LED HDTV for monitor?
- Thread starter Indyreel
- Start date
Camera Expert
Well-known member
Their much better than standard LCD screens which is why they cost a lot more but when it comes to comparing them to Plasma screens, it all depends on you taste.
I
I
Martti Ekstrand
Veteran
None of these living room screens are particularly good for monitoring when working on any video material. They have so much video sweetening going on that you don't see how the image actually looks.
ydgmdlu
Veteran
OK, there seems to be some confusion here about what the OP means when he talks about "LED HDTV" technology. Even the OP himself is confused. There are multiple issues in question.
First of all, there is no mass-market HDTV in existence today whose display is composed of a matrix of tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs). An "LED HDTV" actually refers to an HDTV set that uses LEDs for illumination only. It could be either an LCD or a DLP display.
An LCD set is mainly composed of a translucent liquid crystal panel whose cells (the pixels) are controlled by a controller board. As long as the controller board renders an input on the panel, you can obtain an image that's viewable to some degree. In order to achieve a bright image with panel installed within a traditional monitor or TV housing, the panel must be illuminated by a back-light. The back-light is actually a pretty simple contraption. It's simply a frosty sheet of plastic (like Plexiglas) that covers the entire area of the panel, with a long, slim, cylindrical light fixture at the bottom. When the light fixture is turned on, light is diffused through the plastic sheet and thus illuminates the whole liquid crystal panel with a fair amount of evenness. Originally, the light fixture used a cold-cathode fluorescent (CCFL) bulb. Nowadays, an array of LEDs has replaced the CCFL bulbs. Long story short, and LED LCD is simply an LCD that is back-lit with LEDs. LEDs have absolutely nothing to do with LCD technology other than back-lighting.
At the heart of a DLP set are four main parts: the micro-mirror chip, the color wheel, and the light source. The micro-mirror chip generates the pixels. The angle of each individual mirror (out of a matrix of millions) determines the shade of the color of the pixel. The color wheel is a spinning disc that has a few different sections, and each section is a different color. The light source bounces light off of the color wheel and onto the micro-mirror chip. The light assumes the color of whatever part of the wheel that it hits, and the color is further refined when it bounces off of the mirrors and onto the projection screen. The color wheel spins very rapidly, and all of the tiny mirrors must be adjusted very rapidly. Through this rather convoluted mechanism, you amazingly achieve an image with just about all of the colors that you need for a movie.
Originally, DLP sets used high-intensity discharge lamps as the light source. In the last couple of years, manufacturers have replaced HID lamps with LED "light engines" in their new models. Since plasma displays and LCDs now dominate the HDTV market, "LED HDTVs" generally refer just to LCDs. However, DLP rear-projection technology is not yet dead. The next generation of DLP proposes to use lasers instead of LEDs. There's already a "laser TV" on the market. It's said to offer much better color and contrast and lower power consumption than any other DLP set.
LED HDTVs, whether LCD or DLP, have all of the advantages and disadvantages that the display technologies have always had. Thus to say that an LED HDTV is "better than LCD" or "better than DLP" makes no sense. LED HDTVs are LCD and DLP. They merely offer advantages over the previous generations of the respective technologies. LEDs only offer three advantages over the older illumination techniques:
1) wider color gamut
2) lower power consumption
3) longer life for the light souce
First of all, there is no mass-market HDTV in existence today whose display is composed of a matrix of tiny light-emitting diodes (LEDs). An "LED HDTV" actually refers to an HDTV set that uses LEDs for illumination only. It could be either an LCD or a DLP display.
An LCD set is mainly composed of a translucent liquid crystal panel whose cells (the pixels) are controlled by a controller board. As long as the controller board renders an input on the panel, you can obtain an image that's viewable to some degree. In order to achieve a bright image with panel installed within a traditional monitor or TV housing, the panel must be illuminated by a back-light. The back-light is actually a pretty simple contraption. It's simply a frosty sheet of plastic (like Plexiglas) that covers the entire area of the panel, with a long, slim, cylindrical light fixture at the bottom. When the light fixture is turned on, light is diffused through the plastic sheet and thus illuminates the whole liquid crystal panel with a fair amount of evenness. Originally, the light fixture used a cold-cathode fluorescent (CCFL) bulb. Nowadays, an array of LEDs has replaced the CCFL bulbs. Long story short, and LED LCD is simply an LCD that is back-lit with LEDs. LEDs have absolutely nothing to do with LCD technology other than back-lighting.
At the heart of a DLP set are four main parts: the micro-mirror chip, the color wheel, and the light source. The micro-mirror chip generates the pixels. The angle of each individual mirror (out of a matrix of millions) determines the shade of the color of the pixel. The color wheel is a spinning disc that has a few different sections, and each section is a different color. The light source bounces light off of the color wheel and onto the micro-mirror chip. The light assumes the color of whatever part of the wheel that it hits, and the color is further refined when it bounces off of the mirrors and onto the projection screen. The color wheel spins very rapidly, and all of the tiny mirrors must be adjusted very rapidly. Through this rather convoluted mechanism, you amazingly achieve an image with just about all of the colors that you need for a movie.
Originally, DLP sets used high-intensity discharge lamps as the light source. In the last couple of years, manufacturers have replaced HID lamps with LED "light engines" in their new models. Since plasma displays and LCDs now dominate the HDTV market, "LED HDTVs" generally refer just to LCDs. However, DLP rear-projection technology is not yet dead. The next generation of DLP proposes to use lasers instead of LEDs. There's already a "laser TV" on the market. It's said to offer much better color and contrast and lower power consumption than any other DLP set.
LED HDTVs, whether LCD or DLP, have all of the advantages and disadvantages that the display technologies have always had. Thus to say that an LED HDTV is "better than LCD" or "better than DLP" makes no sense. LED HDTVs are LCD and DLP. They merely offer advantages over the previous generations of the respective technologies. LEDs only offer three advantages over the older illumination techniques:
1) wider color gamut
2) lower power consumption
3) longer life for the light souce
ydgmdlu
Veteran
There is a third type of LED display technology worth mentioning. It's known as "organic light emitting diode" (OLED). OLEDs are superior to all current display technologies in almost every way. OLED screens are already in a number of small devices, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, and portable media players (such as the Zune HD). However, they are currently quite expensive to manufacture, and big-screen OLED HDTVs will not be economically viable for a few more years. A year or two ago, Sony released an 11-inch OLED HDTV priced at $1500.
Unlike current LED displays, OLED displays actually are composed of a matrix of light-emitting diodes. In other words, every pixel actually is an individual LED.
Unlike current LED displays, OLED displays actually are composed of a matrix of light-emitting diodes. In other words, every pixel actually is an individual LED.
seanmcleod
Well-known member
Isn't this all kind of a moot point since the GH1 doesn't support live monitoring... or is the OP talking about playback?
Camera Expert
Well-known member
I actually meant LED back-lit screens being better than conventional LCD screens. To my eyes, HDTV with those screens look better. Even the LED back-lit LCD screen for my laptop looks much better than conventional LCD screens on other laptops.
ydgmdlu
Veteran
I know that that's what you meant, but the OP seemed to think that LED HDTVs aren't LCDs.
