HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

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HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 13 Jan 2019, 16:25

phpBB [video]


The idea is that they are using a 1080p module behind a 4k display to basically act as "zones". Which gives you 2 million zones to almost get you to OLED level contrast. Very exciting. If they can beat OLED in price for the 70+" market, it will have a very bright future.

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HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 14 Jan 2019, 01:42

I saw this at CES 2019 too!

Added [video] tags for you.

This is pretty cool stuff.

But HiSense wasn't first. I saw Panasonic experiment with it in 2016.

Check out 2016 AnandTech artcile about Panasonic 1M:1 IPS panel via two layers. There were earlier discussions here in 2016 using two layers of LCDs as a contrast-ratio-amplification manoever. In theory, it makes a million-zone local dimming backlight possible!

Using a monochrome LCD as a local-dimming "backlight" layer behind a color LCD
This is only now becoming possible/practical because of improved efficiency of LED backlights. It requires a LOT of light to push light through LCD panels -- a color LCD absorbs more than 2/3rds of light due to the color filters and the 'frames' around the pixels. That's even before the polarized-light loss. Doing two eats up even more light that manufacturers would prefer to keep for HDR headroom.

It was napkinmathed here at Blur Busters that it takes over 10,000 lumens to generate sufficient light to push through two layers with enough lumens headroom left over for HDR10. There are some efficiency-improving low-lying apples, however...

- That said, a locally-dimming LCD layer can stay monochrome, to maximize efficiency.
- And you can simply use an edgelight to illuminate the local-dimming LCD panel, potentially greatly simplifying optics (less need for an array of precision-engineered parabolic mirrors of a local dimming backlight array)
- Polarized LED light sources are also a possible light-source-based avenue of reducing polarization-related light losses with LCDs.

It's a practical trick that should begin to be used by any of the companies, HiSense or Panasonic or others.
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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 16 Jan 2019, 21:52

Awesome! This is exactly why I love this site!

So the question for me is: If Panasonic already released a technology similar to this in 2016... why hasn't this come to the market yet? Maybe it has, and maybe that's what the FX750 series is. But then, why aren't more people talking about it?

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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 16 Jan 2019, 22:23

lossofmercy wrote:So the question for me is: If Panasonic already released a technology similar to this in 2016... why hasn't this come to the market yet? Maybe it has, and maybe that's what the FX750 series is. But then, why aren't more people talking about it?
Poor electricity efficiency, mainly.
And missing lumens headroom for achieving HDR.
And, maybe thicker screens.

The manufacturers like releasing thinner TVs, and people don't want TVs that eat 600 watts of electricity like a plasma TV hog, while not being HDR-compliant.

The good news is that technology keeps advancing, and LED efficiency is improving enough to gradually make the 2-layer-LCD more practical. With high-efficiency monochrome LCD for the local dimming layer (not two layers of color LCDs) -- and the use of pre-polarized LEDs, the electricity consumption -- the efficiency may only be a few percent worse than today's single-layer LCDs.

I would suspect that televisions using this type of local-dimming will start hitting the market in the coming months and years -- pending a little more further technology refinements.
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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 16 Jan 2019, 22:38

Hmm. I was super excited about a TV using this technology coming out by 2020. I guess I have to wait a couple more years if Panasonic already had something like this in stock.

From what I am reading in AVS, this is the same technology used in Eizo CG3145:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/166-lcd- ... tio-3.html
"Heard a podcast the other day on MixingLight and they had a on a guy from Flanders Scientific. He talked about their new X310K, which up until now, was thought to have been using the new Panasonic light-modulating cell panel. It's not. Instead, they are using a 2048 zone system in this 31" monitor. He did talk about the light-modulating cell technology though (never mentioning Panasonic by name, which I think is odd) and said one of the reasons they went with the more conventional zone approach for the X310K is they could drive the back-light to 3000 nits for small patches, which FSI thought would be pushing HDR mastering further down the road. He said one of the limitations of the light-modulating cell at this point is it can only be driven to 1000 nits, but that's 1000 nits full-screen, nothing to sneeze at. Flanders is still looking into that technology and may release something in the future based on it. My guess is they started with the intention of using the Panasonic panel and decided in the end to go with something that could be driven to higher light output levels because the HDR mastering houses wanted a monitor that could go consistently beyond 1000 nits. The industry is looking for an alternative to the Sony OLED monitor, which suffers from burn-in problems (natch ) and doesn't get bright enough. FSI sells an OLED based grading monitor too.

Now, on the other hand, there's Eizo and reports are their just released CG3145 -is- using Panasonic's new 1,000,000:1 pixel-level contrast LCD panel. According to the guy from FSI, the two TFT plane design of the light-modulating cell technology removes the burden of managing the algorithms necessary to drive each zone light level of the back light, which they have to do for their 2048 zone X310K. Instead, the Panasonic panel controls the light output at the pixel level on the light-modulating cell plane. Another benefit of this design of course is no blooming (which you can see in the video below, look for the shaft of light coming from above).

You can see the the CG3145 in the HDR10 color grading video below. It sure gets bright.

I believe each of these monitors sells for north of $40K."
Yikes. I guess this is the PVM/BVM of our generation huh.

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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 16 Jan 2019, 22:44

lossofmercy wrote:Yikes. I guess this is the PVM/BVM of our generation huh.
The first desktop 4K monitors sold for five figures almost twenty years ago -- like the IBM T221. That was the PVM/BVM of that era.

It will take time for such technology to filter down to prices that we can afford.

The depth cameras of XBox360 and iPhone X actually cost 5 figures one time, and was miniaturized into a consumer product.

Local-dimming LCDs aren't the same LCDs as the main LCD. They need to be speciallized/different, to solve the efficiency problem and also function properly. So this could be a brand new LCD fabrication that has never been mass-manufactured before -- either the back panel -- or even both panels (if modifications were also needed for the front layer panel too). But at least one of the panels are likely brand new manufacture. I'm imrpessed they pulled off 1000 nits without needing a nuclear reactor.
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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 16 Jan 2019, 22:54

What I am thinking actually is that maybe they managed to gain some efficiency from exactly one of the areas you mentioned. Polarized LED/increased transparency etc. I am not sure where this source is getting their number, but if this is true, then it could be 3x as efficient as the Panasonic:

https://www.dealerscope.com/article/ces ... echnology/
Also in flat-panel TVs, the company demo’ed technology that Ma said would inform “the next evolution” of its ULED TV line: ULED XD (for Extreme Detail) which he said can achieve OLED TV quality “at a much lower cost.” According to Hisense, the dual-cell ULED XD pane layers a 1080p module that displays a grayscale image between a full-array LED back light and a 4K module that displays a full-color image; it can achieve 2,900 nits peak brightness.
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/disc ... revolution

Hisense uses Dual-cell ULED XD panel layer that puts a 1080p module displaying a grayscale image between a full array LED backlight and a 4K module. Panel has 2,900 nits peak brightness.

Also they have 512 direct led backlight zones.

Prototype used 65-inch VA panel. With peak brightness as we told above at 2900 cd/m² and a black at 0.0018 cd/m² we have real contrast ratio greater than 200 000:1. In EU and US most probably it'll be only in 2020.
Or maybe they are using a combination of zones and the modulating layer to decrease the amount of wattage consumed by the screen as a whole while being able to massively increase the peak brightness of the display.

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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 16 Jan 2019, 23:27

Side note: I have a VT60 right now. Apparently consumes 350 Watts. So hopefully it maintains close to the same power draw!

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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 17 Jan 2019, 05:25

Most 60" LED-backlit LCD HDTVs can consume less than 100 watts now.

Replacing a plasma with a LED actually more than pays for the cost of the TV within its lifetime -- in electricity bills -- especially if you live in an expensive-electricity country/state.
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Re: HiSense ULED XD -- Follow-on to Panasonic 1M:1 IPS LCD

Post by lossofmercy » 17 Jan 2019, 11:02

Be that as it may, the color and the contrast are too important! The problem is high end OLED that completely trounces my 60" plasma are really expensive. The 65" A9F, which handles dark scenes really well, sells at 4400! And the high end LG one sits at 2600. (Ideally, the TV would be 70+" but 65" is fine)

I have been tempted to buy a TV for the last few years, but no matter how good a LCD looks, I eventually like the superior display capabilities of an OLED. But, going down in size while going up in resolution doesn't sit well with me. So I am stuck in a middle ground that I was hoping this TV would solve lol. Oh and there is the burn in problem of OLED. Which I can deal with, been doing with my plasma, but kinda annoying. And seeing as how HDMI with uncompressed 4K @120 hz support is now becoming standard, I can't think of a better time to buy a TV than now. Basically, the stars are lining up and I am getting excited for this new TV.

Btw, stupid calculations: Assuming that this TV as a whole can produce 30k lumen in total to hit that 3000 nits peak brightness while not actually improving the technology. And assuming that a 1600 lumen bulb is 20 watts and that it doesn't decrease by area too much. We are potentially talking about a 400 watt TV in the brightest scenes.

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