"LEDing" the Way

Direct View LED Systems Are Expensive and Large, but are No Longer an Oddity in Homes

- Michael Heiss

Video display technology has come a long way from what really wasn’t that long ago when your choice was CRT or CRT. We now have many varieties of LCD, QD-LED, OLED, and QDOLED displays to choose from, along with conventional projection systems and Ultra Short Throw (UST) projectors. Moving into 2023, it is clear that direct view LED is now, from a technical standpoint, “ready for prime time,” and should be considered as a viable option in more cases than before.

When exploring LED (light emitting diodes) technology for a video display, there are several details to consider before buying for a specific room, installation, or client proposal. LED is a ubiquitous technology for video displays but given that LED is not one single thing or used in one specific way, it is helpful to give you a grounding on what LEDs are used for in various applications.

The first thing to always remember is that LEDs are an emissive, rather than assive, light source because they generate their own light — including the LED lightbulbs that have replaced incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. For that reason, their first use in video displays was to replace cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) to shine light through LCD panels to then produce a viewable image. Keep in mind, LCD is a passive technology acting as a light gate; without a backlight, most LCD displays will not show a viewable image.

What most people and retailers refer to as an “LED TV” is not that. Rather, they are LCD displays that use LEDs that direct light through the LCD. However, that is a bit too geeky for most, so they have come to be known as “LED TVs.”