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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
09/10/09
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09/10/09
And the best way to avoid uncomfortable feelings is to buy your TV and NEVER set foot in that section of the store again. Otherwise, you might want to cry.
09/10/09
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09/10/09
It's also bad if you use those calibrators - they get horribly messed up because of the dimming.
Local dimming makes blacks blacker, but it does't do a thing about dynamic range. Just dims the bright parts in a dark area. (And maybe that part was dark to HIGHLIGHT the bright parts, and now you've ruined it).
09/10/09
PER PIXEL???
so it would be ok if there were 2,073,600 sub-millimeter LEDs, but until then it's not worth it?
it seems to me that locally dimming LEDs beat the shit out of non-local LED, since THAT would cause bright areas to darken in dark scenes - not the other way around.
"it means neighbouring pixels get darker"
that's preferable to ALL pixels going dark in dark scenes, is it not?
your sense... it doesn't make.
09/10/09
What is your definition of dynamic range?
09/10/09
Sure, some of the vast area of black sky looks darker, but look at that same sky as it approaches the scaffolding. Because of "local dimming" only—i.e., not pixel-by-pixel dimming—the dark sky starts to get lighter grey again, creating a completely unnatural, slightly glowing aura around the brighter elements of the scene. This is NOT what the image looked like, this is NOT attractive and this should NOT be considered "an improvement".
Don't be sheep to marketing Newspeak, folks. Reject these kinds of half-assed, inferior solutions.
09/10/09
09/10/09
I also think you're making some simplistic assumptions about backlighting engines to make them seem unappealing. You appear to suggest that there's no intelligence to the engine, and it simply backlights colored areas and doesn't backlight non-colored areas. The set may very well take into account both the amount of color and its proximity to any dark areas to actually determine how many backlights to use, mitigating any potential "unnatural" look. And guess what, current LCD can suffer from backlight bleed as well, yet they can't achieve these types of blacks.
Finally, I also think it's a simplistic assumption to say this is "unnatural", because the ideal situation to convey this point would be a black area right next to a white one. However, how naturally occuring is that? The only place you really see that (and where reviewers have complained in the past), is where you get white text "blooming" on a black background, as it would in credits. Other than that, those stark contrasts of colors is not natural, and a gradient almost always exists in scenes. So, you're judging it with a standard it's not really subjected to in practice.
As always, any smart consumer should see through the numbers and features to compare the actual quality of the set versus its price. Otherwise, they're just a marketing guy's wet dream.
09/10/09
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09/10/09
Local dimming will help fix that.
Old LCDs will turn the entire backlight down to match the black in dark scenes.
This causes characters to also appear darker.
Local dimming can keep the characters bright, and the background dark, making them "pop" more, and making the scene clearer.
09/10/09
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09/10/09
Nobody wants a plasma with lower than 720P resolution...
09/10/09
09/10/09
Here is the plasma which CNet has chosen as the new HDTV king:
[www.amazon.com]
46" for under $1,200
Meanwhile, here is the cheapest 46" LED backlit TV that Amazon has:
[www.amazon.com]
The TV is a bit over $1,400 and that was a search for the cheapest TV I could find to fit the criteria. That is not even a localized LED, either.
A "cheap" plasma would be $800 for a 50" 720p such as the one that I got last year. (or $730 for the one posted in today's Dealzmodo) You can't compare that to LCD because they dont' make LCDs that large for that cheap. Nowadays, even the cheapest of plasmas are HD, though.
09/10/09
09/10/09
My LCD TV is pretty nice but when I replace it eventually, I'll definitely enjoy this new tech.