Sony's New TV Tech: A Colorful Leap Forward

Sony has just unveiled a groundbreaking TV display technology. This new system uses individual RGB LEDs for its backlighting. It's a big deal because it combines the best parts of Mini LED and OLED TVs. This new tech could be a game-changer for TVs. Mini LED TVs use tiny blue LEDs behind the panel. These LEDs are smaller than the pixels on the display, allowing the TV to adjust brightness in multiple areas with precision. OLED TVs, on the other hand, can control each pixel individually, which means they have better contrast. However, they can't get as large or as bright as Mini LED displays. Sony's new RGB LED method is different. Each Mini LED backlight zone is made up of a red, green, and blue LED. This allows Sony to achieve finer control over color without sacrificing brightness. The result is a level of 4000 cd/m², which is on par with Sony's professional reference monitors. This means the TVs can produce a higher "color volume" than any commercial TV Sony has released to date. The increased control over gradation can also help deliver much wider viewing angles than Mini LED TVs. Sony says the panels can be built at larger sizes than existing OLED sets. This is a big deal for people who want a large TV but don't want to sacrifice color accuracy. So, how does it look in person? Unfortunately, Sony didn't allow its prototypes to be photographed. The first unit was designed to show off the backlight array itself. Behind the set was a wild combination of exposed silicon and cable spaghetti. Only half of the screen was covered by an actual LCD panel; the rest of the image was purely handled by the backlighting. This isn't much use in practice, but it does show exactly how precise Sony is able to get with the lighting.

To demonstrate actual video content, Sony set up a full-screen version of the RGB backlight prototype flanked by two of its best TVs you can buy: last year’s extravagant Mini LED-powered Bravia 9, and the QD-OLED A95L. The RGB LED prototype clearly outperformed the Bravia 9. A scene from Frozen where blue crystals flew through the air looked almost monochrome in comparison, with the prototype revealing deep shades of purple that simply weren’t there on the Bravia. It was clear how the backlighting worked in tandem with the color grading to deliver a more vivid picture. RGB LED backlighting isn't a wholly new idea, even from Sony. The company launched a ridiculously expensive Qualia TV with an RGB backlight in 2004, and more recently showed off a “Crystal LED” prototype TV at CES 2012. Competitors are also on the case; Hisense showed off a “TriChroma RGB Backlight” Mini LED TV at CES this year, while TCL and Samsung had prototypes with their own spin on the idea. Sony remains confident that its experience in backlight technology and image signal processing gives it an edge over anything on the horizon. “We believe that we can ensure not only good image quality, but also reliability and stability, ” Sony representative Mara Redican tells The Verge, emphasizing the company’s expertise in signal processing. If Sony is right about this, its strongest competition could be coming from inside the house. The advantages were much less clear next to its own “King of TV. ” The RGB LED prototype could definitely hang with the A95L, and quite literally outshone it in terms of brightness. But I would say the difference in color reproduction and viewing angles were a wash at best. I generally preferred the picture from the OLED in the most challenging comparisons, and I think a lot of OLED TV owners would probably agree. But that’s fine by Sony, which isn’t giving any indication that it’s planning to exit the OLED TV market any time soon. Sony isn’t giving any indication that it’s planning to exit the OLED TV market any time soon. If you’ve been waiting to put a 100-inch-plus panel in a large room with a lot of natural light, this could be your answer.

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