Every year at CES the largest names in Technology battle it out with their latest and greatest TV’s. Each company has unique names and buzz words associated with their latest TV launch. So where do you start? How do you know which type of TV you should be getting and just what do all those letters, names and numbers actually mean? I got you covered Internet with the Ultimate how to buy a Television guide.
The main types of TV in the market place today are LED and OLED. But what exactly is this?
History Of Televisions – CRT and Plasmas are Gone…
In olden TV days, we used to have CRT Televisions. These bulky heavy tv’s used vacuum tubes to display images and colors. In 2008, plasma TV’s graced our stage. Plasma used a display that had small cells that contained electrically charge gases to create images. This causes Plasma’s to sometime get quite warm and used a lot of power. Plasma have lost pretty much all their market share now though.
What is LCD?
Most of today’s TV’s have a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) layer in the front. LCD is basically a very thin layer of “liquid crystal” that is sandwiched between two glass sheets, and some electrodes. Like shown in that picture. The LCD does not produce any light of its own. In fact, LCD depends entirely on illumination from an external source. Like LED’s.
Many LCD TV are back-lit with LEDs(Light Emitting Diodes). LED bulbs are just like the tiny versions you have on your Christmas tree each year. The way the TV versions of these lights are manufactured and how the LED lights display light and dark are completely different depending on which manufacture though..
LED’s are still better than CRT (cathode ray tube) of olden days where we had large bulky devices filled with these vaccum tubes to display images and color.
A Several years ago LCD screen has a cold-cathode fluorescent light (or CCFL) across the entire back of the screen to make images visible Regardless of if the image is black or white or colored, the entire panel is lite up evenly
Then technology changed. LED got used as a backlight instead of the CCFLs. Because they are tiny little lightbulb lights, engineers designed ways to turn off the light completely in the black areas of the TV picture. This lead to “darker blacks”, but it still has its drawbacks. Because LCD has a layer of LED behind it that is actually producing the light, sometimes these get out of sync. The result is something called “blooming”, where the light from the light areas nearby the dark areas blooms/bleeds over into the dark portions.
What is OLED?
OLED, (Organic Light-Emitting Diodes) is different. It has less layers involved. There is a organize layer that lights up all on it’s own when you poke it with electricity. This is generally carbon and some other materials that make the different colors. Because OLED can light up on their own when an electrical current passes through it, OLED TV’s can be paper thin. Remember LED requires an alternate light source -A back lite panel to make the display work.
The OLED pixels themselves are actually producing the light so when they turn off for the black areas, there is no blooming. The pixels are just off. YOu combine this with the OLED’s ability to produce bright white colors and you are left with a stunning picture technology. The light source has also shrunk which means we can now have these insanely flat devices that are millimeters thick and can easily hang on your wall.
OLED is also capable of a very low refresh rare – as low as 0.001ms – which is about 1,000 times faster than a regular old LED-backlit LCD panel.
Stay Tuned for Part 2…