Someone please explain contrast ratio to me

mrbios

mrbios

mrbios

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Contrast ratio has me confused, my current TV is 5000:1 and it's 2 years old, i have a new TV arriving on friday with 120,000:1 contrast ratio

What difference will just the contrast ratio make? what does it do? colour vibrance?

I see TVs with 2,000,000:1 etc and then Tvs as low as 1000:1 and i've already been interested in what the difference is, and wether they are directly comparable or if they are done in different way in order to show different numbers
 
They are not directly comparable between manufacturers. Theres no standard way of measuring it and most will quote dynamic constrast ratio.
 
Ok what is dynamic contrast ratio and what is it called if its not dynamic?

If i was comparing 120,000:1 on a samsung screen to a 5000:1 on an LG or 1500:1 on an "acoustic solutions" (lol) screen is there any way to accurately compare them?
 
Dynamic means that the backlights on LCD screens are dimmed during dark seens to deepen the blacks.

Unfortunatly a lot of people can notice the backlight level changing, and it can also lead to less than stellar whites on a dark scene, (Think of the enterprise flying in a black sea of stars... bright backlight for the ship, or dark backlight for the space). Until there is per pixel backlighting dynamic contrast is an ugly hack that many people turn off.

Contrast is primarily the difference in brightness between the darkest black, and the brightest white. But it does affect colour definition too, as you say a high contrast set can be more vibrant, but only if the image was intended to be vibrant in the first place, a high contrast set should not artifically boost the contrast of an already recorded scene.
 
Another set of numbers (Higher = better than everyone elses!) used by manufacturers to get you to buy their products! :p
 
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