Samsung has long been in the forefront of the improvement of HDTV flat panel sets; it is one of the leading brands available. Their newest sets employ LED back-lighting technology, which eliminates the cold-cathode fluorescent lighting systems that were included in the first generation of LCD TV sets. The use of this LED technique has made it possible for them to produce sets that are thinner, and lighter than earlier sets, yet they produce significantly higher picture quality. The Samsung UN46D6900W LED 3D HDTV is an excellent illustration of this technical superiority.
Since an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) does not produce any light of its own, but rather works as a shutter to control the passage of light through the display, any LCD displays requires a back-light in order to be seen under dim lighting conditions. The LCD part of the screen simply provides as a “shutter” that either permits light to transmit through the display screen, or blocks it.
It functions like a miniature venetian blind: if the crystals in a display element are arranged in a perpendicular direction relative to the screen, light can pass through the cell, and it will appear bright. If the crystals are lined up parallel to the display, the transmission of light is blocked, and the element will appear black.
Thus, while an LCD display can easily be viewed in bright lighting conditions, to be visible in dim lighting conditions – or to create a useful TV picture – there must be a source of light behind the LCD display screen that provides the needed illumination, a back-lighting system.
The first generation of LCD TV sets were back-lit by fluorescent light tubes, which create a white light. Each “pixel” or “picture element” that constitutes a TV picture is a position on the display screen that has three very tiny filters that produce the each of the three primary TV colors: red, green, and blue (RGB).
The UN46D6900W Samsung LED HDTV with 3D set uses an “edge lighting” method to provide the back-lighting for its image. With this approach, extremely intense white-light LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are located around the edges of the screen frame. A diffuser plate is used to distribute the light across the full face of the display. The use of an LED lighting system results in much lower energy consumption.
Using LED lighting makes it possible for Samsung to gain much tighter control over the brightness of specific areas of the screen. They have developed a system they refer to as “Micro Dimming”, which permits them to change the level of the back-light from one area of the image to another, which means that the picture has more intense whites, and that the black areas are much darker and deeper than you will see with the older LCD sets, which are lighted with fluorescent lamps extending across the full width of the set.
This set is highly energy efficient: based on a using the set for five hours every day, and an electricity rate of 11 cents per Kwh, it would cost about $15/year to operate this set. When the set is turned off, it uses only 0.07 Watts of power. That adds up to 0.6 Kwh/yr, which adds up to less than $0.07 per year based on the same electric rates – no “electricity vampire” here!
This UN46D6900W Samsung set is packed with what Samsung calls “Smart Apps” – the applications that form what they refer to as their “Smart TV” platform. These “Apps” allow you to use the TV to work on the Internet, and to download Web content from sites like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and many others.
While some of the “Apps” must be purchased for one or two dollars (similar to iPhone apps), there is a very wide selection of Apps that are free, including games and children’s material. Apps categories cover areas such as Lifestyle, Videos, Sports, Education, Information, and Games.
Getting this set will significantly increase your TV watching enjoyment, as well as making it simple to interface with all your other media needs, from your computer to the Internet. There are many other great features to be found in this set – check the website link in the resource box for much more information.
See all the information, and learn more about the many other great features of the Samsung UN46D6900W, including The Eco Sensor, the Wide Color Enhancer Plus, and many others. You will also find the full specifications for the set. You can learn more about many other great LED TV sets here.