I was getting a little sick of not hearing anything about FFD (explaination below) from Mitsubishi, so I decided to contact them on the issue. I had previously talked to them and was told that LCDs with FFD would be released in 1Q03. That obviously didn't happen. Here's their response:
What's the deal?! This technology is supposedly THE technology that will get rid of [most] ghosting, and open up LCDs fully to the throngs of gamers that are still squeemish (me included). Why won't they bring this out earlier? Was anyone else looking forward to this?
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For those that don't know, the cells of an LCD display display colors based on the voltage being sent to them, called the sustaining voltage. Changing the color of an LCD's cell involves changing the current voltage to the desired color's sustaining voltage. The color doesn't change instantly, though, because the cell will adjust to the change in voltage by cycling through the colors of the spectrum until it gets to the color associated with the sustaining voltage. The speed of the change is based on how different the voltages are. So, the fastest change in color is from black to white because the sustaining voltage for black is zero and the sustaining voltage for white is full (I don't remember what full is, just know that it's the highest voltage). Ghosting - an LCD gamer's #1 enemy - is what you get when the screen doesn't make these changes in colors fast enough for your eye to not notice it. This is where FFD comes in.
Let's say a cell wants to display orange, but it's currently on red. That cell will normally change its current voltage to that of the sustaining voltage for orange. Since those are pretty close in the spectrum (and thus their voltages don't differ much), the change is slow. Thus, ghosting can occur. Using FFD, the cell would change to white's sustaining voltage (full), and then switch to orange's sustaining voltage when the cell cycles past this color. Conversely, if a red cell wants to change to purple, it will set its voltage to black (zero) and then switch it to purple's sutaining voltage when it cycles through purple.
Therefore, the change from white to black becomes the slowest change. This means that the average change from color to color is much faster, and ghosting is almost completely destroyed.
What's the deal?! This technology is supposedly THE technology that will get rid of [most] ghosting, and open up LCDs fully to the throngs of gamers that are still squeemish (me included). Why won't they bring this out earlier? Was anyone else looking forward to this?
-------------------------------------------------
For those that don't know, the cells of an LCD display display colors based on the voltage being sent to them, called the sustaining voltage. Changing the color of an LCD's cell involves changing the current voltage to the desired color's sustaining voltage. The color doesn't change instantly, though, because the cell will adjust to the change in voltage by cycling through the colors of the spectrum until it gets to the color associated with the sustaining voltage. The speed of the change is based on how different the voltages are. So, the fastest change in color is from black to white because the sustaining voltage for black is zero and the sustaining voltage for white is full (I don't remember what full is, just know that it's the highest voltage). Ghosting - an LCD gamer's #1 enemy - is what you get when the screen doesn't make these changes in colors fast enough for your eye to not notice it. This is where FFD comes in.
Let's say a cell wants to display orange, but it's currently on red. That cell will normally change its current voltage to that of the sustaining voltage for orange. Since those are pretty close in the spectrum (and thus their voltages don't differ much), the change is slow. Thus, ghosting can occur. Using FFD, the cell would change to white's sustaining voltage (full), and then switch to orange's sustaining voltage when the cell cycles past this color. Conversely, if a red cell wants to change to purple, it will set its voltage to black (zero) and then switch it to purple's sutaining voltage when it cycles through purple.
Therefore, the change from white to black becomes the slowest change. This means that the average change from color to color is much faster, and ghosting is almost completely destroyed.
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