Does led reduce blacks that blend together.

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munkle

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So I was shopping for a new tv, I was looking at the sony 46xbr9 ($1150), the toshiba 46SV670u ($1250), lg 47lh90($1250) and the samsung UN46B8000($1650). Only the sony isn't led. The toshiba and the lg have led with local dimming and the samsung is edge lit. The samsung got rulled out because it was a little over my price range. On the lg the blacks just blended together, I was planning on getting this screen but any dark scenes all the black blurred into a blob and this is something I don't like. (is this common with this screen?)

So I was down to the sony and toshiba, the picture was pretty much the same on the two the toshiba was a little whiter looking due to the led, but isn't really a true 240hz (which I have been told helps out gaming, i'm going to be playing xbox on it) so I decided to go with the sony. It looks great with sd content which I also read that the toshiba doesnt do so great, but there is a little bit of blacks that blend together. Now i'm not concerned for a true deep dark black as much as when they blend (blacks) and I lose detail, will switching to the toshiba help that out, will going to a 240hz (really 120hz) make gaming not as good?
 
gaming on lcds is not bad, but you will notice one day that its rly annoying it blurrs everytime your camera is moving around, i think youre to picky imo, you cant get better than that for gaming unless you go CRT monitor and again, i supose crts will also offer disavantage, such as the sharpness not beying as sharp as on a lcd.
 
Well thanks for the response, but I don't think we are on the same page.
 
lol i tought you said you were shopping for a new lcd tv and want it for gaming, also the quality thx to the backlighted leds "blurrs" when there are dark or black areas on your screen and you said you do not like that..

i was just trying to make a point on how you cant ask so much from LCD panel, if you rly dont like the way the led lcds are then just try to find a white backlighted lcd at 120hertz, while its true that 120hertz offer great benefit over 60hertz in motion, it will be partially useless because everything will blurr anyways, and that happens in any lcd you try, even on the one you have right now, try moving the cursor on any area of your screen, you will notice it blurs to a point where its hard to focus your eyes on it, while on the crt its perfectly fine.

Also you are specifying youre playing it on xbox360, if thats how you tested the image quality i must warn you almost all xbox360 games are actually 720p and wether you like it or not they will always "blurr" since lcds are only sharp if ran at their native resolution.
 
240 Hz frame interpolation modes make gaming worse fyi, the processing creates a lot of input lag. Have seen some numbers on a few sets where the lag is nearly 100ms.
 
Legendary_Agent said:
lol i tought you said you were shopping for a new lcd tv and want it for gaming, also the quality thx to the backlighted leds "blurrs" when there are dark or black areas on your screen and you said you do not like that..

i was just trying to make a point on how you cant ask so much from LCD panel, if you rly dont like the way the led lcds are then just try to find a white backlighted lcd at 120hertz, while its true that 120hertz offer great benefit over 60hertz in motion, it will be partially useless because everything will blurr anyways, and that happens in any lcd you try, even on the one you have right now, try moving the cursor on any area of your screen, you will notice it blurs to a point where its hard to focus your eyes on it, while on the crt its perfectly fine.

Also you are specifying youre playing it on xbox360, if thats how you tested the image quality i must warn you almost all xbox360 games are actually 720p and wether you like it or not they will always "blurr" since lcds are only sharp if ran at their native resolution.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about motion blurr at all, that's why I said I don't think we are on the same page. I'm talking how blacks, it could be a static image, just blend together, like if you do the test on this page the top squares will all be the same color when they should be different.
 
Solstice said:
240 Hz frame interpolation modes make gaming worse fyi, the processing creates a lot of input lag. Have seen some numbers on a few sets where the lag is nearly 100ms.
Click to expand...

Hmm... didn't think of that, something to take note of.
 
Be very difficult for a TV to show squares 1 & 2 properly on that test image without it being calibrated I think. (Also to keep in mind that a lot of panels used in TV's are PVA's which are known to have black crush problems with varying degrees of intensity.)

Local LED dimming does improve the situation though but it does have its imperfections. As an example, if you visualize a star-field on the TV: where a bright star is located one of the individual LED backlights will be turned on, whilst the others around the star (where the blackness of empty space is) will be turned off completly to give a deeper black in the absence of light.
Problem is, the single LED that is switched on to give luminance to the individual star is creating a visible halo effect as the light emitting from it bleeds into the surrounding area.
 
munkle said:
So I was shopping for a new tv, I was looking at the sony 46xbr9 ($1150), the toshiba 46SV670u ($1250), lg 47lh90($1250) and the samsung UN46B8000($1650). Only the sony isn't led. The toshiba and the lg have led with local dimming and the samsung is edge lit. The samsung got rulled out because it was a little over my price range. On the lg the blacks just blended together, I was planning on getting this screen but any dark scenes all the black blurred into a blob and this is something I don't like. (is this common with this screen?)

So I was down to the sony and toshiba, the picture was pretty much the same on the two the toshiba was a little whiter looking due to the led, but isn't really a true 240hz (which I have been told helps out gaming, i'm going to be playing xbox on it) so I decided to go with the sony. It looks great with sd content which I also read that the toshiba doesnt do so great, but there is a little bit of blacks that blend together. Now i'm not concerned for a true deep dark black as much as when they blend (blacks) and I lose detail, will switching to the toshiba help that out, will going to a 240hz (really 120hz) make gaming not as good?
Click to expand...
Most people disable the 120hz/240hz modes and drop down to the standard modes. Minimize processing done by the TV to reduce input lag. Samsung TV's should have a gaming mode that does this automatically for you.

Blending of blacks is no good, that's generally characteristic of TN based LCDs. My old Samsung 19" was notorious for this for gaming (Doom3) and movies. VA based panels like my BenQ FP241 I've been quite pleased with the contrast ratio and gaming on. I've heard IPS are even better. I didn't think TVs, or relatively high end ones were TN based, in fact I was under the impression most were IPS based, that's surprising to hear. A LOT of movies have LOTS of dark areas...

When I was helping my Dad shop, we looked at a lot of TV's. Samsung seemed to have the best quality and features for the price.

Even though the more expensive 8000 series was 240hz and may have had some other better specifications. The 7000 series had better viewing angle and maybe better blacks. Viewing angle was the critical part. Keep in mind, we were also looking at the 55" models, basically the largest LED LCD TV you could get at the time. I only mention this because you mentioned the 8000 series in your post, and not the less expensive 7000 series. It might have served your eyes better at a better price *shrug*.
 
Just want to add a couple things.

You do want to avoid thr 120Hz and 240Hz modes on those TV's.

I've been gaming and using my Samsung LNT5271f (52" Samsung LCD TV) primarily for the past 1.5-2 years. The "game" mode, at least on my Samsung, does nothing to help with input lag, it just enables alot of ugly color and sharpness effects.

The only way to minimize input lag on the set is to run it in "PC" input mode and HTPC mode. I use this exclusivly. I use the TV with my PS3, Wii, and PC.

I do reccomend manually calibrating the set to minimize black levels an optimize whites. This can make a huge differece. Searching the forums and learning how to get into the service manu for the set helped alot. Using some of these settings enabled me to squeeze even more Static Contrast out of my set, it's probably at like 2000:1 to 2500:1, which blows away any PC monitor. Great for visuals, games and movies.
Note that you need to calibrate for EVERY combination of input and input mode.
 
Best advice I can give is to consider looking at plasmas. They don't have the same input lag issues that high refresh LCDs have, they have solid and accurate blacks without the blending or banding issues that you are concerned about, they display fast motion better, the display better color, no viewing angle issues, they don't "interpret" dark scenes like LCDs with local dimming do, the list goes on.

The drawbacks are power consumption, weight, and size, but IMO its not really a big deal considering that you probably won't be moving your TV around very much.
 
Regarding the LG LH90 series, it uses a IPS panel. I have to test out calibration when I am some snowboarding. I believe I have optimized my LG 47LH90 to the best of my knowledge.


Regarding local dimming, you will want to turn that off if you want the best blacks overall because it lights up a relatively large area even if a small section of the grid needs backlight. For example, there is a single pixel that needs to be displayed on a black screen, the entire grid for that particular section of the array will be turned on. The blacks in that section of the screen will look brighter that all the other blacks.

For gaming, you always want to choose 60Hz on a HDTV otherwise there will be input lag. 120Hz PC monitors operates differently.
 
munkle said:
So I was shopping for a new tv, I was looking at the sony 46xbr9 ($1150), the toshiba 46SV670u ($1250), lg 47lh90($1250) and the samsung UN46B8000($1650). Only the sony isn't led. The toshiba and the lg have led with local dimming and the samsung is edge lit. The samsung got rulled out because it was a little over my price range. On the lg the blacks just blended together, I was planning on getting this screen but any dark scenes all the black blurred into a blob and this is something I don't like. (is this common with this screen?)

So I was down to the sony and toshiba, the picture was pretty much the same on the two the toshiba was a little whiter looking due to the led, but isn't really a true 240hz (which I have been told helps out gaming, i'm going to be playing xbox on it) so I decided to go with the sony. It looks great with sd content which I also read that the toshiba doesnt do so great, but there is a little bit of blacks that blend together. Now i'm not concerned for a true deep dark black as much as when they blend (blacks) and I lose detail, will switching to the toshiba help that out, will going to a 240hz (really 120hz) make gaming not as good?
Click to expand...

What you are talking about is known as black crush. Dark greys look the same as black. You can test for it here: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

Look at the Samsung LN46B750 it is a very good TV for just about anything, including gaming and it does not have black crush. I have the 52 inch version and I have tested it with my PS3. Frys has good prices when on sale and Amazon is always a good deal.
Setup your XBox as PC input and your good to go.

Dave
 
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