Sunday, September 16, 2012

LCD vs LED. Is the LED really worth the extra money?

By Andrew Perez


Have you caught yourself walking around the aisles of a Best buy feeling utterly bewildered as to what the differences between all the TVs are? Have you ever tried to ask a salesclerk as to the differences and got a poorly rehearsed meaningless reply? If you've scratched your head repeatedly because you simply don't understand, then you came to the right spot to gain some knowledge. I'm going to go into full detail as to what the exact differences are between both of the high def televisions. Once you are finished going through the facts in this post, you will be significantly more enlightened on the matter. Then you could go back to the Fry's or Best buy you went to and teach the salesclerks some stuff.

Don't get it mistaken; an LCD is an LED:

Before I dig into the details, let me clear something up on this whole TV discussion. An LED is the same as an LCD because both TVs use what's called liquid crystal display. This means that both HDTVs operate utilizing liquid crystal display flat panels to project their picture. The actual difference when comparing both TVs is the type of back lighting that each one uses. Besides that, there really is no such thing as a television that is LED only. So now that we've made things a little clearer, you can now start classifying both TVs as an LCD and an LED-LCD TV.

What kind of backlighting is there?

As I said earlier, the important difference between both HDTVs is the kind of back lighting they use. An LCD utilizes what's called a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (ccfl) for background lighting. The fluorescent lamps use a plastic shield in front of the censors to efficiently distribute its light. LED stands for light emitting diode, which are very similar to the lights on a Christmas tree, only much smaller. This is where the comparison between LCD vs LED starts to unravel when comparing the picture quality. The LEDs are situated in rows and unlike the LCD; it does not utilize a plastic shield to display its light. The newer LED models function using cleverly placed censors in the LED and the crystal display to control the picture being transmitted. These sensors are used to detect the 1's and 0's data that is being emitted and modifies the color being shown pixel by pixel, so it's capable of using its lighting more adequately. An easier way to understand this concept is to think of flip sunglasses. These sensors operate in the equivalent way that flip glasses work, only utilizing various shading variations. By utilizing this kind of technology on an LED HDTV, you are capable of experiencing much deeper blacks, sharper image color and a more realistic picture. This is the main reason an LED can offer you a much more vibrant image. So from now on when you refer to the LCD vs LED debate, what you are actually talking about is LED back lighting vs fluorescent back lighting.

What does full backlit and edgelit mean?

There are essentially two ways the LED utilizes back lighting. Backlit and edgelit. The key feature on the full backlit is that it is utilized to augment the contrast levels by turning off the LEDs that were selected and using a function called local-dimming. This reinforces the magnitude of blacks in particular areas of the image on the TV.

The edgelit's primary asset is that it gives the HDTV the ability to be exceptionally thin, which makes them a lot less heavy and easier to mount on your wall or move around. Contrary to the full backlit LED, the edgelit uses LEDs to the outer frame instead of behind the panel. Quite a few of the newer edgelit LED models now utilize local dimming also. Though bear in mind that the edgelit will display fewer dimmable areas when comparing it to the full backlit LED TV. The difference is significant, like comparing night to day. In other words, the full backlit LED television can offer you more richness in color and improved local dimming.

Local Dimming on LED TVs:

Televisions have totally evolved since the old tube TVs. All LED television sets that embrace the local dimming feature are absolutely good at spotting excessively dark areas of the picture your television is currently displaying. This ultimately allows more detail to be displayed during darker scenes. Local dimming works by turning off specific pixels, allowing you to view a picture with significantly better contrast ratio and deeper levels of black. The pixels turn off and on as a result of the ambient lighting. Think of this like when you are watching television with the sunlight radiating right through your window, or the living room light reflecting off your screen. The LED TV consciously alters the attributes of your picture quality accordingly, so you are then able to continue seeing the image on your screen without being interrupted. This is indeed a very nice feature to have if I do say so myself. Pure LCD televisions do not carry this option.

Is the LED really worth it?

To be frank, I actually don't think this argument is still current, since soon all TVs will be LEDs (LCD-LED). As technology progresses, LEDs keep getting significantly more high tech. LCD only TVs are yesterday's news and will pretty soon be obsolete. To sum it up for you, these are the key points to consider when buying and LED as opposed to an LCD. LEDs use less power, offer a much faster response time than fluorescent lighting, offer local dimming, are lighter, and offer overall better quality picture.




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