What exactly is ghosting?

[FatJay]

So im going to buy an Xbox one S, wich i want to hook up to my semi-old Philips 1080p TV. When someone told me i should use a monitor or buy a new 4k TV because " Ghosting " can accur while gaming on a old TV. I asked him wtf ghosting even is and i got a vague response, and when i try to google what it means i get some weird paranormal shit lol.. Would be great if someone told me what Ghosting actually is and if i really need to get rid of my old TV..

[PlayStation 2]

Think of ghosting as an artifact that basically means that information from a previous frame(s) is on screen with the current frame (just not as visible), creating said "ghosting" effect.

[Jurrunio]

If you dont notice anything wrong when watching TV shows with the old TV, then either the TV doesnt have ghosting problems or it's just not a problem to your eyes.

 

Ghosting is a smear on the image caused by the pixels not keeping up with the speed needed to change colour and brightness, leading to inaccurate colours. Imagine yourself looking at a strong light source, then turn around to look at something of normal brightness. Congrats, now you've got ghosting on your eyeballs.

[schwellmo92]

Ghosting is kind of like motion blur, look at this as an example

 

Ghosting:

 

Same image with less ghosting:

[MegaDave91]

It's an unintended trailing of an image in motion. You'll know it when you see it, especially if severe enough.

[W-L]

-Moved to Displays section- 

[SolarNova]

Ghosting is caused by slow pixel response. LCD technology suffers from this, VA panels the most, which are found in most TV's.

The UFO image gives you a good example of what it is.

 

Bassicaly when a pixel changes color, it takes a certain amount of time, if it is slow it will show on screen in the form of a trail on a moving object.

This is most noticable in dark scenes.

A very easy way to test this is to simply set a PC desktop background to a dark grey, and drag a lighter gray objective around the screen. The reason this shows up ghosting the most is becouse pixels take longer to transition from a darker color to an even darker color, vs a very light color to a slightly less light color, so in light scenes you wont notice it much if at all. You will see most reviewers who test pixel response display both a 80% transtion speed, and a 100% transition pseed, and these 2 speeds will be significasntly different as the 80% to 100% transition si the slowest. I.e A white to a black pixel transition, the white will darken greyer and greyer down to 80% of the total transition faster than the 80% to %100 transition which is effectivly a dark grey to black transition.