On the other hand, dogs can watch TV and cats can too. From the latter: "Yes, cats can watch TV but process images differently than humans. TV images are tougher for cats to identify to see because they process at a rate of 70 – 80 Hz; faster than what TV’s show. Cats can see many of the same colors although some red colors are desaturated." Dogs do not see as well, and have fewer colors.
There's a difference between modern TVs and old projection movies. The movies projected images one after another and relied on human persistence of vision to have the images blend together rather than flicker. Nobody likes to watch flicker, and dogs and cats seem to need higher frame rates than people do (predator eyes?). So movies wouldn't be so attractive.
But old-style TV's used glowing phosphors--would their fading overlap the next image? Not really. Different colors have different fading times, but they're generally less than 1/1000 second. The monitors I used to use at work had refresh rates of 60-80 Hz: good enough for me, but maybe marginal for a cat. LCD displays can have refresh rates of over 5/1000 second. That's plenty fast enough to keep it from flickering for a cat.
Of course the pixel colors are designed to look realistic for human eyes. I don't know exactly how to map that for cat vision. If cats are nearsighted (per the link), then the "everything-in-focus" world of a nearby TV screen might be especially fascinating.
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One of the reasons virtual reality systems have been so difficult to implement is that 60Hz doesn't seem to be enough for the goggles. The newer systems are using 90Hz and up, with some improvement.
Of course there are other problems.
I wonder if this is related to the problems cats and dogs have with this. Certainly movies (either 24 or 30 Hz) have a different "feel" than the typical 60Hz we get from HDTV.
Perhaps we're better at "pretending this is real" while maintaining enough distance not to get motion-sickness. Cats and dogs might not have that facility so perhaps low frame rate makes them sick?
I gather VR also has issues with near/far focus and what your brain expects from your eyes, and apparent motion that isn't in sync with your inner ear, and maybe some other things as well (maybe tightening your gut for movement that doesn't happen?)
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