Finally, LEDs coming to market.

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
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Sounds good, but it seems to be limited to laptop LCDs for the moment.

notebook makers have high requirements for their product specifications ? a brightness of over 1,680 nits ? and Taiwan-based makers have yet to offer such a brightness level

Why on earth would anyone want it that bright? :confused:
 

Javichal

Junior Member
Dec 20, 2006
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They're probably referring to the backlight's brightness, as opposed to the overall screen brightness.

Backlights are actually very, very bright. It's just that only a small amount of light makes it through the LCD portion of the screen.

For example, surrounding the actual liquid crystal part are two polarizers, one at each end. The first polarizer knocks off 50% of the light right at the beginning, while the second polarizer absorbs anywhere from 0% to 100%, depending on whether the screen is white or black.

Also, an LCD screen is made up of 1/3 red, 1/3 green, 1/3 blue. If this pixel is red, that means that the green and blue light is filtered out. In other words, at any point in the display, only 1/3 of the light is getting through the color filter part of the LCD screen.

Another factor to consider is the aperture ratio. Each pixel is surrounded by wires controlling that pixel, which are opaque. This means that only say 75% of the light gets through the array part (the part that's controlling the pixels).

Putting all these together, this is 1/2 * 1/3 * 3/4 = 1/8 of the brightness of the backlight is getting through. This is assuming 100% efficiency, and assuming the screen you're looking at is all white. Actually efficiency is far from this, and people don't buy notebooks to stare at white screens, so altogether a very very bright backlight is needed to jam enough photons through that LCD layer to make only a miniscule amount of light that you see.
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
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AU Optronics is releasing some desktop LCD monitors with the LED backlights (and a new panel technology along with it).

More information: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news.htm#a-mva

Most LED backlights will come in a red+green+blue config to create a white light. The gamma settings will now adjust the backlight's color components instead of how much the matrix cells are blocking. For example, red at 50% will now yield a reduction in the backlight's red component instead of a lower red subpixel throughput. This allows maximum gamut at all times and more precise adjustment. Speaking of which, these LCDs will feature an 8-bit color depth and reach 92% gamut. This will make them lose some color precision, but that may be half compensated by the fact that the whole 256 levels of brightness will always be intact (backlight adjustment not matrix adjustment).
 

Nelsieus

Senior member
Mar 11, 2006
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I've been ready for LED for some time now. But unfourtunately, it doesn't look like it will make it in desktop LCDs by the time I'm in the market come Feb.

Nelsieus
 

Wreckage

Banned
Jul 1, 2005
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Good, I want a Laptop that I can light a room with. I will have to check one of these out at a store to see how much of a difference it makes.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
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They're probably referring to the backlight's brightness, as opposed to the overall screen brightness.

You're right, I didn't think of that. The brightness level makes more sense in that case.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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So why are LED backlights better exactly? Brighter? Most of the LCDs that I've seen, I would have to turn down the brightness to be able to use them for any length of time.