Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Beyond LCD: Which New 4K UHD TV Technology Is Best?

Apparently, HDTV is last decade. Through Nevada at CES, not merely are common the major TV makers displaying (almost) nothing but 4K ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs, today some have juiced up their LCD LED sets with technologies that make them more than the usual LCD 4K UHD. Leading this more-than-LCD charge is LG, the only real company actively promoting OLED (organic light-emitting diode) 4K UHD.

OLED technology is a radically different display approach from LCD. LCD technology has a backlight to light up the crystal panel, very similar way you should shine the light source by having a 35mm photo slide to determine the style. But this backlight indiscriminately adds illumination to each pixel, whether that light is necessary you aren't. Consequently, even those regions of the image can be absolutely black are sometimes dark gray instead, and colours are often bleached.Each pixel by using an OLED display, however, is self-illuminated and processor-controllable. When that pixel has to be absolute black, it is powered down — pure black. This makes colors jump ridiculously thin (4mm) OLED displays just like an orange tiger painted on black velvet.

LG bought the foundational OLED patents from the inventor, Kodak, staking their claim for the OLED technology. At CES, LG has unveiled seven new 4K OLED TVs, including flexible, curved and flat models in 55- , 65- and 77-inch screen sizes. Pricing wasn't announced — nevertheless they won't come cheap.

A quantum alternative
To counter the black and color display features of OLED over standard LCD with LED backlighting technology (often incorrectly called simply "LED"), some UHD TV makers (including LG) have adopted a technology often known as quantum dot, which some companies are calling nanopixels or nanocrystals.

Quantum dot can be a LCD backlighting assist technology. Based on LG, quantum dot works by harnessing nanocrystals which range from 2 to 10 nanometers. Each dot emits a different color, determined by its size. Quantum dot technology runs on the film of quantum dots in front of the LCD backlight, boosting picture color reproduction rate and overall brightness. Put simply, quantum dot compensates to the color bleaching brought on by bright, indiscriminate LED backlighting that shines from the LCD panel.

And the quantum dot cheerleaders are correct: Quantum dot LCD 4K UHDs do display significantly brighter, deeper colors — 30 % more color compared to current industry standard, in comparison with the mere 12 percent boost from OLED.

Quantum dot tech hits this market
Now at CES, both Samsung and LG have announced new quantum dot LCD 4K UHD TVs.

Samsung's SUHD line displays exactly what describes as "color a lot better than OLED." (The “S” doesn't hold still for anything specific; Samsung says it symbolizes “super” and “superior” along with “s-” superlatives, along with to be a mention of the its Samsung galaxy s smartphones and tablets.) At CES, Samsung unveiled three combination of SUHDs in nine screen sizes from 48 to 88 inches. Prices will probably be announced when the sets are nearer to their spring availability.

Sony actually beat both Samsung and LG to the quantum dot punch 24 months ago having its XBR-X900 number of 4K UHDs. The series featured Triluminos Display LED backlighting using quantum dot technology, although Sony never indicated that had been the case; instead, Sony brought up Color IQ, a quantum dot light-emitting semiconductor technology put together by QD Vision.

Sony is now utilizing a different technology in its Triluminous Bravia UHDs. But QD Vision is supplying the quantum dot technology to new sets unveiled by TCL, including the 55-inch H9700, that this QD Vision folks say achieves better color than any UHD in the marketplace — including, it says, OLED. No word on if this TCL set will likely be for sale in the usa, though.

You can get two ways of applying quantum dot technology. Both Samsung and LG work with a film solution, a layer applied before the LCD panel. On the TCL UHD sets ahead, QD Vision is employing a good edge array technique it says isn't only cheaper to fabricate but produces deeper color saturation.

Other LCD variations
Quantum dot isn't the one color-boosting LCD technology on display at CES now. Both Philips and Sharp are employing proprietary technologies to attain a wider color gamut and deeper blacks. And both LG and Samsung are going to be selling more entry-level “wide color” UHDs that use a layer of glowing phosphors that LG says will improve the color range 25 %.

Taking an alternative path altogether, Philips is heralding its slightly redundant Smart Laser Backlight Ultra UHD, that is available in two sizes (65 inches, 65PFL8900/F7, $3,500; and 55 inches, 55PFL8900/F7, $2,500) at the end of spring. Philips claims that because quantum dot film is laid in the LCD panel, it’s not as all to easy to alter to the scene being displayed. Instead, Philips is applying a superior-contrast, glossy filter which utilizes numerous edge-mounted red lasers and cyan (blue) LED, full-array local dimming (FALD) backlighting with 16 zones. This helps widen along with gamut and prepare deeper reds to better boost and adjust large and illumination.

Sharp's technique for going beyond 4K is its Quattron AQUOS Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV series is usually to multiply the quantity of pixels. As an alternative to single pixels that all create all three primary colors, each pixel in Sharp's Beyond 4K UHDs have individual sub-pixels for red, green, blue and yellow. This creates 66 million subpixels, a lot more than twice the amount of sub-pixels within the company's 2014 UHDs and 42 million more regular pixels than standard 4K UHD (even if comparing pixels to sub-pixels is of apples-to-apple-slices almost thing).

Coupled with FALD backlighting, Sharp claims its Aquos Quattron Beyond 4K UHDs provide 167 percent greater resolution than traditional 4K UHD and starts to approach 8K in what it calls "the very best viewing experience commercially available in 2015."

Sharp will release three series (the flagship UH30, mid-range UE30 and beginner's UB30) of Sharp's Beyond 4K Aquos models ranging in space from 43 to 80 inches and price from $750 to $6,000.

Which technology is most beneficial?
Given the tough glare on the CES show floor (as well as the mob crowding straight into take a closer look) plus the deficiency of consistent content shown on each set, you will never make any A-to-B comparisons of quality.

With the Samsung booth, Samsung has surrounded its quantum dot UHD with four other TV technologies: one among its standard LCD LED sets, a plasma set, an OLED prototype TV as well as "wide color" LED TV. The OLED in this side-by-side setup had its brightness rejected, increasing the difficulty of comparison.

LG displayed its OLED and quantum dot UHDs at adjacent displays, then it was easier to pull away and forth to see each. Since LG has an interest in both OLED and quantum dot technologies, we can easily assume takes hold both displays were set for optimal performance also to help viewers draw comparative conclusions.

The truth is, both OLED and quantum dot technologies have their benefits and drawbacks. With no backlighting, OLED sets have deeper blacks than quantum dot, which still uses indiscriminate backlighting for illumination. But like plasma sets, OLED can be an emissive technology — the technical means of saying it makes its own illumination. It indicates OLED sets also might be governed by image retention, aka burn-in — the ghostly outlines of static graphics for instance channel bugs or news sidebars that are a permanent part of a station's or program's presentation.Based on LG, its OLEDs include an auto-brightness limiter. If no pixel movement is detected more than a give stretch of time, the set automatically starts abdication the screen brightness to minimize the opportunity of image retention. Also, once the set is put off, a sort of pixel scrambler is activated that pushes pixels returning to neutral.

In my own view, quantum dot's color expansion can appear overwhelmingly saturated. Reds, blues and yellows look too deep, particularly the reds, appearing almost unnatural. And wide color could create increased color disparities than you most likely already see after you change channels.

Color adjustment could minimize whatever perceived as oversaturation about the quantum dot UHDs I saw on the program floor, which could are already set unnaturally high to make up for that bright show floor lighting, nevertheless the colors on LG's OLEDs looked holistic.

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