Fast processing of information represented in digital holograms is provided to facilitate converting a complex Fresnel hologram into a single phase-only hologram, which can be called a bidirectional error diffusion (BERD) hologram, for displaying 3-D holographic images representative of a 3-D object scene on a display device. The BERD hologram can be capable of representing a 3-D object scene and preserving favorable visual quality on the reconstructed holographic image. A holographic generator component (HGC) can receive or generate a complex Fresnel hologram representing a 3-D object scene. The HGC can directly apply the BERD process to the complex Fresnel hologram to facilitate converting the complex Fresnel hologram into a phase-only hologram. Alternatively, the HGC can directly apply a unidirectional error diffusion process to the complex Fresnel hologram to facilitate converting the complex Fresnel hologram into a phase-only hologram.