LG Intros Quantum Dots To Boost Color Reproduction In 4K TVs

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At CES, LG will unveil quantum dot technology for its new UHD 4K TVs, which is designed to give the TVs a 30 percent wider color gamut compared to LG's LED TVs. The color reproduction of these quantum dot TVs should come close to matching the company's OLED offerings, at a much lower cost. This move follows Sony's, which has been using quantum dot (Triluminos) displays in some of its smartphones and TVs for the past couple of years.

Although OLED TVs look brilliant, they haven't been able to capture sufficient market share, mainly because they cost too much. When 4K TVs started appearing, OLED TVs of the same size would only be available at 1080p, and even then their pricing was barely competitive to 4K IPS TVs. Further, it forced consumers to make a choice between OLED and 4K resolution, and it seems most would prefer 4K in that situation.

OLED technology also has a problem with the short life of its blue LEDs, so OLED TVs may not last quite as long as the more reliable LCD-based TVs.

Quantum dot technology can be the cheaper alternative to bring LCD's color gamut closer to that of OLED. A quantum dot is a nanocrystal that's made of semiconductor materials and has quantum mechanical properties. The dots range from 2 to 10nm in size, and depending on their size, they can emit different colors. The display makers can add a film of these quantum dots between the LCD backlight and the panel, and the result is a higher color reproduction rate and improved brightness.

The technology matches well with 4K TVs, which already must support 10-bit color depth, according to the UHD standard. These 10-bit color quantum dot TVs should be able to reproduce a more vivid and natural image compared to regular 8-bit LCD TVs.

"Quantum dot's vibrant and vivid color reproduction capabilities brings LG's LCD TVs to the next level when it comes to picture quality," said In-kyu Lee, senior vice president and head of the TV and monitor division at the LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. "The addition of ULTRA HD TV with quantum dot technology to our TV lineup positioned under our award-winning OLED TVs further establishes LG as a leading provider of the most diverse and innovative TV display technologies in the industry."

Those who attend CES between January  6 and January 9 will be able to visit LG's booth and see how stunning these 4K quantum dot TVs really are in person.

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Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Merry_Blind
    It's depressing to see OLED being pushed to the side like this... It's so promising. I really hope they'll continue to work on OLED technologies and that it will be more affordable and popular sooner than later.

    4K is just a waste at this point...
    Reply
  • -Lone-
    Isn't this the same exact thread from like 2 hrs ago? Lol
    Reply
  • haftarun8
    @Merry_Blind, Agreed!! While Quantum Dots get the color gamut closer to OLED, the one KEY advantage OLED has that currently no other display tech can come close to matching, is INFINITE contrast ratio...every sub pixel is an emissive light source that can turn 100% off when they need to be black. LCDs just can't filter out all of the backlight's bleed behind their subpixels, so while you may get 3000:1 contrast with a high-end VA panel in the $4000 LCD HDTVs (note that LG's OLED is $3500 and falling), that's still nowhere close to the Pioneer Kuro plasma from 2008, much less OLED tech that, again, has INFINITE:1 contrast. The difference here is beyond staggering when you actually get your TV into a dim/dark room at home.

    Retail stores would sell OLED much better if they didn't blast the sales floor area with insane bright, harsh light which washes out every TV set beyond practical viewing.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    14826066 said:
    much less OLED tech that, again, has INFINITE:1 contrast.
    Only in theory.

    In practice, there will be contamination (bleed) between neighboring pixels, diffusion light across the panel, reflected ambient light, leakage current from the drivers and cell transistors, and other factors that will probably limit contrast on a checkerboard pattern to maybe 100k:1.

    Even if practical low-cost OLED displays ended up with only 10k:1 true static contrast, that would still be a ~12X improvement over most modern LCDs. For OLEDs to deliver on their promise of low-cost manufacturing, it has to become a printable technology and ditch the expensive low-temperature metal vapor deposition process.
    Reply
  • haftarun8
    Not in theory. Have you tested one yourself? People have. The Samsung KN55S9C and LG 55EC9300, two TVs that are out now and can be bought in a retail store measure a black level of 0.0000 cd/m2. You literally cannot see any perceptible difference between the screen and a completely black room around it. If you have blinds or are viewing at night, ambient light should be a controlled issue and a non-factor. If you're talking a checkerboard pattern, any limitations there would still be smaller than those on an LCD or even Plasma, so the difference in overall picture quality would still be enormous in those situations.

    "Practical" OLEDs are already far beyond 10k:1...they're as close to infinite as your eye can see. The display used in the galaxy note 4 also yields immeasurable contrast ratios in use, and I can confirm with my own eyes that in a black room, I cannot discern any difference between a truly black portion of the screen against the black bezel or the dark room around it. As volume increases the cost will go down. Remember a 40" 852x480 Plasma TV in 1997 cost $10-$20...

    As for printing on flexible plastic substrates and rolls to reduce manufacturing costs, it's already being done. You can find a lot of info about the breakthroughs there and what tech is being planned and implemented into newer factories on oled-info.com.

    Even LG, the makers of this quantum dot tv they're talking about here considers OLED a superior technology. While I get doing this in the short term, it's inevitable that OLED will be the viable choice at all price points where quality is desired in the long term. I'd like to see that sooner than later.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    14827654 said:
    You literally cannot see any perceptible difference between the screen and a completely black room around it.
    Who watches a TV in a perfectly dark room with perfectly black walls, perfectly black furniture, perfectly black makeup, perfectly black clothes and perfectly black everything else? The moment you put any image on screen, light will get back-scattered and reflected by the screen and your otherwise perfectly dark pixels won't be perfectly black anymore.

    Being able to achieve "infinite" contrast using a light metering sensor stuck directly on the screen with a shroud blocking external light within a few centimeters from said sensor is futile when normal watching conditions will drop the contrast observable from the couch well under 100k:1 most of the time. That's the problem with synthetic benchmarks: they tend to over-emphasize situations that are completely irrelevant to real-world use.

    Current OLEDs may beat my hypothetical 10k:1 but current OLED manufacturing is far less cost-effective than LCDs. What I meant by practical is high-volume, low-cost manufacturing while still delivering significant benefits over LCDs. I think most people would be perfectly happy with having only 10k:1 OLEDs instead of 1M:1 if it meant they could have OLEDs (much) cheaper than LCDs of the same resolution and equivalent build quality - giving up some of the technical superiority to reduce production costs.
    Reply
  • peterf28
    Best tv by far are panasonic plazmas . I have two 42 . It is very very sad they stopped production of this superior technology, i would buy immediately a 60 inch .
    Reply
  • -Lone-
    Why not get the AX900 then from Panasonic when it is out, it is suppose to be beyond plasma :)
    Reply
  • Nintendork
    The contraste is pure sh*t vs a plasma, even the colors. I just a bit better than your avrg LCD when showing rainbows and little ponies.
    Reply
  • Kewlx25
    14825687 said:
    It's depressing to see OLED being pushed to the side like this... It's so promising. I really hope they'll continue to work on OLED technologies and that it will be more affordable and popular sooner than later.

    4K is just a waste at this point...

    Quantum Dot LEDs (QD-LED) are technologically superior to OLEDs in every way. Does not wear out, can directly produce any color. OLEDs use organic compounds to product colors, and those compound wear out and oxidize, and are limited to producing certain colors. QDLEDs use the spacing between electron holes to determine the photon's wavelength, and those holes do not wear out.
    Reply