Did you know that LED TVs struggle with accurately producing shades of red? The reason for this is in their production. In this article, we’re going to explain how LED TVs produce colours, why they struggle with red, and how upcoming TV technology is solving this issue for new televisions. The future of television is beautiful.
How LED TVs Work
An LED TV is a complicated piece of technology. They use a variety of lights, filters, wires, and minicomputers to produce the images you see on your screen at home, but we’re going to be looking at how your TV produces colour.
In your LED TV is a series of panels; backlight panels studded with LED lights, pixel filters to change the colour of the lights coming through, and a glass case to protect the interior. Sometimes, in order to create super-thin models, TVs forgo a full panel of backlighting and instead use edge-lighting. This means that the light appears from the sides of the TV, rather than directly behind. This can have some issues for your screen’s overall brightness as the light will be strongest at the edges of the screen, and weakest at the centre – the furthest point for the origin of the light.
The light produced by the backlighting is a form of white light. When this light passes through the pixels, it is filtered into a particular colour using red, blue or green filters. The final result is the picture you see on your television screen. Changing the filters allows different colours to emerge, and the faster the colours can change the higher the refresh rate for your screen. Most films, for example, require a minimum refresh rate of 24 frames per second. Nowadays, however, most television can refresh up 60 times per second, and some can even manage 120.
Why LED TVs Struggle with Red
Now that we understand how a basic LED TV functions, we can start to explain why an LED TV might struggle with shades of red. Interestingly, it’s not an issue with the colour filters, but it’s an issue with the LEDs themselves.
The LEDs producing the light for our standard televisions are constructed with LEDs that produce blue light. This blue light is transformed into white lights by covering the miniature bulbs with a yellow phosphor, but this doesn’t offer a true solution because the white light produced continues to offer far stronger shades of blue and green than red.
How New Technology Has Solved This
QLED TVs offer a solution to the lack of good quality reds on your typical LED television by inserting a layer of quantum dot technology into your television. Quantum dots are manufactured to emphasise particular colours and while they can be made to add life to any colour, LED televisions most prize their ability to restore red light. This means that a QLED TV is likely to have a filter installed with lots of quantum-dots geared towards emphasising red and a few towards green – this enables these colours to match the range of blues that we have already achieved on televisions.
Some Science Facts About Quantum Dots
When illuminated by light, quantum dots glow a particular colour. The colour they glow depends on their size, for example, the smallest nanoparticles tend towards the blue range, whereas larger particles produce reds and oranges. Quantum dots are paving the future for television picture quality, but it’s also thought that they might be able to enhance the efficiency of solar batteries with more testing and investigation.
Quantum dots are typically made of zinc selenide, cadmium selenide, or indium phosphide, and are mere nanometres in size. Red light is produced by dots that are around 700 nm in size and violet is produced at 400 nm.
Getting this technology for Your Home
If you’re considering upgrading to a new TV for the new year then we can recommend the quality of a QLED television. We also have a blog explaining The Difference Between OLED and QLED TVs so that you can make an informed decision for the future of your entertainment. Our cheap TVs make fantastic Christmas or birthday presents, so take some time to peruse our store soon, in person or online.
