Samsung's LED Backlight Introduced for new LCD Monitors and Upcoming HDTV's

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd of Korea announced that their new 24" monitors will include an LED backlight to allow for more realistic colors. LCD monitors currently have a 72% saturation of the NTSC standard. This means that color reproduction is not "accurate" or as "realistic" as they could be. Samsung's new LCD monitors will be using a color saturation level of 111% of the NTSC standard.

The displays will be available by the end of the second quarter of 2007. 24" is now recognised as the monitor size that most accurately displays a 1080 resolution and the smallest size most compatible with the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. The displays will also include Samsungs "Super Patterned-ITO Vertical Alignment (S-PVA)" technology that provides for the widest viewing angle possible, WUXGA resolution (1,920 x 1,200), and over a 1000:1 contrast ratio.

The LED backlight technology replaces the current mercury based backlight in LCD's. Mercury contributes to poor black levels as the mercury "emits" light even when the color black is being displayed. This turns the color black, into a greyish tone and also effects all the other colors in the color pallete, rendering them as "inaccurate." Inaccurate colors and poor black levels have also been a problem with Samsungs HDTV LCD's, so introducing the LED backlight system to the larger HDTV models will lead to a significant improvement. I caught a look at Samsung's upcoming line of lcd hdtv's with LED backlight during CES 2007, and can say that it is a huge improvement over their current line. No release dates has been give for these as yet.