
You should invest in a monitor with a wider colour gamut. I have a Dell with a 92% colour gamet and skin tones are definitely improved over the bog-standard TFT I have alongside it. :wink:

chero
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Post by chero » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:41 pm

I had an interesting experience with my contact lenses and looking at LCD's. I had worn soft contact lenses for a long time, and ended up trying some of the new "more breathable" contact lenses. When I went back to work I found I almost couldn't even look at the LCD monitor. Very strange feeling, and it occurred no matter what the brightness. The next couple years I went back and forth between my old (ACUVUE 2) and the new more breathable lenses.

Anyway, recently I learned that the new lenses I'd been trying (ACUVUE OASYS and some other brand) were made with a different material (silicone) than the lenses that didn't give me problems! I found it strange that the optometrist wouldn't clue in that maybe the reason I had a really hard time looking at an LCD with the new lenses had something to do with the new material!

I currently wear eye glasses almost all the time, and only wear contact lenses once a week maybe.

My monitor is usually set at 0 brightness and 0 contrast.

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Post by tehcrazybob » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:48 pm

As everyone else has noted, most LCD displays have completely insane maximum brightness, and many of them have a minimum setting which is still well above reasonable. Drop your brightness until the display is no brighter than a white piece of paper held next to it in the same lighting conditions as you normally work in, and things will improve significantly.

However, there's another issue that I've only seen brought up once, and nobody really seems to have noticed - turn on ClearType. The hard-edged pixels of an LCD mean that without ClearType, text is extremely irritating to read and could be causing you headaches.

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Post by Arvo » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:58 pm

I'm another person, who cannot look at LCD screen more than 10-15 minutes without getting a headache or similar. Same time I can look at almost any CRT display 10 hours a day, no problems.

Reading various forums, this is common problem for people, used CRT for 10-20 years (like me - I started everyday computer work about 23 years ago...). Older eyes cannot accustomize to LCD screens so easily, if ever.

There's no clear reason, what exactly makes our heads explode with LCD screens. I can just guess (and refer many other posters on various forums):

1. brightness - most LCDs are extremely bright (I myself turn even CRT brightness down to ambient lightning and/or increase ambient light intensity). I can look at older laptops (some IBM T40 at work) screens almost without problems, but newer laptops even with brightness turned down will hurt my eyes;
2. CCFL lamps modulation (while turning brightness down) - although they are modulated at 200-400Hz and should not affect vision, this may cause problems. Some people have noticed that they can better use LCDs at full intensity, when lamps are not modulated (but I can't look at full-intensity LED backlit screens either, at least not for long time);
3. technology - worst for me are SIPS screens, they seem to sparkle intensively (especially brighter areas). Generally 3-5% of people notice this sparkling. PVA/MVA screens are better, but they tend to cause some irritating 3D look. TN panels look flat and do not sparkle (in my eyes), but after some time they start burn my eyes too (and they look just horrible anyway);
4. pixels and crispness - I can clearly see pixels and this drives me crazy. Looking at areas with white or grey background (common while programming) it looks like unmatched stereo image to me, my eyes will try shift partial images to match and because pixel boundaries are crisp and symbols are identical and crisp, there are hundreds of matches and eyes just tire of this. Photographic images are OK, so can I better look at non-native resolutions, where letters are upsampled and every letter is different and eyes can match left and right images with one pass.
ClearType makes things better, but not much. Looking at bigger distance, from where single pixels are indistinguishable, makes image much better - unfortunately from such distance text is too small.

Maybe I could find some compromise between text size and looking distance and brightness and other parameters, if I needed to use LCD - fortunately all my old CRTs are working and there are lot of used CRTs available too :)

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Post by smilingcrow » Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:05 pm

The only TFT that gave me a headache was an Acer that had a reflective surface (X-Black, Truelife etc). I was initially very impressed as it was my first experience of such a screen but after a day or two I couldn’t ignore the problem. I don’t know if the problem was due to the reflective surface or that particular screen. The reflective surface annoyed me anyway so I haven’t bought a similar product since.

I did notice that the screen acted as a mirror when it was off and that its reflections were distorted unlike a normal mirror. This caused me to speculate that these distortions may have been the cause of my headache as they may have been stressing my eyes. Are there any opticians here that can comment on this?

cloneman
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Post by cloneman » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:15 pm

everything I was told about LCDs was a lie when I bought mine.

LCDs are:

- great for games and movies
- great for pictures
- similar stress on eyes
- poor for reading text all day

Matija
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Post by Matija » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:49 am

Everything is individual.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I cannot stand LCDs at native resolution. I see individual pixels, which bothers me to no end. ClearType makes things worse, because then I see individual red, green and blue pixels, shadows and halos. I'm not the only one; three people in my office cannot use CT at all.

22" PVA panels with 1920x1200 are soon to appear. Lenovo is using one already in one of their LCDs, and Samsung will release their monitors in a couple of months. Those might actually be okay, since the pixels will be tiny.

However, I'm still sticking to my CRT, and when it dies, I'm going to get a used one as a replacement. LCDs are simply horrible technology, and we'll get something comparable to CRTs when OLED/SED/FED hit the market in a few years (all of them are better than the failed technology LCD is).

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:57 am

Counterpoint!

Until we get something better, I like my LCD display just the way it is: compact, sharp and much better ergonomically. Height adjustment and pivot for doing reports - yes please! And no more burning face or dry eyes!

I can't "see individual pixels" on my panel no matter how hard I try, but I think there's a sort of mesh pattern of RGB colours that I detect when not focusing on any one thing on the screen - the colours shift slightly by horizontal viewing angle. Might just be the brilliant matte finish that prevents annoying glare and keeps my display usable where a CRT would become a mirror. ClearType I find an excellent thing, anything without now appears blurred and irritating.

Switching from CRT to TFT only brought me good things, too bad it wasn't the be-all, end-all solution. Here's hoping we'll get there yet. :)

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