10 Points on LED TV

LED TV has become the new prized entertainment item for some households. It has created hot topics at the consumer electronics shops, Laser, Fortress or Broadway in Hong Kong. There is big promotion programme launched by Samsung at the darkest day of the economic meltdown beginning of the year, as they believed the people could consider to buy a better TV and whole family would sit down and watch the video porgramme rather than to go out for spending their money, I think this was a good timing and always Samsung has a bold marketing motive in sales in their history.

Now it is the time for LG who is coming up as a close follower for the promotion.

I have this experience, went to the shop talking to the same Sale people in Fortress Shop, before that guy was promoting Samsung LED TV and saying that this is top one brand in TV and they have the best technology for LED, no question not to buy from them. In August, I talked to same guy again I said how about LG, he said LG is the best choice as they are all made in Korean with good Korean Quality where Samsung LED was made in China!! Not as good quality as LG…. I was puzzled, how come they could distorted the picture in such a shop prior do two months time.
I saw that they are running the promotion on LG, not to focus on Samsung anymore!
They might have some instructions from the top management!?

One Staff engineer from a big company asked to show him where the LED TV is in the Broadway. It seemed to me he does not know what LED TV is?…. I was thinking that Samsung has already created the Sales Gadget to create a terms that has triggered something NEW and make such as an attraction for more new comers to search for more information on LED TV, at least they want to find out what the LED TVs are…

I am trying to illustrate that what I relate about LED TV is all about and what should we do about it in coming future to select the TV…

“LED TV” is in fact not a proper term to describe the Samsung new TV as Original LED TV means the entire TV screen is configurated and built by thousand pieces of LED. Most conventional LCD TVs use cold cathode fluorescent lamps or CCFLs for the backlighting. However, the LED TVs use light emitting diodes or LED as a backlight. One of the main challenges with the light emitting diode is the fact that it is too big for pixels on a television screen. So if someone tells you that the equipment is an LED TV, it is never going to be a true one and is likely to have a combination of other technology as well. The current main use of a true LED technology is for massive screens such as those that are used at sports stadiums, train terminal and department stores.

But now all we see is the LCD TV with LED backlit unit, so this is not appropriate by right to use “LED TV” to describe the TV. So this is only LCD TV which has been in the market for 10 years already, nothing is new.

1. What is LED Backlit unit?
LCD TV has to be light up at back to illuminate the TV Screen and to boost up the colour contrast. That is traditionally being broadly using CCFL as a standard material to illuminate.

2. What is CCFL?
CCFL is Cold Cathode Florescent Light, is in fact the Same kind of
Light fixture we are using at home. It contains certain amount of Mercury and is not advisable to be disposed without special treatment but who can do much now as there are Billions of such kind of light tubes in the world. That is why European is trying to stop this kind of product by replacing with better environmental friendly product such as LED… but not able to do it yet as the Efficacy of LED is still not able to be marketable in large scale for this Hugh light and illumination market.

3. How many types of CCFL in the market, the CCFL in general being used by most
Of the TV makers, and HCFL by Sony which has a effect of thinner tube of CFL and a better power efficiency, which goes in par with LED.

4. How many types of LED Back lit structure and design?
White TopLED LED is mounting on the edge and LED shine through the light guide to the centre of the LCD TV. Edge lit from side, either 4 sides tow vertical sides, tow top and bottom and even only one at the bottom side. Edge type is best for its thin TV outer profile, down to 5mm! But there is not local dimming. And closer looking into it you can see that the light is brighter at the side as comparing with the Centre of the screen. 4. Edge-lit TVs are really thin, but uniformity suffers. Direct white LED back lit, that is a better design with the screen being sectionized into say 400 smaller area, each contain say 10-20 LED in groups, so in short the Screen is lit up by these thousands of LED, the control is more complex and the effect is able to have Local dimming and best to control the blackness of the screen thus by right this can achieves a DCR Dynamic Contrast Ratio n of 3,000,000 to 1. So as the quality of the TV should be better in the Edge lit design. The cost of the Direct Back lit is much higher than Edge... and it is thicker in the construction the market Leader is able to make it as thin as 10mm.

5. The is another one using RGB LED on the direct back lit panels, this RGB is three colour Red, Green and Blue LED, the control is even more complex than the White LED Direct Back lit unit, it nay use up a Computer to control the colour brightness, balance in the colour gamut, they might use up 3,500 LED groups each consists of RGB Leeds, those the cost of the LED Back light construction is very high but there result is rich colour especially in RED.
thicker of the whole panel.

6. Is LED TV better in performance than Plasma TV?
From my point of view Plasma is still better as it does not rely on Back lit to illuminate up the LCD TV. It has it own lighting units as pixel to show the brightness. It has a better reproduction of the original Colour as from the signal input is. This is more or less than same As LP Vs. CD…. LP has a true musical tone than CD, no matter what kind of technology you use, That is the physics Nothing can change but of course commercial side there is 100,000 ways to destroy LP, but the human ears I the final Judge! But Plasma TV was blamed for it short life time, now the new Plasma no mater Samsung, Pioneer, They can stay safe without any problem for 20,000 hours. But the Plasma is hot as of consume at least 2X more power than the LED TV.

7. One downside to local dimming is an effect called "blooming," where brighter areas bleed into darker ones and lighten adjacent black levels. This effect varies widely from model to model; it's pretty noticeable on the Toshiba 46SV670U, for example, and much more difficult to notice on the Samsung 8500. Incidence of blooming is directly related to how many local dimming LED elements ("dimmable zones") are behind the screen, but some manufacturers won't divulge that information. Blooming isn't an issue on other kinds of displays, including edge-lit models.

8. Cost For LED TV is much higher that those LCD TV lit p by CCFL, The cost structure has a different of $100, to $1,000 in average (Depending on type of back light, white or RGB LED).
So as the selling prices.

9. Dynamic Contrast Ratio, there is a standardization of how to measure the black to White light intensity and thus to create the specification. Do not compare this kind of figure as a way to make buy decision as LG can have a DCR of 3,000,000:1 and Sharp Top series LC-65XSIM 15,000:1 by specification Sharp will lose to LG or Samsung.

10. How to make a buying choice?
Go to the shop, check with your budget and then go for the picture quality you think the best using the same Source blueRay of course, and Forget the technical specification at this moment. Look at the Centre portion for the True Blackness nor Greyer? And Look at different angel to see there is any Blooming on colour. If there is a LCD dark room that will be the bets, but so far most of the HK Retail show room does not provide you such a room for you to choose, So all we have to choose is o make a choice on that.. or

If you have limited budget, just for watch good picture quality movie, go and buy a Plasma TV, it is Cheap. Nice, bright and natural Colour. But it is thicker and Consumption with higher power, It will add on your bill in the whole year!

If you are electronics Freak, and like to go for the best technology and sleek design
Go buy Samsung 8500 series TV, it is slim, crystal frame, Optimum Performance and
Power comparison.

If your wallet is thick enough to achieve the best in the market, LCD TV from Sharp would not disappoint you, go and use your Amex card to Broadway for the LC-65XS1M, List price is HK$148,800. Certain shops are selling at about HK$125,500. I have been asking them for the price of the shop’s demo as I do not mind the TV has been running for 3 months as run in… As it does tell me that has been running no problem for that period of time, He offered me HK$98,000.00!

My opinion, we will see more LED TVs in coming few years and the CCFL back lit will stay safe for at east 4 years before they become extinct!

On the other side, Panasonic has announced not to manufacture CRT TV and his factory was sold to China. In China, there are 60% of TV are still CRT. There is still a huge Market for China and some third world Countries.

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