Sony 55" Crystal LED Television 2012 | Self-emitting LEDs

Sony introduces new TV Technology using LED crystal pixels (CES 2012)

by Robert Wiley, senior editor/reviewer

Current LED Television

Sony introduced a first of their own at the CES 2012 show with this LED (Light emitting diode) Televisions which produces the picture image completely differently than what we usually term an LED TV. The term we normally use for LED TVs normally describes either edge lit or back lit LED lighting an LCD (liquid crystal display) panel. This term has been used to differentiate between this LED backlighting and the CCFL flourescent backlighting that had traditionally been used. As we all know and recognize by now, the LED backlighting is brighter, especially in peak white performance than the fourescent lighting and has longevity and consistency advantages as well.

How Crystal LED Works and Differs

Sony's Crystal LED television is what we might term a true LED Television. Rather than LED lighting being used to backlight or edge light an LCD panel. This TV uses ultra fine LEDs mounted to red, green or blue crystals. The panel or light source is mounted on the very front of the display (TV panel). Sony claims that this dramatically improves light-use efficiency but I can see several other advantages to this TV technology over current LED based TVs.

Improvements from this Technology

One drastic improvement that we see for this technology is that it should virtually eliminate side angle viewing contrast degradation problems that we frequently see as distracting on most all current LED backlit TVs. Indeed the prototype we viewed did show picture images in excellent fashion from well off center.

Another issue that is reported on over and over for LED TVs currently is screen uniformity. Since each one of the individual pixels is individually lit by an LED, this problem should not exist in the Crystal LED at all, much the way it does not exist in plasma televisions.

The third major improvement of Sony's Crystal LED over current LED based Televisions is the 10 times faster processing the company is touting which will eliminate nasty motion lag artifacts, ghosting during fast action, and judder effects on side to side camera panning.

Plasma TV vs. LED Crystal Pixel TV

The one positive trait that LED has trumped plasma TVs with over time that really matters is the brightness that LEDs create from the panel. Plasma TVs use natural and man-made phosphors excited by an electric signal to display the image (OLED also works this way). So Sony's Crystal LED now also works by illuminating the pixels independently, but with the brighter LED light source. Energy consumption is also an advantage though a more minor one.

Plasma Televisions have always been superior to LED and LCD based TVs in side angle viewing quality and in screen uniformity. Both of those advantages should be eliminated with this new Crystal LED TV.

More Specifications and Features

-Contrast ratios are difficult to measure but Sony claims that photopic contrast (contrast measured under well lit conditions) is 3.5 times better than traditional and current LED backlit LCD TV panels.

-The 1.4 times better wide color gamut specification alludes to the benefits of being able to see more colors from the TV.

-But the biggest and badest specification difference in this display is the response time for video image processing. Sony claims that this Crystal LED TV is 10 times faster than what's out there right now. If that is true, there will be no motion lag, or jerky judder artifacts to speak of as well as incredible sports image processing.