LG LED 55" display WOW

**tonyvdb** · **10-12-09, 06:32 PM**

I was at one of our local Electronics stores today and they had one of the new LED Backlight displays on display. These are the new displays that have the entire size of the display backlit with an LED array. It was very impressive to say the lest. They were showing the BluRay series Planet earth directly hooked up to just this LG 55" and it was far more vivid and bright than I have ever seen a display.
I was able to play with some of the settings to make it look more natural and it still had amazing contrast My wife even commented as to how nice it looked. This may be a display that we will get someday once our RPTV dies. The price's was high although at just below $3800.

**lcaillo** · **10-12-09, 06:52 PM**

Actually, LED backlighting is not as bright as CCFL in most cases. With more LEDs, perhaps, but the narrow spectrum of the LED light source contains less energy than a CCFL. The better blacks with the local dimming likely helped the apparent contrast.

**tonyvdb** · **10-12-09, 06:55 PM**

My understanding is because the entire area behind the screen not just the perimeter is LED backlit that there was more light output per inch. CFL is only around the perimeter?

**lcaillo** · **10-12-09, 07:00 PM**

No, CCFL backlighting is a group of tubes across the entire area of the set. Some sets are edge lit, but most are not. The output and the quality of the local dimming (if it has it) of a LED lit set will depend on how many LED segments are used.

**tonyvdb** · **10-12-09, 07:06 PM**

Ahh, I learn something every day Thanks for the info.
I still thought that it was amazing and the in store lighting was on and the screen still looked very good with lots of contrast. Does CCFL dim over time though, more than LED?

**lcaillo** · **10-12-09, 07:10 PM**

There is very little change in flourescent backlighting over time. Depending on the design of LEDs they may be more or less stable than flourescents.

Understand that more LED units increase the control for better blacks, but also make the system more expensive and more prone to a catastrophic failure. One LED goes bad and the panel is a piece of junk. You can't just change a single element. They are integral to the panel.

CCFL sets are still pretty good and far more cost effective.

**tonyvdb** · **10-12-09, 07:13 PM**

Quote:

lcaillo wrote:

CCFL sets are still pretty good and far more cost effective.

I'll agree with that

$4000 is alot for just a 55"

**lcaillo** · **10-12-09, 07:55 PM**

With the quality and price of the plasma sets right now, I have a hard time getting excited about LED LCDs. The Sony and the Samsung among the best sets I have seen but the price is just not in my range.

**mechman** · **10-12-09, 08:22 PM**

Is there a big difference in power consumption with the LEDs?

**tonyvdb** · **10-12-09, 08:25 PM**

My understanding is they do use far less power, particularly compared to Plasma.
A typicle LED uses 5volts at less than .05ma so even a large amount of them would still be less.

Where I work we are one of the first in Canada to use LED parking lot lights and they draw half the amount of power of the same brightness 400watt Metal Halide lamp that we used before and last 50 times longer.

**lcaillo** · **10-13-09, 06:32 AM**

Power consumption would be the major advantage of LEDs. I think that is why we will see more of them. The performance advantages are a trade-off, at least for now, IMO.

**recruit** · **10-13-09, 06:46 AM**

I am very tempted by the new Samsung 55" LED back lit LCD panel, the PQ was in stunning for HD material, there was a richness to the screen that I have not seen on any other panels that I have looked at, have not seen the LG ones, are they better than the Samsung units?

Edit:

Quote:

lcaillo wrote:

The Sony and the Samsung among the best sets I have seen but the price is just not in my range.

Just seen the above comment Leonard, so that answers my query I think, the RRP of the Samasung 55" screen is approx £2500 (In the UK), which is a lot but with some discount should be able to get it closer to £2000, which is not too bad, when I bought my first plasma that cost me £4000 for a 42"

so prices have improved

**lcaillo** · **10-13-09, 08:47 AM**

I would not even consider the LG. Not even close in picture quality, IME, and in reliability, LG is even worse than Samsung. Now as a service tech, I love them both. They put lots of shoes on the kids' feet.

I was just looking at the sets last week and I could not see anything about the LED sets that I liked better than the Panasonic plasmas for half the price. The LCD sets will get brighter than the PDP but if you try to get good blacks you have to turn the backlight way down anyway. The Samsung has better color management, but unless you have the right meter to really get it right (about $8K and up), you won't really benefit from that difference, and there are still questions about the LED sets decoding intermediate colors. If I was going to buy right now, it would be one of either the Panasonic or Samsung plasma sets. I would likely go with the Panny for service reasons.

**brucek** · **10-13-09, 09:24 AM**

I saw the Samsung UN55B8000 series LED TV last week, and it was impressive, but understand it is LED edge-lit. Their latest that I haven't seen in stores yet (too new) is the UN55B8500 series and is the LED back-lit with local dimming. It's a bit thicker (1.6" rather than 1.2"), but have read that the back-lit local dimmed sets have much better blacks than the edge lit or back-lit with local dimming.

I wonder why Samsung came out with an edge lit, and then it seems only a month or so later come out with a back-lit local dim variety?

I also saw the latest Sharp 52LE700UN 52" LED back lit TV, but it doesn't have local dimming. It looked good to me though. Quite a bit cheaper than the Samsung too....

My RPTV is getting near the end of its life and I try to keep up with what's going on with the latest TV's - they seem to get better every day. I have passed on the plasmas, they seem to be big heat generators. I put my hand on the top of one the other day and couldn't believe how hot it was....

I wonder about the reliability of Sharp compared to Samsung? Hard to find accurate results about that sort of thing..

brucek

**recruit** · **10-13-09, 09:38 AM**

I have a seventh generation 1080P LCD from Samsung and it has done me well for the last 2 years with HD material looking very good indeed but SD is very poor unfortunately, it has improved since I have had the Arcam doing the scaling and cleaning the image up, but still nowhere near the HD image quality...I wonder how the new LED PJ look, the technology is certainly improving with new ones coming out each year, a new PJ will be my next purchase before a new panel but may hang on for the next generation anyway...

**lcaillo** · **10-13-09, 09:59 AM**

Quote:

brucek wrote:

I saw the Samsung UN55B8000 series LED TV last week, and it was impressive, but understand it is LED edge-lit. Their latest that I haven't seen in stores yet (too new) is the UN55B8500 series and is the LED back-lit with local dimming. It's a bit thicker (1.6" rather than 1.2"), but have read that the back-lit local dimmed sets have much better blacks than the edge lit or back-lit with local dimming.

I wonder why Samsung came out with an edge lit, and then it seems only a month or so later come out with a back-lit local dim variety?

I also saw the latest Sharp 52LE700UN 52" LED back lit TV, but it doesn't have local dimming. It looked good to me though. Quite a bit cheaper than the Samsung too....

My RPTV is getting near the end of its life and I try to keep up with what's going on with the latest TV's - they seem to get better every day. I have passed on the plasmas, they seem to be big heat generators. I put my hand on the top of one the other day and couldn't believe how hot it was....

I wonder about the reliability of Sharp compared to Samsung? Hard to find accurate results about that sort of thing..

brucek

Edge lit can be made thinner and cheaper. Local dimming is more expensive. Unless the start making them where you can change the individual LED cells, I am very concerned about failures on the local dimming sets. To make local dimming meaningful you have to have lots of cells, and with lots of discrete cells the possibility of failure goes up. If you can't buy that cell, you have to ditch the panel.

There is no doubt that Plasma is a less efficient technology. They have improved in this regard greatly, however, and the difference is not a significant as it once was. I think of it like a hybrid vs a conventional car. You will never recover the cost difference in efficiency. The LCD may use less power, but not enough less to justify the price difference in most cases where you compare models with similar picture performance.

With respect to reliability, you can get a bad set in any brand. My experence is that the Japanese vendors generally still have higher build quality than the Koreans. I fix a lot of Samsung and LG, a lot virtually no Sony and Mitsubishi. Sharp is just an oddball when it comes to getting service and support. Sometimes they are helpful and sometimes simply arrogant and dismissive. The products are very mediocre in performance.

**brucek** · **10-13-09, 03:37 PM**

Quote:

You will never recover the cost difference in efficiency. The LCD may use less power, but not enough less to justify the price difference in most cases where you compare models with similar picture performance.

Yeah, good point.

When I compare what I feel are the latest plasma and LCD displays, the difference in price is staggering.

I suppose you could argue that the two I ended up comparing weren't equivalent, but they represent the latest top offerings from Panasonic for the plasma and Samsung for the LCD back-lit local dimming displays (of the size I will be considering).

Panasonic Viera V-Series 54" plamsa - TC-P54V10. $2399 Best Buy.

Samsung 8500 Series 55" LCD - UN55B8500. $4499 Best Buy.

Quite a price difference. I could pay a lot of electricity bills for that....

brucek

**lcaillo** · **10-13-09, 03:58 PM**

I think that they are quite comparable from a performance standpoint. There are pros and cons to both, but properly calibrated they look surprisingly similar. I just can't get past the price difference. I may very well end up with the v10. The 50" fits in my space nicely and can be had for under $2K. Even the G series sets look very good and that can be found for much less.

**Andysu** · **11-12-09, 06:26 AM**

Quote:

lcaillo wrote:

Power consumption would be the major advantage of LEDs. I think that is why we will see more of them. The performance advantages are a trade-off, at least for now, IMO.

I think it’s also greener as well for the environment.

Nice discovery this LED has great potentials.

I had to Google this to find out what (CCFL) meant?

Cold cathode fluorescent lamps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_cathode

Advertisement