On the Los Angeles Conference Heart, two 85-inch TVs sat facet by facet contained in the Nanosys assembly room at Show Week — a yearly business-to-business conference specializing in the expertise that goes into shows of every type. One TV was a mini-LED panel with tremendous quantum dots, and the opposite was an RGB LED — this 12 months’s hottest TV development. Each TVs had been displaying the identical content material on the identical time to spotlight the variations between the 2 applied sciences — or extra particularly, to point out the potential failings of RGB LED backlights when in comparison with tremendous quantum dot (SQD), which makes use of blue LEDs for the backlight.
I ought to most likely point out that Nanosys made the quantum dots within the first TV.
Through the side-by-side demo, the TVs performed the identical content material concurrently for simple comparability. Photograph by John Higgins / The Verge
The TV on the correct, with the Nanosys tremendous quantum dots, was labeled because the TCL X11L — the striped decrease grille confirming as a lot — and the opposite was probably the TCL RM9L. Nanosys wouldn’t verify as a lot, however I’ve seen the RGB LED TVs from Hisense, Samsung, LG, and Sony in individual, and it wasn’t any of these. Jeff Yurek, vice chairman of promoting at Nanosys, knowledgeable me that each TVs had been in Filmmaker Mode and shade was set to native to permit each to hit the biggest gamut attainable.
As a fast refresher, RGB LED TVs use crimson, inexperienced, and blue LEDs grouped into zones to create a coloured backlight based mostly on the picture displayed on display. Theoretically, this offers the TV extra vibrant and saturated colours than mini-LED TVs just like the X11L with blue backlights, without having to rely solely on the quantum dots. The first potential subject is that the coloured gentle offered by the backlight will bleed into adjoining pixels or zones that differ in shade, leading to what’s known as shade crosstalk. Virtually, this might trigger the crimson of a brilliant shirt or hat to trigger the pores and skin of the wearer to have a reddish hue. And that’s precisely what this demo confirmed.
One of many demonstrations alternated between this slide with two rows of containers and a row of crosses and the subsequent slide. Picture: Nanosys
On the RGB LED TV, when the white cross was launched to the highest row of containers, there was a shift within the shade depth of these containers. Picture: Nanosys
When squares and not using a white cross had been measured, the RGB LED TV’s shade factors had been barely wider than for SQD. Picture: Nanosys
The white cross triggered the inexperienced shade level (high of the triangle) and blue shade level (backside left of the triangle) to maneuver between the SQD shade factors. Picture: Nanosys
Throughout your entire demonstration, the identical video feed went to each TVs. One slide confirmed three rows: two rows of containers with the first and secondary colours — blue, inexperienced, crimson, cyan, magenta, and yellow — and the third with a skinny white cross on a black background below every coloured field. The highest row of containers would then alternate between a strong field and one with a white cross inside it. On the RGB LED TV, because the white cross appeared within the high row, it was straightforward to see the colour of the realm across the cross get a bit lighter and fewer saturated. The colour crosstalk didn’t simply occur throughout the high row of containers; the field shade from the center row additionally visibly bled into the underside row of crosses. This exhibits within the TVs’ BT.2020 shade gamut measurements as properly, with the introduction of the white cross diminishing total BT.2020 protection, most dramatically with the blue and inexperienced shade factors.
However until you’re a measurement nerd like me, you don’t watch strong blocks of shade in your TV for enjoyable. The impact can also be current with pores and skin tones — one thing that, as people, is well observed. Simply as the colour of the blocks bleeds into the white cross, so does a coloured background into pores and skin tone; nonetheless photographs of a girl’s face with a coloured background triggered her pores and skin tone to shift towards the background shade. To ensure my eye wasn’t inflicting the colour bleed, versus the TV, I used a scope to focus only a portion of the girl’s face, blocking out the remaining from my view. I may nonetheless inform which background shade was displayed by the change in hue of her pores and skin.
Whereas BT.2020 measurements stayed at a constant share on the SQD TV, the share went down on the RGB LED TV as the colour patch acquired smaller. Picture: Nanosys
The SQD TV didn’t exhibit any shade crosstalk. It additionally had higher distinction, which comes right down to the variety of dimming zones. The X11L is marketed as having as much as 20,000 eating zones, though in response to Rtings, the 85-inch mannequin has 14,400 — nonetheless a powerful quantity. The RGB LED TV used on this comparability has, I used to be instructed, round 8,000 dimming zones. One cause the quantity is decrease is as a result of every dimming zone on an RGB TV, at a minimal, must have three LEDs — a crimson, a inexperienced, and a blue — and people take up house. However when the backlight consists of solely blue LEDs, a single LED generally is a dimming zone, giving a lot finer management.
All of that is perceptible in precise content material. Throughout an motion scene with fast motion and quick cuts, I may nonetheless pick variations as brilliant colours affected these surrounding them, significantly with pores and skin tones. And in evening scenes, the distinction distinction was notable. If the RGB LED TV was within the room by itself, with out the SQD TV for comparability, I don’t suppose the colour crosstalk would look as obtrusive. Our eyes can regulate rapidly to visible points, and we cease noticing them. However taking away the comparability doesn’t take away the issue.
This isn’t brand-new data. Trade consultants have been involved concerning the potential for shade crosstalk in RGB LED TVs because the expertise debuted at CES 2025. These issues have grown as extra RGB LED TVs arrive in the marketplace this 12 months. LG Show, notably a maker of OLED panels that are in direct competitors with RGB LED, produced movies a number of weeks earlier than this 12 months’s CES, highlighting the issues.
After all, each Nanosys and LG Show have vested pursuits in downplaying RGB TV tech. The efficiency of 1 RGB LED TV additionally doesn’t inform the story for all RGB LED TVs. I didn’t discover any crosstalk points after I reviewed the Hisense UR9, though the extra I see different RGB LED TVs, the extra I believe the Hisense could also be bypassing the difficulty and falling again to white backlighting, not RGB, at any time when there have been plenty of colours on display. Additionally the processing capabilities of the upcoming Sony RGB LED TVs may make shade crosstalk a nonissue on these units. And we’re nonetheless proper at first of the RGB LED TV story. Because the expertise continues to develop and refine, these points ought to be mitigated. However for 2026, SQD at the very least seems to have the higher hand.
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