LED TV backlight too high = damage?

joeyjojo

joeyjojo

joeyjojo

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Hi folks, I tried searching but couldn't find anything on this.

I bought a used Samsung UE32F5000 the other day and am really liking it. The seller, however, warned me not to turn the [Backlight] setting up too high as it's a common cause of faults on these TVs. True or rubbish?

I ask because to my eyes the [Movie] mode looks best, which pushes the backlight setting up to 20/20 to get the brightest whites. I can use a bit of a lower setting, down to 14 or so is still fine, but I wonder if it's necessary.
 
generally full backlight is too bright. But you also have contrast setting as well.

When I had a LCD I had it pretty much all the way down as I view in a darkened room, with a LED backlight. At full backlight it hurts your eyes.

LCD do suffer from image retention but it's not like plasma where you get permenant damage froms screenburn
 
Thanks for that. I have contrast near max (95 I think) and don't find backlight 20/20 too bright. Maybe it's just not a particularly bright screen?

For whites reference I'm using a snowy/arctic bit of Life (the BBC nature documentary) and I want that to be borderline dazzling if possible. :p

So you're saying the concern about max backlight is probably not true?
 
it is true - the higher you are running the backlight the shorter the led's lifespan -
more light equals higher heat which is difficult to dissipate, and heat is the enemy of led's.
If the light level is controlled by using more current too, then that decreases lfespan, as opposed to turning them on an off fast (pwm) which caan create flickering.

That said if life has gone from 30K hours to 10K, that is still 3hrs a day for 9 years.
But might want to attach a power meter and see how much electricity set consumes 200w or 400w (extra 15p a week!)

Even with oled they limit power level for longevity and EEC regulations (apl)
 
HDR sets will usually force the backlight to max when in HDR mode but whether they're designed more with this in mind than old non-HDR sets, I have no idea.
 
Generally 95% contrast is way too high. Do you have the other post processing modes enabled like dynamic contrast, colour enhancer, etc?
You should not aim for retina burning levels of brightness/contrast.

Lower the lighting in your room, close the curtains, reduce baclight & contrast settings, disable all post processing modes. You'll save power, get a better image, and increase lifespan of the TV.
 
Thanks folks.

jpaul- The high-current thing is what I was wondering. It does however seem to be a very low-powered TV: the sticker on the back says 60 W max, 40 W typical. Partly I guess this is the size (32"). I will try and find my watt meter and measure.

Vertigo1- thanks, it's not HDR as far as I know.

hornetstinger- I've got all the showroom settings off (dynamic this, extra deep blacks that). The Life BD I mentioned has a simple but very useful set of test screens that I'm also using to tweak the settings. The high contrast is needed to get the whites right (test screen with A B C in shades of near-white). As above it's really not a very bright panel even at max in a pitch black room.
 
Generally sharpness is too high as well, one perfect method to get sharpness is to use a PC, native res of the panel, TV set to 1:1. Bring up text like these forums, and adjust it so it looks like a PC monitor. Too low and it blurs text, too high and halos appear around the letters.
 
hornetstinger said:
Generally sharpness is too high as well, one perfect method to get sharpness is to use a PC, native res of the panel, TV set to 1:1. Bring up text like these forums, and adjust it so it looks like a PC monitor. Too low and it blurs text, too high and halos appear around the letters.
Click to expand...

Set sharpness to 0 (unless its a monitor).
 
I think I've currently got it at 20 ish now (from a default of 50) based on a sharpness test pattern (vertical lines of various thicknesses) and a scene of something like a million birds/bats flying around (can't remember :D) but will experiment with 0 too, cheers.
 
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