Patent ID: 8441503

Claim:
A lighting period setting method for a display panel which permits control of a peak luminance level for a field period by controlling a total lighting period length which is the sum of all lighting periods in the field period, the lighting period setting method comprising the steps of, for a given field period: calculating a total average luminance level based on image data by averaging the luminance levels of pixels in N frames of an image to be displayed, wherein at least one of the N frames includes the frame to be displayed during the given field period; setting the total lighting period length for the given field period based on the total average luminance level; selecting a light emission mode for the given field period from a plurality of light emission modes based on the image data and the total average luminance level; determining setting conditions for the light emission mode; and setting, for the given field period, the number, arrangement and lengths of lighting periods according to the setting conditions and the total lighting period length so as to provide the peak luminance level, wherein the plurality of light emission modes includes: a still image mode; a motion image emphasis mode; a balanced mode; and a flicker emphasis mode, wherein the frame to be displayed during the given field period comprises a plurality of blocks, each block including a plurality of pixels, the method further comprising the steps of: calculating a block average luminance level for each block by averaging the luminance levels of the pixels of the respective block; detecting any blocks that have a block average luminance level greater than a predetermined luminance threshold value; detecting any regions that are larger than a predetermined size threshold, wherein the regions consist of contiguous blocks that have been detected to have a block average luminance level greater than the predetermined luminance threshold value; and detecting a flicker component level in the frame to be displayed during the given field period based on the size of the largest detected region and the number of detected regions; and wherein, when the flicker emphasis mode is selected, the setting conditions are based on the detected flicker component level.