Noise and the resonance characteristics of the focal plane array (FPA) are the most important factors that affect the performance of the optical readout infrared (IR) FPA imaging system. This Letter presents a time-discrete modulation technology that eliminates the background and restrain noise, which effectively improves the image quality of the optical readout IR FPA imaging system. The comparative experiments show that this technology can reduce the noise equivalent temperature difference greatly and make the images sharper. Moreover, when the imaging system is influenced by the environment vibration, the images obtained from the imaging system with time-discrete modulation restore twice as fast as without time-discrete modulation.