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iPad Pro iPad Pro 10.5 slow pixel response/motion blur?

mactr0n

mactr0n

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 13, 2017
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I got my new iPad Pro 10.5 today and noticed that the pixel response is slow and there is some kind of motion blur (see pictures and slow motion video). Had an iPad 4 mini before and can't remember it was that bad.

Is it just me or does anybody else got a problem with it? Could somebody please make a slow motion video of an iPad Pro 10.5 similar to the one below and post it here?

Pictures:



Video (slow motion):
 
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I think yours might be faulty. The point of ProMotion (the 120fps part at least) is that it removes motion blur. Text stays near perfectly sharp when scrolling, it’s pretty awesome.
 
That looks like it could be faulty, it'd probably be best to return it or try out others in store to make sure it is just yours
 
check out the audio of the youtube video... audible at beginning and the end. dead silent in between... it's a slow motion video... nice trick and "funny"

p.s. the ipad also moves slightly at beginning and end - but ZERO movement in between. another indicator for slow-mo
 
I'm not sure this video is actually exposing an issue. Icons are moving, and you're capturing that movement at a rate higher than the display's refresh rate itself. Surely this is what you would expect?

If you do the same with any of the previous displays you should see that icons travel more distance from frame to frame, but that's just because of the lower refresh rate.

The question is whether the movement seems natural to the eye? If in doubt you can always check another unit at an Apple Store.
 
mariotr87 said:
I'm not sure this video is actually exposing an issue. Icons are moving, and you're capturing that movement at a rate higher than the display's refresh rate itself. Surely this is what you would expect?

If you do the same with any of the previous displays you should see that icons travel more distance from frame to frame, but that's just because of the lower refresh rate.

The question is whether the movement seems natural to the eye? If in doubt you can always check another unit at an Apple Store.
Click to expand...
I will try to finde one at a local store tomorrow and see if it shows the same behaviour.
 
LCD's response time is meh, and has been for a long time. Motion at 120Hz will (and does) show marked improvement over 60Hz, but will still show the motion blur coming from the LCD panel itself.

To give an example, one of the best LCD response times for TVs is around 13ms. 60Hz has a period of 16ms. 120Hz has a period of 8ms. So even if Apple is using one of the best LCD displays on the planet, the response time won't quite be up to the task of showing 120Hz cleanly. But the motion will still appear smoother, with less latency, and more clarity, than at 60Hz.

As long as the response time is roughly 13ms, the blur is roughly the same. The problem is that our eyes and brain also play a part and can affect the perception of how much blur there is. Especially with sample-and-hold displays like LCD and OLED.

But it is possible there's other factors like overshoot in play between the two models.
 
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Krevnik said:
LCD's response time is meh, and has been for a long time. Motion at 120Hz will (and does) show marked improvement over 60Hz, but will still show the motion blur coming from the LCD panel itself.

To give an example, one of the best LCD response times for TVs is around 13ms. 60Hz has a period of 16ms. 120Hz has a period of 8ms. So even if Apple is using one of the best LCD displays on the planet, the response time won't quite be up to the task of showing 120Hz cleanly. But the motion will still appear smoother, with less latency, and more clarity, than at 60Hz.

As long as the response time is roughly 13ms, the blur is roughly the same. The problem is that our eyes and brain also play a part and can affect the perception of how much blur there is. Especially with sample-and-hold displays like LCD and OLED.

But it is possible there's other factors like overshoot in play between the two models.
Click to expand...
Great explanation! I think I'm just too sensitive and have to get used to it.

AndyGarton said:
Related video:

Click to expand...
Already saw that video. It show exactly the same behaviour.
 
Same here: I upgraded from a 2011 iPad 2 and made the same observation on my iPad Pro 10.5 almost immediately after turning it on.

If the actual LCD pixel response time is longer than the 120 Hz refresh rate (so greater than 8.3 ms), than this is surely a plausible explanation for motion blur. I'd even argue that at 120 Hz it's even more visible than on older screens since the pixels have double the time to get to their final color state at 60 Hz (albeit the animation itself being not as smooth as at 120 Hz). This might also explain why mactr0n didn't notice motion blur on his/her iPad mini 4.

You can limit the refresh rate on the new iPad Pros to 60 Hz by the way in Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Display Adaptations -> Limit Screen to 60 Hz (translated from German option labels).

I was able to try out another iPad Pro 10.5 at a local store which showed exactly the same motion blur. mactr0n, have you been able to compare your iPad Pro to new ones on display at an Apple Store?

Anyways, I believe this is normal behavior and that 120 Hz, while motion blur is visible, is still a step forward - and that the iPad Pro 10.5 is a great machine overall, of course. Maybe Apple will further improve ProMotion next year with faster LCDs and promote them as "even sharper". ;)
 
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It is definitely the pixel response time. With current IPS tech you just can’t get the kind of color accuracy Apple wants on the iPad with a sufficiently low response time to avoid visible ghosting at 120hz. At least not at a price that isn’t as high as the iPP itself. 2560x1440 IPS displays with response times in the sub-8ms range go for 700+ currently, and don’t have great accuracy.

OLED may or may not be able to resolve this – theoretical response times are much lower – but real world panels display severe response time lag at near-black shades, so significant that Occulus and Vive had to increase the black levels to a dark grey on their headsets.

And with OLED you’re also dealing with burn-in, which might not be an issue on phones but would be a disaster on productivity devices. And PWM flicker, depending on the implementation.

Response times should continue to improve, especially with the PC gaming market pushing so hard for 144hz IPS panels, and we may also see major developments in micro-LED tech in the next few years.
 
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I'm geting motion blur as well on my iPad which is really obvious. So I can't really understand all the hype about this new 120HZ screen. Everything is definitely much more fluid but it still comes with a lot of motion blur which makes it difficult to read the text while scrolling. I wonder if there are different manufacturers for the LCD screen so maybe there are some with and some without or less motion blur.
 
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enigma2k said:
I'm geting motion blur as well on my iPad which is really obvious. So I can't really understand all the hype about this new 120HZ screen. Everything is definitely much more fluid but it still comes with a lot of motion blur which makes it difficult to read the text while scrolling. I wonder if there are different manufacturers for the LCD screen so maybe there are some with and some without or less motion blur.
Click to expand...

Yes, it does vary, but LCD in general has a long response time. The "GTG" values you see can be much bigger in black/white situations, and tend to be longer than a single frame.

The higher refresh helps cut down on touch/pencil input lag, improve smoothness, and reduce blur. It doesn't eliminate it. It does increase the motion resolution though, which means you can scroll a bit faster on the 120Hz display and still make out the text, compared to the 60Hz display. But they both start to blur at some amount of motion happening per second.

Certain OLED panels can do much better (LG's WOLED panels for example), but still aren't perfect.
 
Hi everyone, new member here. Nice to meet you all. I just received a brand new iPad Pro 10.5 here in the UK and I'm sending it back because of the motion blur that I can see, especially with regards to YouTube videos. If you are sensitive to it, then it can become quite annoying. Let's see if Apple address this issue at some point with this new model.
 
retrouk said:
Hi everyone, new member here. Nice to meet you all. I just received a brand new iPad Pro 10.5 here in the UK and I'm sending it back because of the motion blur that I can see, especially with regards to YouTube videos. If you are sensitive to it, then it can become quite annoying. Let's see if Apple address this issue at some point with this new model.
Click to expand...

The problem is that you can’t really fix it with software alone. And to improve on the current pro, you need to start looking at some form of BFI, strobing backlight or rolling backlight like LCD TVs use to reduce the effect of motion blur, as well as potentially switching to a faster tech. TN LCD which would sacrifice color accuracy or OLED which makes BFI harder to do.
 
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