Xplainsit

TV technologys are full of acronyms that most people don't understand. So what do all the different technologist really mean?

Plasma

Plasma Tvs were the first flat screen technology to become popular but have all but been fased out. They work by having small pockets of ionized gas that depending on the electrical current passed through them produce light in a specific color. So the TV is made up of a bunch on small pockets each represent a pixel in the picture. The colors of all of them are controlled by the incoming video source. Plasma TV got fazed out because of a number of down sides. The main one being they use a lot of energy and create a lot of heat. They are also very heavy because of the glass panel. They did have a good picture quality and produce dark blacks.

LCD stands for liquid crystal display and been around for a long time. They are using in watches and all kinds of other devices, but what we are talking about is a LCD TV. An LCD TV work on by having a steady white backlight because white light contains all the colors. Then then magic happens in the LCD matrix that makes up the actual screen. The LCD matrix selectively filters out the unwanted light and the remaining light shine through. LCDs use considerably less power than plasma TVs and are much lighter. They do have a hard time filtering out all of the light when trying to produce black.

LED TVs work in the exact same way as LCD tvs, but have one small change. Instead on the backlight being a set of flourecent lamps it contains an array of LEDs to produce the white light. It is then filtered the same way. LED TV use even less power than LCDs and are thinner and lighter. They do have the same issue as LCD's with producing blacks.

OLED works in a completely different way. There are actual colored LEDs in every pixel that makes up the display. It then controls them to emit the correct color for that pixel. OLED TVs are the thinnest and light TV's available and use the least amount of power. The also produce perfect black much like a plasma.