News - Sony's Triluminos displays use quantum dot technology

[HEXUS]

QDs "offer a 50 percent increase in the range of colours that screens can produce".

Read more.

[krazy_olie]

Is this anything to do with "Crystal LED" that Sony had at CES 2012 but then vanished to never be seen again?

[sykobee]

I need the biggest colourful triangle technology in my monitors!

[Michael H]

Is this anything to do with "Crystal LED" that Sony had at CES 2012 but then vanished to never be seen again?

No.

In a traditional LED backlit LCD, a white LED backlight is passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels. Which are then actively filtered by the LCD panel.

The old Triluminos was Sony's name for RGB LED backlighting - where you have Red, Green and Blue LEDs as the backlight - which provides a wider spectrum compared to a White LED - which when passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels gives each sub-pixel a more vibrant look. It's not new tech - My Dell XPS 16 laptop from 2009 has this technology. It's not mainstream though due to the costs.

This new iteration of the Triluminos tech has a blue LED backlight - which 'activates' Red and Green quantum dots - giving the RGB backlight - which again is not per pixel - it just provides a wider spectrum backlight. Which passes through the colour filters and LCD as previous - but should be cheaper to produce than RGB LED backlights.

The Crystal LED was individual RGB 'Mircro' LEDs for each sub-pixel - a true LED TV - no colour filter or LCD panel involved. Each individual sub-pixel can be activated individually. Very similar to OLED, but without OLED's degradation concerns. Likely years away due to the costs - it was a proof of concept exercise - but not something that can be commercialised at present.

[Biscuit]

No.

In a traditional LED backlit LCD, a white LED backlight is passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels. Which are then actively filtered by the LCD panel.

The old Triluminos was Sony's name for RGB LED backlighting - where you have Red, Green and Blue LEDs as the backlight - which provides a wider spectrum compared to a White LED - which when passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels gives each sub-pixel a more vibrant look. It's not new tech - My Dell XPS 16 laptop from 2009 has this technology. It's not mainstream though due to the costs.

This new iteration of the Triluminos tech has a blue LED backlight - which 'activates' Red and Green quantum dots - giving the RGB backlight - which again is not per pixel - it just provides a wider spectrum backlight. Which passes through the colour filters and LCD as previous - but should be cheaper to produce than RGB LED backlights.

The Crystal LED was individual RGB 'Mircro' LEDs for each sub-pixel - a true LED TV - no colour filter or LCD panel involved. Each individual sub-pixel can be activated individually. Very similar to OLED, but without OLED's degradation concerns. Likely years away due to the costs - it was a proof of concept exercise - but not something that can be commercialised at present.

Great post

I remember NHK were putting an emerald sensor in the original UHD cameras, wonder if that's still the way they work?

[Biscuit]

No.

In a traditional LED backlit LCD, a white LED backlight is passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels. Which are then actively filtered by the LCD panel.

The old Triluminos was Sony's name for RGB LED backlighting - where you have Red, Green and Blue LEDs as the backlight - which provides a wider spectrum compared to a White LED - which when passively filtered to produce RGB sub-pixels gives each sub-pixel a more vibrant look. It's not new tech - My Dell XPS 16 laptop from 2009 has this technology. It's not mainstream though due to the costs.

This new iteration of the Triluminos tech has a blue LED backlight - which 'activates' Red and Green quantum dots - giving the RGB backlight - which again is not per pixel - it just provides a wider spectrum backlight. Which passes through the colour filters and LCD as previous - but should be cheaper to produce than RGB LED backlights.

The Crystal LED was individual RGB 'Mircro' LEDs for each sub-pixel - a true LED TV - no colour filter or LCD panel involved. Each individual sub-pixel can be activated individually. Very similar to OLED, but without OLED's degradation concerns. Likely years away due to the costs - it was a proof of concept exercise - but not something that can be commercialised at present.

Great post

I remember NHK were putting an emerald sensor in the original UHD cameras, wonder if that's still the way they work?

[edzieba]

Remember that you will need content recorded/created with these new primaries to get any benefit, as with all existing content you will either a) only be using a subset of the available colourspace (and if you happen to be limited to 24-bit transport, this will look slightly worse than a native sRGB display) or b) display the image incorrectly. This is why the 'yellow subpixel' displays Sharp produced are bunk for TV, film, and most images.

There may be some benefit for people working on print images (and assuming Sony put out 30-bit native panels), but for end-users this is essentially worthless for the time being. You're better off with a good native sRGB panel than something with a wider gamut.