At CES earlier this year, Samsung and Hisense both unveiled prototype LCD TVs which used a different sort of backlighting system. Instead of the white or blue LED backlights we typically see on QLED, QNED and traditional LCD TVs, these prototype TVs used an RGB LED-based backlight. That’s a separate LED element for each of the primary colors: red, green and blue. But these aren’t the only companies working on RGB backlighting.
Sony engineers have been hard at work, actively developing an RGB backlighting system with advanced local dimming for the past several years. We got a chance to check out the latest prototype in their Tokyo headquarters last month and its performance was impressive: virtually no haloing or blooming, rich color saturation, impressive off-axis viewing capability – and all without sacrificing the high peak brightness we’ve come to expect from LED/LCD TVs. The tech is poised to give emissive displays like OLED and MicroLED a run for their money.
Built on the Primaries
Building a display based on the three primary colors isn’t exactly new, and Sony is anything but a newbie at RGB-based display systems. The company’s revolutionary “Trinitron” aperture grille design for CRT (cathode ray tube) televisions in the 1960s used a single electron gun to illuminate individual red, green and blue phosphors. Trinitron technology allowed Sony televisions to produce color TV images that were vastly brighter and more saturated than competing shadow mask designs. And that RGB design was hidden in plain sight in its name: “Trinity” for the three primary colors and “tron” for the electron gun that activated the phosphors. Sony Trinitron TVs would be coveted by consumers for their top-notch picture performance for decades.
RGB Backlighting since 2004?
21 years ago, Sony delivered the first commercially available RGB-based backlighting system for an LCD TV in the QUALIA 005 TV. Sony’s Triluminos RGB backlighting system delivered nearly twice the color gamut compared to the more common CCFL backlight system that was in widespread use at the time. The company has continued to pursue the development of RGB backlighting and is announcing its current progress and plans to the world.
Today (March 13), the company officially announced that it has refined RGB backlighting to the next level. Sony says they have developed a “new display system incorporating an independent drive RGB LED with a high-density LED backlight that can individually control the three primary colors – R (red), G (green), and B (blue) [RGB], and that is suitable for large screens.” Independent control over the red, green and blue lighting elements results in higher color purity and a wider color gamut as well as more precise control over color luminance.
According to Sony, this new backlighting technology can reproduce over 99% of the DCI-P3 color standard and 90% of BT.2020. This should enable displays that use this technology to better reproduce wide color gamut UHD content encoded in HDR10 and Dolby Vision high dynamic range formats. Combined with Sony’s proprietary advanced backlight control technology, these future RGB/LED/LCD TVs should be particularly good at reproducing subtle shadow details as well as bright specular highlights, even when both are on-screen at the same time.
Sony says that displays using this new backlight technology are expected to enter mass production later in 2025 though the company is not announcing any specific models or pricing at this time. As of press time, the tech is so new that it doesn’t even have a name yet.TriPrime? TriniMax? Trinitron2? SupeRGB? The possibilities are endless.
Sony acknowledged several development partners who have been integral in bringing this technology to market including MediaTek Inc. (control processors), ROHM Co. Ltd (LED drive ICs) and Sanan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. (MiniLED RGB backlight modules).
Key Features of Sony’s Newly Developed RGB/LED/LCD Display System:
- Wide Color Gamut Performance – over 99% of the DCI-P3, 90% of the BT.2020 standard
- Peak brightness up to 4,000 nits
- Improved off-axis viewing compared to traditional LCD panels
In viewing the prototype set up against Sony’s current best MiniLED TV (the BRAVIA 9) and its current best QD-OLED (A95L), the RGB-lit LCD TV was clearly superior to the BRAVIA 9 in color volume, off-axis viewing and contrast, and was able to keep up with the color saturation, contrast and color volume of the A95L. The QD-OLED still offered some advantages in black level reproduction and perceived contrast, but the RGB-lit LCD TV was clearly capable of higher peak brightness, which made it look better in a fairly bright room. If the prototype’s picture quality properties translate into a future production model, OLED TVs will face some strong competition for overall picture quality.
Also, Sony engineers told us that the tech lends itself well to larger screen sizes, so we may see a Sony RGB-lit LCD TV in 100-inch or even larger screen sizes. This is something current OLED and MicroLED TV tech struggles with. OLED TVs currently max out at 97 inches (and these models typically sell for around $20,000). While early RGB-lit LCD TVs will undoubtedly be expensive, we expect the larger screen sizes to be priced competitively compared to large screen OLED TVs.
The Bottom Line
While Sony will continue to offer traditional LED/LCD and OLED TVs in their line-up for the foreseeable future, this new RGB/LED-backlighting technology will likely be the basis for the company’s next flagship televisions, but probably not before 2026. From what we’ve seen so far, the tech looks promising and may offer color performance comparable to or better than current WRGB OLED and QD-OLED TVs but with the peak brightness and large screen size advantages of LED/LCD TVs. We’re looking forward to seeing what Sony can do with the tech in the coming months and years.
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