What is screen aging? Can you prevent this from happening?

Dec 05 - 2023

What is screen aging? Can you prevent this from happening?

OLED displays have advantages that cannot be ignored, with higher color accuracy, higher contrast, and better image quality than LCDS. But as you know, OLED screens are easily affected by severe aging, and as soon as the aging problem appears, it affects the use of branding. boe 2023 So, should you really be worried about this? What can you do to avoid or delay aging?

Why do OLED screens age?

Different from the traditional liquid crystal display that requires backlight, BOE displays the mechanism of organic light-emitting diode display is the self-illumination of organic light-emitting diode, and the basic principle is to apply voltage to the organic material in the pixel of the organic light-emitting diode display. This self-luminous design is also the reason why organic light-emitting diodes improve color accuracy. In addition, because the pixels can independently adjust the darkness or turn it off, deeper contrast than LCDS can be achieved.

Unfortunately, the lifetime of OLED displays is limited per pixel because organic light-emitting materials fade slowly over time. Static content, especially bright white content, accelerates the decay of pixels on OLED displays, resulting in noticeable darkening of spots, shapes, and shadows. However, the aging of OLED displays is rarely caused by prolonged viewing; instead, it is usually the result of cumulative viewing. Let's say you watch the news a few hours a day. Because the channel LOGO is white and in the same location, it ages faster in the corner LOGO location over the years, and the final choice may be darkening or permanently imprinted images.

If you use it to watch a large number of different movies or shows, you may never notice the aging of an OLED, because the pixels of an OLED display will degrade at a very uniform rate. oled manufacturer But if you tend to watch a lot of news, play games or use it as a computer monitor, and these image sources contain bright images that don't move very often, the chances of aging are greatly increased.

But when will OLED age? There are too many variables to give you an exact time. Brightness, screen content, and even the hardware of the TV can all affect when aging occurs. Most experts estimate that OLED aging time will occur after less than 5,000 hours (about half a year) of continuous display of still images. But most of the images are not completely static, and even if the 5,000-hour estimate is accurate, it may not be enough to keep up with the advances in OLED technology, and newer OLED screens are now less susceptible to aging than older ones.

How to avoid OLED aging?

The original OLED displays were prone to aging, but some OLED manufacturers have found ways to avoid this problem. With the help of software, most OLED displays will automatically detect static content and move or adjust their brightness slightly to reduce the consumption of affected pixels. The point is that the user's naked eye will not notice these small changes.

Many OLED screens also use ABL or automatic brightness control technology, which helps limit power consumption when displaying HDR content brighter than SDR. For example, if there is a large white dot on the screen, the screen will automatically dim the part of the large white dot or reduce power consumption, and ensure that other pixels continue to maintain a certain brightness. While ABL is not designed to combat aging, it can reduce the impact of white content on HDR shows and games.

By:Helena