LED TV

The LED TV that most people look at when they go to their local big box stores is actually not an LED TV. It is an LCD TV that has a LED backlight. All televisions need a source of light and the most common back light for LCDs is LEDs or cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL). To learn more about an LCD with LED back light go to out page TV Type – LCD.

An actual LED TV that is for home use would be very cool, but there are several reasons why it is not possible now. Each pixel in an LED Display has three cells (LEDs) a red, a green, and a blue. To create a picture with an accurate color reproduction each LED should be true red, green, or blue and not change color with time. Unfortunately manufactures have not been able to do that. Therefore these types of displays are used in applications where color is not critical. These displays are commonly used as billboard signs and sport stadium displays. Most televisions can consist of a few million pixels. To build a TV of LEDs it would be huge. Consider a standard 1080p TV, it is 1920 by 1080, therefore it has 2,138,400 pixels. Then each pixel has 3 LEDs, so it would have a total of 6,415,200 LEDs! Currently LEDs are small enough to build a HD TV that would fit in your average living room. The final reason is an LED TV would be very costly.

How to pronounce LEDs like a geek:
Leads (like the metal).