system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are most dogs/cats completely uninterested by television?

They don't seem to respond to anything they see or hear on television, even if it's something they would respond to in real life, like another dog. Do their brains process television differently than humans or something?
gpt
An old CRT tv (the big ones with the tubes) only refreshed the screen 30 times a second.  (Interlaced video so at 60 Hz every other line is drawn on each pass through).  This is slow enough for a dog to notice.  Also colour screens are use RGB colour.  Humans have cones in our eyes for red, green and blue.  Dogs have cones for blue and yellow.  So the colour is completely wrong for the dogs.  Plasma and LCD/LED TVs refresh differently.  If you get a newer TV the refresh is fast enough and dogs are smart enough to figure out what is wrong with the colour on a TV so they can now watch TV.  


Cats have far fewer cones so they see colour more blotchy.  They can see modern TVs probably as well as they can see things out a window.  Cats probably just don't care.