Rich Fiscus
29 Jul 2007 6:56
Like fellow Korean competitor LG Electronics, Dutch corporation Phillips, and Japanese display company Sharp, Samsung will be releasing improved HDTV technology later this year. All four companies are expected to introduce displays with 120Hz refresh rates and LED Backlights.
The increase to from 60Hz 120Hz for a refresh rate makes it a multiple of not just video sources at 30Hz, but also film sources at 24Hz. It leads to smoother motion, and less motion blurring.
JVC and Sharp already have displays that take advantage of the doubled frequency. This summer, Philips, LG, and Samsung all announced their respective 120-Hz technologies, with products coming by this fall.
The 71 series displays that Samsung is launching in August use a technology called McFi--short for Motion Compensated Frame Interpolation--to create new interpolated video frames and insert them between each frame of video to smooth out fast motion. Samsung's technology looks for any movement, then it creates an average of those movements to insert a frame in between them. Other HDTV makers insert a black frame in between frames, an approach Samsung claims fixes the motion-blur issue, but degrade the panel's brightness.
The introduction of LED Backlights doesn't improve motion, but does help contrast. Compared to traditional cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlighting, LED backlights don't leak as much light, allowing more intensity to be used without blurring the image. This gives a higher contrast ratio.
Samsung says their implementation of LED backlighting can automatically adjust the backlight for specific parts of the picture, depending upon the source content.
LED backlighting is more expensive, with Samsung's 40 inch LED backlit model from the 81 series selling for around $3,000. The 70 series line will get a model with 120Hz refresh rate for about $300 less.
Source: PC World