Television Aspect Ratio -Some thoughts on image quality

[tvtech]

As I said above, I install hundreds of Sony LCD's, and they generally out perform the CRT they are replacing.

CRT - poor geometry, poor grey scale, poor purity, poor convergence - the list goes on



I would agree with repairable

Thanks
tvtech

 

[Mr RB]

I like to watch horro or action movies etc with all the room lights turned off, and the blacks on the LCD actually glow. This is particularly annoying on new movies where they have "crunched the blacks", a Hollywood term for making the whole movie dark with high contrast (very black blacks). In some horror movies in the dark scenes this only leaves some parts of the screen lit with most of the screen black, and on LCD TVs the whole "black" area glows.

I actually stopped the movie last time (at a family member's house) and spent 5 minutes with all the bright/contrast/vivid settings etc and realised the fault was not the adjustment at all, it was that the LCD material simply cannot go completely opaque enough to be "black" over its backlight. In a brightly lit room you may not notice, but on a movie horror night it sucks big time. Any good CRT will be jet black on the blacks.

Since that night I'm looking for that flaw so I see it on LCD TVs everywhere, really poor blacks. The TV owners don't seem to notice, until it's in a dark room anyway where nobody can ignore the problem.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Since that night I'm looking for that flaw so I see it on LCD TVs everywhere, really poor blacks. The TV owners don't seem to notice, until it's in a dark room anyway where nobody can ignore the problem.

Even back in the CRT days, it's was always advised NOT to watch a TV in the dark

But, as always, the better quality ones are FAR better at blacks than the cheap crappy ones (who are usually 3 to 4 LCD generations behind). Decent TV's dim the back lights dynamically, so if watching in a darkened room you would presumably reduce the brightness/contrast to suit (or it would be too garish), so the set would have plenty of scope for dynamic dimming, giving good blacks.

 

[phalanx]

Decent TV's dim the back lights dynamically, so if watching in a darkened room you would presumably reduce the brightness/contrast to suit (or it would be too garish), so the set would have plenty of scope for dynamic dimming, giving good blacks.

The problem with the dynamic dimming is the far majority of LCD sets on the market have either a cold cathode or edge lit LED back light which doesn't allow for zonal dimming. It's an all or nothing affair which can be rather abrupt especially on the lower cost sets. A true LED panel could solve this as long as they could isolate individual pixels from bleeding over into adjacent ones.

The best solution at the moment for poor black contrast is to get a good plasma set for watching movies. While they still aren't perfect, they are at least an order of magnitude better than a high end LCD.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The problem with the dynamic dimming is the far majority of LCD sets on the market have either a cold cathode or edge lit LED back light which doesn't allow for zonal dimming.

It seems to make VERY little difference, at least on decent quality sets - backlit LED sets are pretty rare these days, I suspect most manufacturers have discovered that the potential improvements are far too small to be cost effective.

I'm in the fortunate position (as a service engineer for a retail outlet) to compare sets side by side (we have walls of them) - and I couldn't pick out the sets which are backlit or not.

 

[Mr RB]

... backlit LED sets are pretty rare these days, I suspect most manufacturers have discovered that the potential improvements are far too small to be cost effective.

Really? I went for a w3alk recently through the big dept store here looking at the new sets, and probably 75% are LED backlit LCD sets, with a few of the cheap brands still having the old FL tube backlights.

If LCD sets with LED backlights are rare in the UK, what are they selling? Plasma? Or OLED screens (which I thought were rare and prohibitively expensive)?

This has been a really interesting thread, I had always just assumed we would be getting basically the same TV technology in Australia/UK/USA etc but it's looking more and more like there are some big differences.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Really? I went for a w3alk recently through the big dept store here looking at the new sets, and probably 75% are LED backlit LCD sets, with a few of the cheap brands still having the old FL tube backlights.

Almost all are EDGELIT LED screens, not backlit - I suspect you're confused by the terminology?.

CCFL sets are pretty rare now, although personally I consider them a better picture.

If LCD sets with LED backlights are rare in the UK, what are they selling? Plasma? Or OLED screens (which I thought were rare and prohibitively expensive)?

Plasma is all but obsolete, with only three manufacturers left - OLED is too expensive to be even considered yet

 

[transistor495]

Almost all are EDGELIT LED screens, not backlit - I suspect you're confused by the terminology?.

CCFL sets are pretty rare now, although personally I consider them a better picture.

OK, I always thought both are some kind of backlighting only , although terminology wise they seem Backlit vs Edgelit. This is a new information

And Nigel, care to elaborate why do you prefer CCFL over LED, because I also prefer them actually considering the better black level, as LED's have an awful whites in darks and maybe the sets I've seen doesn't use a dynamic self adjustment.

 

[transistor495]

Not sure how many of you noticed this, but this has been a problem with CRT TV sets I've been watching for a long time. Suppose a dark object is pictured in pure white background(eg, sky), I can see the white overlaps and screen sometime flickers with a hum sound.

This can be also due to the excess power level of cable TV channels, but I've seen with old analog antenna reception also. This is especially with new CRT's, and as the time goes, the CRT burns in and it somewhat disappears.

Not sure if this an inherent problem with CRT's and how many of you agree with it. I think LCD's are find in that especially with the power level of incoming video signal. Our 10yr old Panasonic set has this problem severely in earlier.

View attachment 69095

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

OK, I always thought both are some kind of backlighting only , although terminology wise they seem Backlit vs Edgelit. This is a new information

And Nigel, care to elaborate why do you prefer CCFL over LED, because I also prefer them actually considering the better black level, as LED's have an awful whites in darks and maybe the sets I've seen doesn't use a dynamic self adjustment.

The colours seem more accurate with CCFL back lighting.

 

[phalanx]

The colours seem more accurate with CCFL back lighting.

I agree with this. CCFL white light spectra is better than LED which leads to a more accurate picture.

 

[Mr RB]

Almost all are EDGELIT LED screens, not backlit - I suspect you're confused by the terminology?.
...

Not really confusion, I just lazily call both "backlighting" as to me they are just different ways of getting some light behind an LCD.

Thanks for the tip on CFL backlight giving better colour.