Hiding Dead Pixels

[Steve]

If I might pinch a piece of news from one of my news-posting peers over at Hardocp, New Scientist has an article discussing a new patent from Belgium company Barco, which could make those nasty dead pixels nearly impossible to see.

Barco's idea exploits the fact that, to the human eye, picture cells blur and overlap when a screen is viewed from a normal distance - say a few metres away. The company says algorithms can reliably determine how the eye should perceive an area containing a defective pixel and alter the brightness of the ones around it to compensate.

If, for instance, a red sub-pixel generates too little light, the sub-pixels in surrounding picture cells can be toned down to keep the overall colour balance correct. The reverse can be done if a sub-pixel is too bright. From a normal viewing distance the fault should then become far less noticeable.

This technology should be finding its way into plasma and LCD TVs. I wonder if they can pull it off on LCD monitors, given that the user is a lot closer to the screen when viewing it?

[Robotochan]

I wonder if this is the same kind of thing Sony just released to repair their PSP screens.