The future of TVs explained | How much better can TVs get? - YouTube

As usual, CES brought more questions around  TVs than it answered. Yes, we have a feel for  

what we’re going to see this year, but what’s  marketing hype, and what is actual technology?  

What is QNED, OD-Zero, and where do QDEL and  QD-OLED fit in the mix? Let’s talk about that.

Welcome back everyone, I’m Caleb Denison and today  I want to explore where we are currently at with  

TV technology, what it means, and where we are  going in the future. It involves a lot of acronyms  

which, even if you are vaguely familiar with  them, are hard to keep track of and understand.  

I’m going to spell it all out as clearly as I  can so that by the end of this video, you will  

be the most TV tech-savvy person on your block.  Maybe even in your neighborhood. Let’s get to it.

Real quick, though, Do you think all these  acronyms for TV tech are getting out of  

control and why is your answer not yes! Leave  me a comment down below and while you’re at it,  

I would appreciate you hitting the like and  subscribe buttons because it really helps  

us make the best videos we can for you.  Once again, I thank you. Ok, let’s go.

I’m betting many of you are already familiar with  mini-LED and micro-LED and how they are different,  

but just in case, here’s a quick refresher:  mini-LED is a new-ish backlighting technology.  

In many ways, it is similar to the  LED backlighting we’ve had for years  

in that it provides all the light for an  LCD panel to work with. Mini-LED works with  

much smaller LED lights and lots more of them,  allowing for more precise control to minimize  

halo around bright objects on dark backgrounds and  provide better shadow detail and peak brightness.

Micro-LED is different in that it involves  no LCD panel or backlights at all. In some  

ways it is similar to OLED in that tiny  LEDs provide emissive red, green, and blue  

pixels. Like OLED, micro-LED displays can  provide perfect black levels and zero halo,  

but unlike OLED they are not susceptible to  burn-in and they can get extremely bright.  

micro-LED is also outrageously expensive  and currently, Samsung is the only player  

trying to put micro-LED in people’s homes. Sony is  bringing its Crystal LED display tech to the U.S.,  

but that appears to be a commercial play,  Samsung is the only one targeting consumers.

Speaking of Sasung, let’s talk about NEO QLED.  QLED, as you may know, is a conventional LED  

backlit LCD TV display that uses Quantum  Dots to expand color and brightness. So,  

what’s the NEO part? It’s essentially Samsung  branding of mini-LED backlight tech that we  

just talked about. Samsung has some other  proprietary tricks going into these TVs,  

but when you think NEO,QLED,  think next-gen mini-LED tech.

We’re seeing a similar move from LG this  year. You may have heard that LG’s latest  

for LCD-based televisions is QNED mini-LED.  Unlike Samsung, LG is clearly stating that  

QNED is mini-LED-based display technology.  That part is pretty straightforward, but  

what gets confusing is that QNED  is an established acronym for an  

entirely different kind of display that  has nothing to do with mini-LED backlights.

So, what is QNED supposed to be? I’m going to  explain exactly that in just a moment but first,  

there’s one more mini-LED technology  coming this year: TCL’s OD-Zero

OD-Zero is what TCL is calling its next-generation  of mini-LED backlight technology which reduces the  

number of layers involved in the panel to offer  an extremely thin profile. Now, it appears that  

at least Samsung has something similar going on  in at least some of its NEO QLED TVs, but TCL,  

given it has been churning out mini-LED TVs  for a couple of years ahead of its competition,  

probably has something special up its sleeve.  So, while we don’t know which TCL models will  

get OD-Zero, we do know that TCL will be making  some of its TVs look very special indeed.

OK, back to QNED. QNED, according to what was  established before LG started using QNED as a  

marketing badge -- probably intended  as Quantum Nano-cell Emitting Diode?  

has historically stood for Quantum Nano Emitting  Diode and the technology involves something called  

nanorod LEDs. To understand how this works,  it helps to understand why OLED TVs -- despite  

offering beautiful picture quality -- are  not especially efficient and fall far from  

being perfect. OLED TVs use a blue OLED material  which is then swung to white using a yellow OLED  

material. That white light can then be converted  to red green and blue using a color filter.  

QNED would use nanorod LEDs -- a slick and tiny  cylindrical housing for little LEDs to produce  

that blue light at a subpixel level, with  quantum dots using that blue light to make  

red and green pixels. This would mean OLED quality  black levels and color accuracy but with much  

higher brightness and no burn-in potential because  no organic compounds are used. It’s kind of a best  

of both worlds version of OLED and QLED, with none  of the drawbacks of either. There is, however, a  

competing tv technology in development that keeps  OLED around and will likely come before true QNED.

That brings us to the next TV tech acronym  on this list: QD-OLED. As the name suggests,  

there is a sort of blend here between  quantum dots and OLED. Here’s how it works: 

Remember what I just said about how OLED TVs  work? They start with a Blue OLED light source,  

convert that to white using a yellow OLED  material, and then use a color filter to get  

red green and blue out of that white light.  It’s the white subpixel strategy upon which  

LG Display’s OLEDs have worked, and it’s  part of the reason burn-in can be a problem  

and why brightness has been limited for HDR.

QD-OLED still uses a Blue OLED light source, but  it kicks the yellow OLED and color filter to the  

curb. Instead, it uses quantum dots to convert the  blue light into red and green, so you have red,  

green, and blue pixels. A true RGB OLED..  Since there is no color filter involved,  

up 70 percent of the light lost to that color  filter is reclaimed, meaning you keep the perfect  

blacks of OLED, but now this OLED-based  display gets way brighter and increases  

color volume. It might -- and I say MIGHT very  intentionally -- also eliminate burn-in. Now,  

we don’t have a QD-OLED display to show you  because there isn’t one we’ve been shown yet,  

but it is possible this tech could be shown  off in 2022, and that’s very exciting. It  

could be the stepping stone we need to get to a  true QNED TV, which right now, sounds like the  

most viable alternative to micro-LED that we  talked about at the beginning of this video,  

bringing us full circle on where TV tech is  today, and where it may be in the future.

Will there be more acronyms to  digest? Almost certainly. But for now,  

you know more about TV tech than most  of the folks you know. So, go ahead,  

tell your friends, and let’s all be  excited for what the future holds.

Thanks as always for watching everyone.  Please, did you find this video helpful?  

Did it clear up any confusion? Please let  me know in the comments and if it did,  

slap that like button and hit subscribe so we  can continue to bring explainers like this to you  

in the future. And since you’re here,  there’s two other videos I think you’ll like.