TCL Shows Off 132-Inch Micro LED 4K UHDTV: 24,000,000 Micro LEDs
by Anton Shilov on September 13, 2019 2:00 PM EST
Direct view Micro LED displays are a relatively new display technology that so far has been publicly demonstrated only by Samsung and Sony, the two of which tend to experiment with variety of technologies in general. At IFA last week TCL, a major maker of televisions, threw its hat into the ring by demonstrating its ultra-large Micro LED-based Ultra-HD TV.
Dubbed the Cinema Wall 132-Inch 4K, TCL’s Micro LED television uses 24,000,000 individually controlled LEDs as RGB subpixels, and features a 1,500 nits max brightness level as well as a 2,500,000 contrast ratio (good enough to compete against OLEDs). The manufacturer claims that the TV can display a wide color gamut, but does not disclose whether they're using DCI-P3 or BT.2020.
Like other early-generation display products, TCL is not revealing if and when plans to release its 132-inch 4K Micro LED TV commercially, but the fact that that it has a device that is good enough to be shown in public (see the video by Quantum OLED channel here) is an important step. Just like other makers of Micro LED televisions, TCL might want to increase peak brightness supported by these devices, as many modern titles are post-produced using Dolby’s Pulsar reference monitor for Dolby Vision HDR, which has a peak brightness level of 4000 nits.
Numerous TV makers are currently investigating Micro LED technology as a viable alternative to OLED-based screens. While OLEDs tend to offer superior contrast ratio when compared to LCDs, they have a number of trade-offs, including off-axis color shifting, ghosting, burn-in, etc. WOLED has mitigated some of these issues, but it has also introduced others due to the inherient limitations of using color filters.
By contrast Micro LED TVs are expected to be free of such drawbacks, while still retaining the advantages of individual LEDs like brightness, contrast, fast response time, and wide viewing angles. As an added bonus, Micro LED TVs will not need any bezels and can be made very thin.
Related Reading:
- Sony Develops 16K Display: A 783-Inch ‘Crystal LED’ Screen
- Samsung at CES 2019: 219-Inch and 75-Inch Micro LED Ultra-HD TVs Demonstrated
Sources: Quantum OLED, MicroLED.info, LEDs Inside
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erple2 - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
That's hilarious. That implies that you can discern details better than (almost) every human on the earth. The highest acuity measured so far by a human is about 20/10 (6/3 on metric scales). At 20/20 vision, at best you could consistently discern details at about 2.6 meters away. If you don't have measured better then 20/20, then you can't. Even then, the best ever recorded from an unaided person so far would only be able to see the differences at about 5.2m. So I call BS.DigitalFreak - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
IIRC, the smaller you make the TV, the lower the resolution due to using "panels". I don't know if that was specific to Samsung, or applies to all Micro-LED TVs at this point.Santoval - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
"the lower the resolution due to using "panels" "I have no idea what that means. If you make TVs (of any kind) a certain percent smaller you can use an accordingly lower resolution to retain a constant pixel density. If you don't lower the resolution as you decrease the panel's size then you increase the pixel density. That applies to *all* panel technologies, there is nothing special about microLED based panels.
Atarief - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
He is right about the panels. They use small panels made of microLEDs with a fixed pixel density, if they want to make a 4k tv, they connect as much panels as they can to reach 4k. If they want to make 1080p, they will connect lower number of panels.nathanddrews - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
He's mostly right. Different manufacturers have a variety of differently sized sub-panels with differing amounts of black space between LEDs (pitch). The size and native resolution of a MicroLED display will depend upon the pitch of each sub-panel, sub-panel size, and quantity of sub-panels.FWIW, these demo/commercial displays are not necessarily what consumer displays will be like. As they improve yields and shrink the tech down (finer pitch), we will see fewer and fewer sub-panels per display. Maybe we'll eventually get the same variety of display sizes and resolutions as LCD has now.
Arbie - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I wonder if it will have a volume control too - unlike my TCL TV. Not the kind of thing you check before you buy...JeffFlanagan - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Have you checked your remote? TVs generally have volume controls on the remote.Arbie - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
Of course. And there's no "Stop" control for videos - to switch to another film you have to abort back to the home screen and re-navigate through all the source etc menus.QinX - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
All I see is oversaturated images. Where's the TV?quantumshadow44 - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
same shit...https://youtu.be/sn5zCNY9-yE