WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400 This is a monitor with dead pixels. It's a defect your new monitor can have out of the box, 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.560 but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:13.600 True, a lot of places will let you return any purchase within 30 days or so, but after that, 00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:16.960 it can be very hard to get a monitor with dead pixels fixed, 00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:20.920 even if it's under warranty. I'm not saying that whoever made your monitor 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:25.160 won't honor the warranty if, say, it won't turn on or the backlight goes out, 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:29.360 but why do display manufacturers just give their customers the cold shoulder 00:00:29.360 --> 00:00:34.400 if some of the pixels on their screen, you know, the thing you're looking directly at, 00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:39.640 straight up don't work. Let's start out by talking about what a dead pixel is. 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:43.760 On a typical LCD display, the transistors that control each pixel 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:46.880 can get stuck in one position or another permanently, 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:51.480 meaning the liquid crystals will be turned in such a way that no light can pass through, 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:57.000 rendering that pixel dark or off. On an OLED display, you'll instead have a pixel 00:00:57.040 --> 00:01:00.520 or individual color sub-pixel completely burnt out, 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:05.120 but the result is the same, an unsightly dark spot that can be noticeable 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:11.280 against a light-colored background. Pixels can also die by being permanently in an on-state, 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.640 often called a bright pixel defect, causing a distracting bright spot, 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:20.280 especially noticeable during dark scenes. So we've established that permanently dark 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:25.000 or bright pixels can be very distracting, but why do they end up in the finished product 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.040 that you just bought? Why? 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:32.200 I mean, think about how many CPU cores are defective when they roll off the assembly line. 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:36.600 Those cores are just disabled and the chip is sold as a model with fewer cores. 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:41.560 With displays, though, the dead pixels remain a part of the product experience. 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:45.520 There's nowhere to hide them, but eliminating the problem is non-trivial. 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:50.160 That's because a standard 1080p display has over two million individual pixels, 00:01:50.160 --> 00:01:53.640 and if you have a 4K screen, it's well over eight million. 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:57.160 When you're manufacturing that many tiny screen elements, 00:01:57.160 --> 00:02:00.760 defects are highly likely. If a panel had to be perfect, 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:05.480 there'd be significant amounts of wasted product. Combine that with the high cost of shipping 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:08.800 and replacing defective panels when a customer wants an exchange, 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.600 and you arrive where we are today. The display industry has actually settled 00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:18.240 on what it considers a normal amount of dark or bright pixel defects that one panel can have 00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:22.500 before it's considered bad. They even ratified these numbers in a document. 00:02:22.540 --> 00:02:27.420 There's actually an ISO standard that many display manufacturers use as a guideline 00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:32.780 for determining how many pixels need to be defective on a display panel before they give you a replacement. 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:36.260 The ISO divides electronic displays into several classes 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:40.180 depending on how critical it is for them to be accurate. Most consumer monitors out there 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:44.740 are considered class two by the manufacturer, meaning pixel faults matter, 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:47.940 but it isn't crucial for the panel to be perfect. 00:02:47.940 --> 00:02:52.660 In many cases, even more professional grade screens, such as the ASUS ProArt series, 00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:57.660 use the class two rules as a baseline, even if the panel itself was originally manufactured 00:02:57.660 --> 00:03:03.460 to be higher grades, such as class zero or one. Class zero, sounds like an anime. 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:09.740 And for class two screens, a panel is considered defective if it has more than two dead or bright whole pixels 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:14.780 or more than five faulty sub-pixels, the small red, blue, or green dots 00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:19.820 that make up a full pixel. Note though that the ISO standard is not a hard 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:23.260 and fast rule that display manufacturers have to abide by 00:03:23.260 --> 00:03:26.900 in order to sell displays in your region. While some companies cite it, 00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:32.660 others seem to barely know it exists and many deviate from it in one direction or another. 00:03:32.660 --> 00:03:36.740 Some will be super cool and replace your screen if there's just a single defect, 00:03:36.740 --> 00:03:40.860 but it's more common to need to have between three and 12 total faults. 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:45.100 And sometimes they even have to be in a cluster on the same part of the screen. 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:50.300 This can be especially annoying if you have a high end display like an OLED display. 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:55.140 Just because you paid all that extra money for an OLED doesn't necessarily mean that the manufacturer 00:03:55.140 --> 00:04:00.500 will give you a more lenient dead pixel policy. But if the problematic pixel is suffering 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:04.380 from a bright defect, you might have a couple of alternative options. 00:04:04.380 --> 00:04:08.460 Because an individual bright pixel is typically more noticeable than a dark one, 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:11.780 some manufacturers will have a lower replacement threshold, 00:04:11.780 --> 00:04:16.580 sometimes as low as just one bright pixel. Other times, especially on OLED screens, 00:04:16.580 --> 00:04:21.260 bright pixels aren't permanent, but can be unstuck with free utilities 00:04:21.260 --> 00:04:24.860 that quickly cycle the offending part of your display through many different colors. 00:04:24.860 --> 00:04:27.980 Bottom line, check that dead pixel policy carefully 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:31.300 before throwing down tons of cash on a pricey new display. 00:04:31.300 --> 00:04:34.540 Or just sit back far enough to where you won't notice the imperfections. 00:04:34.540 --> 00:04:38.860 That's not a bad philosophy for life actually. It's a, I support it. 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:42.340 Hey, that was the whole video. Thanks for watching guys. Like the video if you liked it. 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:45.500 Dislike it if you disliked it. That option is available to you. 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:48.620 You can also check out our other videos. 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