Predicting Flicker Thresholds for Video Display Terminals

Abstract-This paper describes an analytical method for predicting whether a video display terminal will appear to flicker given the screen phosphor persistence, refresh frequencies, and other environmental fac-tors such as ambient light level, the distance between the viewer and the display, etc. From the method, one can predict the maximum screen luminance and the minimum refresh frequency that will generate a flicker-free display for a theoretical standard observer. These predictions are tested across a wide range of refresh frequencies, screen luminances, screen phosphors, and individual users. I. BACKGROUND Operators of video display terminals (VDTs) frequently complain of disturbing screen flicker. As a result, several standards require VDTs to be "flicker-free". Unfortunate-ly, current VDT standards do not specify how to define or design a flicker-free display. This poses a problem fo