LED backlight TVs have their advantage compared to traditional CCFL backlight LCD TVs. They will have better contrast ratio due to deeper blacks. However, there are still some disadvantages that people should be aware of. Non local dimming LED backlighting has still has problems with inability to display total black. As such, the contrast ratios are not that great. Not important when viewing in brightly lit rooms, but if you like to watch your movies in the dark, then it becomes an irritation. Another source of uncertainty, is the lifetime of the LED backlight. This needs more studies and possibly improvement. There are 2 kinds of LED backlighting. Samsung & LG uses white LEDs and Sony uses tristimulus LED (individual R,G,B). Tristimulus should give better colour accuracy all around. However, the problem is that the half life of the respective RGB LEDs are not the same currently, so something to watch out for.

Local Dimming LEDs are the next best thing. They ability to turn off areas of LED depending of the screen content is what will give plasmas a run for the money. The problem here is that there will be more pixels than LED thus causing smearing/blooming/spillover of local dimming.

I honestly believe that all LCD manufacturers know that at the moment due to the tecnology nature, plasmas give a more accurate representation of how movies are viewed and they are making strides in matching or besting plasma as we go along. The main reason why LED backlighting TVs start lower than when Plasma 1st came out is due to the overall lower cost of manufacturing panels today. Those days the plasma panel yields were extremely low. Now, panel manufacturing costs have dropped tremendously.

Actually, plasma does work for gamers well, just care needs to be taken to reduce burn in.

I really hope that Samsung, Sony and LG continue to work on improving LED backlighting since I think it is a very good improvement in LCD technology. I also hope that the other manufacturers work on the other aspects that need improvement, response time, refresh rates, viewing angle and picture reproduction to enable the movie like feel.

On another note, don't write off plasma just yet. The cost of manufacturing panels are at an all time low now. They have 2 more tricks up their sleeve, namely 5lumens and 10lumens tech. This will allow plasma to catch up on LCD in terms of ultra bright picture content and lower power consumption.

End of the day, the consumer benefits from competition.

Ok. As u know, if u get a Full HD TV, there are 1920 X 1080 pixels (these are divided into sub pixels, Red Green Blue, together they make white). Then there is the backlight. The traditional backlights are horizontally placed behind tthe panel to drive the panel. Pixels are individual pixels that are arranged around the back of the panel. See picture below.



As you can see unless each pixel is backlit by a single LED there is no way there are equal amount of pixels to LED. I believe Sony or Samsung do not state the number of LEDs there are on the backlight. LG claims there are ~ 1500 LEDs in their LED backlighting LCDs. 1500 LEDs to light up an area that has 2 million odd pixels will have the blooming effect that I mentioned and I have seen it on the Samsung A950 series. I have attached link to Cnet's blog explaining this. Oh BTW, I made a mistake with the name of the 3 LED method that Sony uses, it is Triluminous and not Tristimulous. Nice read, check out if interested.

CNET explanation

Very possible, A950 series is local dimming, the new B7000 is not.

I have seen the 55A950 in action and have calibrated it. Looks pretty good to me if u can live with the blooming and the off centre issue.

Cool! You actually pulled the panel apart! Kudos. LED backlight LCDs are a very important step for LCD technology. My only concerns would be the lifetime of the 3 different LEDs compared to each other. The uniformity of the backlight (since it is more individual) is also one of my concerns. The blooming becomes apparent when u pull up test patterns, hence that's why I saw it clearly. The uniformity issues were also seen on the A950 that I calibrated, but still, its performance was much better than any CCFL backlit LCD that I saw. I also noticed that the blooming was not so apparent on the Sony X450.

The actual 0 IRE calibration on the Samsung A950 was 0 (or my probe returned a zero because it was that low!). My probe is not capable of measuring that low. In fact, not many probes can measure that low. So I would put it at 0.001 ft/L. On content however (mixed content), it goes up to 0.1 ft/L or more. I am quoting this from memory since I do not have the numbers with me. If you went farther away from the mixed content the black levels dropped again to below measureable limits. I think they need to further improve the SMART LED algorthims. This is where the technology needs improvement compared to plasmas.

I believe this is the 1st serious step that the LCD camp has taken to improve picture quality and viewing capability to match or best plasma. Time will tell. I hope they continue competing until the the display technology is fully matured. The last thing we would want is that plasma dies before LCD technology is superior!

PS, that picture that was on the CNET site was not a Sony backlight picture.