What is Contrast Ratio?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
821 words · ~4 min read
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have you been in the market for a new TV lately if so you've probably noticed
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that the TV manufacturers and big box stores use a number of tricks to lure
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you in they mostly Focus their advertising on the same stuff High
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resolutions huge screen sizes and rock
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bottom prices all designed to convince you to
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punch and elbow your way past a bunch of strangers on Black Friday like some sort
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of electronics piranha but there's a
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crucial often ignored element one that
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is arguably the biggest determinant of
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overall picture quality contrast
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ratio but what the heck is that well
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although it's not something that's always easy to find if you're buying a
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TV or a monitor Off the Shelf at a brick and mortar store you should have
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encountered contrast ratio at some point on a spec page if you're shopping online
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but what do those values 1,000 to 1 1
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million to one even mean well you see
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contrast ratio is essentially the difference between the brightest white
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that a screen can produce and the darkest black which is very important
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because having the correct brightness on different areas on screen is critical
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for making dark areas look sufficiently dark without losing detail and for
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optimal visibility in bright areas think of a shot of a city at night a TV with
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good contrast will clearly show you a
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dark night sky while making the detail of the city lights stand out if your
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screen contrast ratio is too low the
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entire scene will be less detailed and more washed out with dull stars on a
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charcoal backdrop typically modern IPS displays
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as as well as better-made TN panels will
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offer contrast ratios in the neighborhood of a th000 to1 meaning the
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brightest pixel will be a thousand times brighter than the dimmest if you opt for
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a more unusual VA type display you'll
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generally see better performance at least by this particular metric with
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contrast ratios between 2 and 5,000 to
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one but what about those spec sheets you
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see that advertise insane contrast ratios of like 10 million to one well if
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you look closely you'll see that these
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numbers indicate a dynamic contrast
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ratio which is a number that a manufacturer claims a display can
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achieve with backlight trickery so on
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lower end sets the entire backlight will be turned up or down depending on the
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brightness of the scene while on high-end ones this is done more GR
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granularly with certain parts of the scene being boosted or dimmed these
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dimming techniques are quite useful and can result in better picture quality but
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the experience definitely isn't the same as having a panel that can achieve
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natively an absurdly high contrast ratio
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like an OLED one whose pixels individually emit their own light
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without any backlight allowing them to perform this dimming functionality on a
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per pixel level they can even be turned
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off so long story short then unless
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we're talking about OLED you should take those 10 million to one numbers with a
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huge grain of salt and for that matter
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even oleds that might really have 10
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million to one contrast ratios are sometimes advertised as having infinite
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contrast that should really be undefined
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section okay come on in here if you want to be
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in the video then you might as well come be in the video were you interrupting
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