There’s no such thing as an LED TV, at least not a mainstream TV you and I would buy at the store. However, Samsung has been advertising their new line of TV’s as “LED TV” and confusing many customers. Flat panel displays are either plasma and LCD. There are more fringe technologies like OLED but in reality at your local electronics store only those two are offered. The reason “LED” is used is because LCD TV’s can be backlit with either CCFL or LED technology.
CCFL, cold cathode fluorescent lamps, are your basic fluorescent lightbulb. They have been used as a LCD backlight for decades. Arriving on the scene two years ago, LED’s are used instead of a CCFL to light up an LCD TV. These LED-backlit TV’s have many advantages, including a bright, consistent backlight, low power consumption and the ability to make LCD’s even thinner than they are.
Causing more confusion are the two LED backlight configurations. Traditionally the LED backlight is behind the screen, lighting the screen from behind also allows a new technique called local dimming. This shuts of LED’s that are behind the black areas of the image, leading to “blacker blacks” which have always been a weak spot for all LCD TV’s. However, a cheaper version of LED backlights have been introduced called “edge lit”. Picture quality is not as good as backlit LED, but edgelit LED TV’s can be made remarkably thin.
Be on the lookout for these types of technologies when buying your new TV. The best LCD picture quality will be from an LED backlit LCD with local dimming.
Tags: lcd, led, lg, picture, plasma, pq, Quality, samsung, sharp, sony, Television, tv
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