Is Sony’s new RGB Backlight technology at the end of OLED?
Sony says she is developing a new backlight technology for LCD TVs using RBG LEDs. “But wait, aren’t all the backlights RGB LEDs?” If this is what you think, no, most are not. What is your next thought? “Surely someone has done this before?” Actually, yes, Sony did, About 20 years agoS But this evolution of technology, originally known as Triluminos, promises a better color and contrast than what was possible before. May even compete Oled With regard to the quality of the picture.
Currently, Sony talks only about technology, not a specific product where it can be found. However, the fact that Sony talks about this means that we will soon see this technology on real TVs. That’s why it’s interesting.
Backlights, RGB and other
Two companies take up LED backlight. All four of these TVs show the same image. Each TV at the top is the same model as the one in front of it, only with a removed liquid crystalline layer, so that you look directly at the LED backlight. Take a look at how the TVs on the right, with more areas and better backlight management, can show a larger lantern.
First, a short step back to explain the lights. All modern TVs that are not OLED are LCD. They have different names such as QLED, Qned and, of course, the misleading “LED”. Mini-rifle is a progress that has smaller LEDs than other LED LCD technologies and usually more than them. Then there is Microlled It shows that are not LCDs, but they are not quite normal sizes of television … still.
LCD or liquid crystalline display has a liquid crystalline layer (hence the name) that creates the image. However, this layer does not create lightS He can only manipulate him. The work on the creation of light is falling, you recognized it, the backlight. This backlight can be a series of LEDs arranged in the back of the TV, or built -in ends or frames of the TV. We dive into this more in our article about How LCD TVs use mini-water, double panels and quantum points to take OLEDBut to find out what this new Sony technique is doing, all you have to understand is that there is a backlight with a bunch of LEDs that create light, and a layer in front of it that manipulates this light to form an image.
Blue LEDs, used in most backlit designs, excite red and blue quantum dots (middle layer in this diagram). This RGB light is then manipulated by the LCD layer to create the image you see.
Usually, the LEDs in modern backlight are all blue. Not only does this blue light create all the blue light you see, but when interacting with quantum points, it also creates red and green light. For its bigger part, this can work really well and many displays using this method look really good. There are some restrictions that this new Sony backlight method aims to repair.
R, g and b’s
In the new design of Sony, the backlight uses RGB LEDs, potentially offering a more finished control.
Although RGB backlights have previously been made, the technology has advanced in ways that improve possible in these old versions. Most importantly, this new technology is a variant of a mini-rifle. As his name implies, the mini-carrier has smaller individual LEDs, but more than them compared to the traditional LED backlight. More LEDs allow better control of the backlight array and usually means better image quality. Because the liquid crystalline layer cannot completely block the light, the backlight itself must darken to create black. The less expensive models will only have a few “zones” that can be addressed individually. This can lead to flowering. For example, present street light on a dark night. On OLED TV, the light is bright and the rest of the screen can be completely black. In the budget’s LED LCD, the light is bright, but there is something like a halo around it where the LEDs are bright, but the content wants them to be dark. With many LEDs, there is a faster control and a less chance of flowering. See our article for more information OLED vs LED vs mini-ld vs LCD: What is the best?
Sony’s progress here is Mini-LEDS RGB, which are usually just one color, usually blue (more for a moment). When you have more discreet control not only on brightness but also for color, it has the potential for a far better color volume.
Which brings us to …
Color
Take this with grain salt as it is from Sony and try to perceive the company’s new technologies, but theoretically different technologies can be presented in this way. Color volume graphics can be confusing at first glance, but essentially the larger cube, the more brush the colors without losing saturation. How bright can be saturated red? If a movie shows a bright blue sky, how bright can it be while still a deep blue color? Sony says his backlight of RGB can do this better than Blue LED, Mini-LED or OLED aroma.
The name of the game here is “Volume of Color”. In essence, this is how much color can be created at different levels of brightness. The display can be very bright, but it can sacrifice color saturation to make it so bright. For example, imagine one of the television wearing a red shirt with a bright spotlight on them. The TV, which does not have a good color volume, can show this shirt as a shade of pink instead of the red, which actually was.
Displays of all kinds have a long victim of color accuracy for brightness. Their designers believe that often the right that brightness sells more TVs than color. Nowadays, all TVs are very bright, so they need to find ways to improve the image quality in other ways. On the side, with the right content, a TV with a better volume of color can look richer, more realistic, more vibrant.
The only light you need on the TV is red, green and blue. In this marketing diagram, Sony claims to be able to produce much more red than what is possible with other mini-carved designs.
Can this new technological rival of the backlight compete with the overall quality of the picture? Well, it will depend. It is likely to be brighter than OLED as it is often ministine TVs, and Sony says this new technique can create displays with 4000 NitsS It is very, very bright and the company also promises a better volume of colors. Since the backlight will still not be able to “exclude” separate pixels like OLED, its contrast ratio will not be so good. However, with enough areas and good processing, both of which Sony stated that it works, in most content the difference may be difficult to distinguish.
That’s all theoretical, of course. This is a new technique and we will still see it in a real product. Sony has historically made some great TVs. Sony, historically, has made some really expensive TVs. This may be the first, but it will definitely be the second. Whether the presentation of technology will justify its price is something we will have to wait and see. Sony is also not the only one working on RGB’s backlights for almost the future. Samsung, Hisense and TCL also work on versions of technology. All versions of the technology have great potential, but of course we will have to see how they are actually implemented before we can tell which company it made it best.
Sony did not reveal the potential availability, but we will probably see more on CES 2026, next January.
In addition to covering audio and display technologies, Jeff makes a photo tours of cool museums and places around the world including nuclear., aircraft carriers and Medieval castlesS It also documents Epic Travel trips of 10,000 miles And more.
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