TCL Mini Led First look

[Bahn Yuki]

https://youtu.be/cv6UNkb38fM

So far it's an ok set that won't break your wallet.

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[Guspaz]

Calling it mini led (the manufacturer, I mean, not you) is kind of misleading when it has 1,000 LEDs but only 240 controllable zones.

You mentioned that rtings wasn't impressed, they reviewed the 55" model that only has 128 controllable zones. So of course with so few zones there would be massive blooming issues.

[BONKERS]

Calling it mini led (the manufacturer, I mean, not you) is kind of misleading when it has 1,000 LEDs but only 240 controllable zones.

You mentioned that rtings wasn't impressed, they reviewed the 55" model that only has 128 controllable zones. So of course with so few zones there would be massive blooming issues.

It's entirely misleading until they have near per pixel control. All this marketing BS and none of it can still even remotely compete with OLED and still have the same exact problems as existing displays with LD.

[ASDR]

miniLED seems like it'll at best be a minor improvement for FALD TVs in the near future. But a quality FALD implementation with a decent amount of zones paired with a panel that has a high native contrast can look pretty damn good.

Pixel level control will only happen with microLED (years away, if at all) or dual-LCD tech (used nowhere except that one Sony PVM with industrial-grade cooling and ~40k EUR price tag).

Let's hope the QD OLEDs from Samsung will either be cheaper or better than the LG ones. That'll result in some positive outcomes for consumers.

[Guspaz]

Sufficient zones oculd probably look OK, but with 240 zones in a "mini LED" display, we're talking about an equivalent resolution of just 20x12 pixels or something like that. Each backlight zone is impacting 34,560 pixels... plus whatever else it bleeds into.

I don't know how many zones a FALD display needs before the side effects are mitigated sufficiently. Tens of thousand if not hundreds of thousands of zones, perhaps. Maybe I'm way off base, but the magic number is certainly not 240.

[ASDR]

The first somewhat affordable, consumer FALD TVs had around a hundred zones and they looked so, incredibly much better than those with, well, 1 zone. Today all decent FALD TVs have a few hundred zones at best and they certainly don't look bad. A highend Sony TV with 240 dimming zones would probably look rather good! It wouldn't look like an OLED, but all display technologies have their faults. Current OLEDs have ABL and can't get very bright and have some degree of near-black crush / posterization / vertical streaking, burn-in, image retention etc. For any display technology you can come up with a scene where its faults show. For a FALD TV that would basically be a starfield as the local dimming system can't really do much there. A good local dimming algorithm that makes the right trade-offs for local vs global contrast, blooming vs peak brightness etc. paired with a high native contrast VA panel does look quite good with something like 240 zones.

[fernan1234]

or dual-LCD tech (used nowhere except that one Sony PVM with industrial-grade cooling and ~40k EUR price tag).

Hisense has a commercial dual-cell TV in the Chinese market. Not sure if they are selling it anywhere else. I recall HDTVTest mentioning that it's probably only doable in China for now because it can use more power and there are less power consumption regulations there.

[ASDR]

or dual-LCD tech (used nowhere except that one Sony PVM with industrial-grade cooling and ~40k EUR price tag).

Hisense has a commercial dual-cell TV in the Chinese market. Not sure if they are selling it anywhere else. I recall HDTVTest mentioning that it's probably only doable in China for now because it can use more power and there are less power consumption regulations there.

Interesting:

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/hisen ... al-cell-tv

Not really a super competent review (WTF is 'image scrambling'?), but it seems like this thing actually works. I would've expected the dual layer tech either being too expensive to manufacture or the panel translucency be so low that you need an insane backlight with an insane cooling system like that Sony PVM.

[Guspaz]

There were a bunch of tradeoffs, including power consumption, yes, but also viewing angles were significantly impacted. It's also a lot thicker, which shouldn't matter, but makes it harder to market.

The 65SX also doesn't have per-pixel dimming, the monochrome LCD panel is lower resolution than the colour LCD panel (1080p with no subpixels, so one dimming zone per 12 subpixels) and still uses FALD behind that, hence why that TechRader review did notice light bleed.

I recall seeing a prototype that had a higher resolution dimming layer, not sure what happened to it.

[ASDR]

There were a bunch of tradeoffs, including power consumption, yes, but also viewing angles were significantly impacted. It's also a lot thicker, which shouldn't matter, but makes it harder to market.

The 65SX also doesn't have per-pixel dimming, the monochrome LCD panel is lower resolution than the colour LCD panel (1080p with no subpixels, so one dimming zone per 12 subpixels) and still uses FALD behind that, hence why that TechRader review did notice light bleed.

I recall seeing a prototype that had a higher resolution dimming layer, not sure what happened to it.

I can't imagine the light bleed comes from the 1080p panel or the FALD backlight. 2 million dimming zones ought to be enough. Sure, doesn't help you with a 4k checkerboard pattern but light control for every 2x2 block of pixels really should work for every normal scene. Also, if we assume that each LCD has a contrast of at least (!) 1000:1 two of them combined should be able to block light down to 1/1000000 for some very deep blacks. The FALD must be primarily for power savings. If they didn't have it a single bright HDR highlight in the scene would require the backlight to be on full blast for the entire screen. That wouldn't necessarily look bad because of the dual LCD, but the thing would probably melt. Especially since the light loss from dual LCD would require a brighter backlight to begin with.

I would imagine the light bleed comes from somewhere else, likely same reason the viewing angles are bad. There's probably some diffusion / bleeding going on throughout the display stack, even if they had per-pixel control.

[Dochartaigh]

Would you all consider this the best quality for a 75" under ~$1,500 USD? These won't do true 120Hz, right? (think that's the next thing I would look into with the new PS5 supporting that).

I'm actually quasi in the market for a new TV as my current TCL 65R617 is giving me issues, and I can get a grand toward a new TV if I use the warranty (my TCL's problem is any details on the outside edge of a white box, when that box is on a dark background, are totally faded out like I show here – the light gray checkerboard grid is supposed to be there edge-to-edge and you can't see it anymore). I'm kinda hesitant to get a TCL again though, as it's my second which has failed (my 49" 5-Series had a screen issue right out of the box...).

[Guspaz]

I would take a 55" CX OLED for $1400 or a 65" CX OLED for $1900 (current BestBuy prices) over a 75" LCD for $1500. The quality sacrifice is way too big to justify the extra size for a similar price.

[Bahn Yuki]

I would take a 55" CX OLED for $1400 or a 65" CX OLED for $1900 (current BestBuy prices) over a 75" LCD for $1500. The quality sacrifice is way too big to justify the extra size for a similar price.

Oled is the best no doubt. Still for a secondary TV replacing a projector I did want the size and no burn in issues.

My 77C9 absolutely blows the mini led away, but it's also thrice the price.

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