What's The Difference?

[nick956]

So i was searching for a new display screen, i came across the two terms of OLED and LED. I personally have LED tv's and such but when viewed on stock shelves in stores,i cant seem to notice the difference between the two's imagery. Can you all provide links or educate me on how the two are different or the same? Like which one is better for movies and such or have higher specifications to reduce lag..

 

[Mattib 050]

So i was searching for a new display screen, i came across the two terms of OLED and LED. I personally have LED tv's and such but when viewed on stock shelves in stores,i cant seem to notice the difference between the two's imagery. Can you all provide links or educate me on how the two are different or the same? Like which one is better for movies and such or have higher specifications to reduce lag..

Let me Google that for you

 

[nick956]

Well i was actually asking for more information based on personal experience rather than a google answer. Like which do you prefer or seem to be better. But thanks for wasting bandwidth.

 

[chenw]

Difference between LED and OLED displays is primarily in its contrast, which comes from how the panels generate each colour.

LED works by having a white backlight and then use filter to generate the subpixel colours, then use liquid crystal and polariser to block out unwanted light. EG if you wanted red light, you block out blue and green subpixels. The imperfect nature of light blocking is the reason why most LCD have contrast level in the thousands, if not lower.

OLED works closer to how CRT works, each subpixel generates its own light, so contrast level is, by default, a lot better than LCD displays. If the pixel wants to display red, it switches red on and leaves blue and green off. CRT works similarly with its phosphors, but CRT's contrast, though very high, is still not infinite due to possible minor electron beam deflection hitting other phospors, OLED can attain infinite contrast as each subpixel's current is controlled.

The best way to show this is, set your display to show only the black colour, and then switch the monitor off. On an LCD, you can notice the difference between a monitor that is on and showing black, and monitor that is off, due to the light leaking out of the blocking layers.

On an OLED, that would not be visible, because each subpixels are switched off completely in both cases.

The "O" in OLED stands for Organic, but its technicalities do not affect the end result, other than that, due to OLED's organic nature, the subpixels (especially the blue one) is more susceptible to degradation.

Basically, to answer your question, to see the difference between LED and OLED displays, it is most noticeable with dark images, in a dark room, a bright room would 'drown out' the contrast due to increased perceived black depth.