What is a 3D LED TV and How Does Backlighting Work?

Today many of the television manufacturers who design and build all of our 3D TVs will often refer to an LED backlight 3D television simply as a LED TV when in fact obviously (after you read this article!) this is not the case at all. The LED part of this description merely relates to technology used for the backlighting of these television, which uses LEDs to do the job effectively.

In these cases the television is still an LCD or Liquid Crystal Display television, but what you see is improved because of the use of LED (Light Emitting Diodes) just for the backlighting. In fact LEDs can be used in this way for any LCD television not just 3D ones and also for flat panel displays. These will then utilize one of several different methods for LED backlighting instead of the previous and less effective method that used CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) backlighting to try and produce the same effect.

So as you can now understand these are not true LED displays in any way at al although the term LED TV continues to prevail from some of the top manufacturers and 3D TV suppliers across the nation. Of course this is just a marketing gimmick in many cases simply to create more interest in their new 3D TV products and of course the bottom line is that it will then sell more of these new model tvs for them, or at least that is the plan from their marketing departments.

However despite the terminology confusion the now widespread use of this LED backlighting in the latest 3D televisions means that they can be built into a much thinner panel, which of course makes them lighter as well, and this also results in lower power consumption for these models as well as much better heat dissipation from these designs combined with better viewing benefits from the brighter display and improved levels of contrast at all times.

In real world applications of LED backlighting in our latest 3D televisions there are now three different variations of how the LED can be used to provide the sets with better backlighting effects. Already one of these is starting to become the dominant option and as usual this is because of cost and effectiveness.

3D TV LED Backlighting Designs

White Edge LED Backlighting

In this option all the white edge LEDs are located right around the actual rim of the display screen and this method uses a specially design diffusion panel that can then spread all of back light very evenly across the back of the display screen. If you go out and buy a new 3D LED TV today then this is most likely to be the option that you are getting for sure. Today this very popular method for 3D TV backlighting allows the construction of LED backlit televisions to therefore be extremely thin and much lighter. The improved effect is obtained by the light emitted from the LEDs being diffused in a uniform manner behind the display screen by the special diffusion panel.

Dynamic RGB LED Backlighting

This is another, but very different, method for backlighting LCD TV displays that utilizes a localized dimming of some specific areas that are dark on the display screen of the television. By using this method you will see a display that can actually reveal much truer blacks and whites and other color improvements and it provides these also with dynamic contrast ratios that are always much higher. But there is one downside to this option and that is there can sometimes be less detail in any very small and bright objects that occur on darker backgrounds. The dynamic RGB LEDs used to provide the backlighting effect using this method are situated behind the panel itself.

Full Array LED Backlighting

The way this method works is that there is a full array of the LEDs lights arranged right behind the whole of the display screen, but their individual brightness cannot actually be controlled on a light per light basis. In fact now of course there are many different manufacturers who are using these various types of LED backlighting method and technologies in their 3D television today.

The best part is that they all do offer some good benefits over the old method of CCFLs used in previous LCD television and this has now resulted in much better contrast overall and in the levels of brightness achievable as well as a reduced level of energy consumption in the current models and the display of a greater color range too, which is something we can all appreciate. Other notable improvements include a quicker response to any changes that occur in the scene that you are watching and improvement in the accuracy of image rendering on the display.