LED backlighting and 120-Hz refresh rates are coming to mainstream HDTVs like the ones Samsung showed off this week.
If you're planning an HDTV purchase this fall (or looking ahead to one this winter), keep an eye out for two emerging technologies. 1080p is now everywhere, LCD HDTVs are taking over, and 40-inch displays are evolving into the new sweet spot. But new sets slated for this fall and winter are will be among the first mainstream displays to incorporate several new technologies that can significantly improve picture quality.
Samsung, for example, recently showed off its latest lines of LCD HDTVs due out in August. One line sports a 120-Hz refresh rate--double the 60 Hz of standard LCD TVs--which makes for sharper fast-moving images. Another line uses LED backlights, which dramatically boost contrast and allow for a wider range of colors.
Both technologies should be available from a wide variety of vendors this fall, including LG Electronics, Philips, and Sharp. And as these enhancements make their way into more and more TVs, the price difference between standard LCD TVs and these newer models should shrink rapidly. Here's a look at Samsung's plans for 120-Hz HDTVs and LED backlighting, and why you might want to wait for a television that makes use of either technology.
120-Hz Displays
Momentum behind 120 Hz has been building since early this year. JVC was among the first vendors to ship a 120-Hz display, and Sharp's Aquos D82U and D92U series televisions began shipping back in February. This summer, Philips, LG, and Samsung all announced their respective 120-Hz technologies, with products coming by this fall.
At 120 Hz, the television's refresh rate is double the previous standard rate for displaying video content. By doing so, it can smooth out any residual motion blur that results from fast-moving action found in such content as sports and a scrolling news ticker on the bottom of the screen. Video content is filmed at 30 frames per second, which means such content is best shown at 60 Hz or 120 Hz.
Samsung showed a split-screen demonstration of its 120-Hz technology at an event here in San Francisco, with one side showing the 120-Hz technology, and the other side showing 60 Hz. The difference between the two was noticeable: At 120 Hz, the ticker moved more smoothly and fast-moving video appeared sharper.
The 71 series displays that Samsung is launching in August use a technology called McFi--short for Motion Compensated Frame Interpolation--to create new interpolated video frames and insert them between each frame of video to smooth out fast motion. Samsung's technology looks for any movement, then it creates an average of those movements to insert a frame in between them. Other HDTV makers insert a black frame in between frames, an approach Samsung claims fixes the motion-blur issue, but degrade the panel's brightness.
LED Backlighting
If you're less concerned about fast-moving images, a display with an LED backlight may be more to your liking. The big advantage to LED-backlit TVs is improved contrast ratio. Samsung says its 81 series of displays can automatically adjust the backlight for specific parts of the picture, depending upon the source content. This allows the display to achieve deeper blacks and crisper whites than can be achieved with the Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp technology (CCFL) traditionally used by LCD HDTVs.
In CCFL, the tubes light up the back of the display; those tubes can be all on, or all off, and they allow some degree of light leakage. But LED backlighting allows a greater degree of control, which enables Samsung to claim a dynamic contrast ratio of 100,000:1, a four times improvement over its CCFL displays.
Price Premiums
While 120-Hz displays won't be that much more expensive than standard 1080p displays are today, you will pay a premium for an LED backlit display. The 40-inch model in Samsung's 120-Hz 71 series line should retail for $2699 when it ships in August, for example, while Samsung's 40-inch LED backlit model from the 81 series will go for $2999.
At least with TVs in that price range, other key HDTV technologies have become standard. A year ago, 1080p resolutions were still a rarity--and available in to higher-end models only. As we head into the fall, 1080p is de rigueur on HDTVs at sizes of 40 inches and up. Samsung, for example, will have only three non-1080p models going forward in that size range. HDMI 1.3 is also getting more pervasive across a wide spectrum of LCD (and for that matter, plasma) displays.
