Characterizing displays by their temporal aperture: A theoretical framework

— The spatio-temporal aperture and sample rate of a video display determines both the static and dynamic resolution of the video signal that is rendered. The dynamic display characteristics like the visibility of large-area flicker, motion judder, and motion blur can be derived from the frame rate and the temporal extent of the pixel aperture (i.e., the temporal aperture). For example, liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) have an aperture that is relatively small in the spatial dimension and wide in the temporal domain. Consequently, moving objects displayed on an LCD suffer from motion blur. Especially in TV applications, the temporal dimension has a large impact on the overall picture quality. The temporal aperture, together with the frame rate, is shown to predict the amount of perceived large-area flicker, motion judder, and motion blur and also the performance of motion-blur reduction algorithms for LCDs. From this analysis it is further determined how to obtain the optimal temporal aperture of a television display, for which not only properties of the human visual system (HVS), but also the properties of the video signal have to be taken into account.