Massive eye strain headaches

Telecaster · 13 Jan 2018 at 15:22

Is this a thing with modern TVs?

It's taken some time but I've narrowed it down fairly successfully to my TV, the default backlight setting is 20 out of 20, I've turned it down to 8 and the eye strain has stopped.

It was pretty severe, almost debilitating, I could wake up in the morning and barely open my eyes for the first hour and had like a migraine feeling behind my eyes all day, since I've altered the settings I haven't had one.

Just wondered if anyone else suffered with this and if there's other things I can try for other screens and monitors?

andicole0 · 13 Jan 2018 at 15:23

Optician.
Andi.

TallPaul1878 · 13 Jan 2018 at 15:33

What Andi said.

Go to the opticians. You shouldn't be getting serious eye strain at all, even if you're tired and watching TV in the dark.

Do you work with computers all day too? Your eyes might be getting "burned out" by blue light. You might need to try a program like F.lux on your PC or use specialised eye glasses to filter it out.

Telecaster · 13 Jan 2018 at 15:57

No I don't work on a PC.

I literally have no vision problems and never have, until I bought and started watching this TV. I wear anti glare glasses for driving long distances in the dark and that's about it.

Armageus · 13 Jan 2018 at 16:05

Before worrying about the opticians, you are likely on the right track with the backlight.

General tvs ship with settings turned up to "eye-catching" levels as they look "better" when on display in the shop for example.

Worth running through a TV calibration process e.g with a website or images (assuming a smart TV) or there are some calibration DVDs or blurays that you can get.

At the very least worth watching a movie that you are familiar with and spend some time getting it looking "right".

Telecaster · 13 Jan 2018 at 16:11

I'll look into it, yeah it's a smart TV though not connected to a disc player of any kind so I'll look for something on the net.

TBH all I did was turn the backlight down as far as I could before I thought it started looking dim (in my opinion anyway, others may find it too dim).

I have to do the same with mobile phones and tablets etc, not because they give me headaches but because they just look too bright. My PC monitor shipped at something like 80/100 brightness, I've turned it down to 30 and it can probably go some more.

hornetstinger · 13 Jan 2018 at 22:22

First off take it from Dynamic mode to custom. Disable all picture processing. As said all are set too bright, too high contrast, too much post processing going on. So people look orange, so much contrast and brightness you need to wear sunglasses. Do a search for settings for you TV to get a baseline.

lucid · 14 Jan 2018 at 08:35

TVs put out more light than they've ever done thanks to high brightness LED backlights. Correspondingly, there's a bigger contrast in the brightness between the TV and the background area than ever before too; and so, like trying to look at someone when you have the sun in your eyes, it creates a lot of eye strain as the eye tries to balance this disparity in brightness.

I'd echo what others have said about changing the TV settings, and definitely what's been mentioned about using a backlight. This, particularly, helps lessen the problems the eye has coping with overbright TVs in low ambient light viewing conditions.

Hedge · 14 Jan 2018 at 09:57

Make sure to setup the TV properly and adjust motion processing type crap if is giving issues. My Panasonic has a motion setting that is supposed to smooth things but does the opposite. When it's off the image is smooth as butter. When it's on it makes it look crap and gives me a headache too.

Beyond that. Opticians

Telecaster · 14 Jan 2018 at 14:20

Yep I'd already turned a load of crap off, I haven't messed with the other picture settings yet as I'm not sure it's that bad other than being overly bright.

Good news is after turning it down to 8/20 I watched the whole season of Black Mirror yesterday and had zero eye issues this morning. Will search the model and look for some more settings to play with.

Glad it's not just me/my eyes though, that is a relief.

deuse · 14 Jan 2018 at 14:33

Telecaster said:
Yep I'd already turned a load of crap off, I haven't messed with the other picture settings yet as I'm not sure it's that bad other than being overly bright.

Good news is after turning it down to 8/20 I watched the whole season of Black Mirror yesterday and had zero eye issues this morning. Will search the model and look for some more settings to play with.

Glad it's not just me/my eyes though, that is a relief.

I always use Bias Lighting. It should be 6500K white light.

https://www.howtogeek.com/213464/ho...le-watching-tv-and-gaming-with-bias-lighting/

Telecaster · 14 Jan 2018 at 14:54

Interesting. I've never watched TV or used the PC in a dark room for this reason, not heard of bias lighting though, will have a read thanks.

markEP · 14 Jan 2018 at 18:01

deuse said:
I always use Bias Lighting. It should be 6500K white light.

https://www.howtogeek.com/213464/ho...le-watching-tv-and-gaming-with-bias-lighting/

I used to suffer terribly, especially with VA or IPS panels. Bias lighting has been a godsend, a nice warm white glow behind the TV or screen helps wonderfully. If you set up with Hue you can say “let’s watch a movie” and the main light dims and the bias light switches on.