BLOGS

Birth of the LCD TV

July 27, 2016 blog-img

Television is one of the major sources of entertainment all over the globe. Through this advantageous home appliance, you can watch all your favorite shows and movies. Looking for affordable TVs in the Philippines – or anywhere in world – isn’t very difficult since there are dozens of them in the market. Truly, plenty of high quality and affordable televisions can be found in numerous appliance stores today.

TVs used to be these huge, bulky cubes that were a pain to move around; but they were useful nonetheless and people loved watching TV. Now, they are so thin and light you probably won’t need any help getting a fifty inch TV into the car if you bought one.

These thin TVs are called LCD TVs. LCD (liquid crystal display) TVs make use of liquid crystals to display images. When light is shone on liquid crystals, they can regulate or modulate this light to show the viewer whatever is shown on screen from a display input. They are noticeably more energy-efficient than a CRT screen (cathode ray tube), which is usually what those large, old TV sets are since LCD TVs consume a lot less power. Because they are energy efficient, LCD screens can be used on a variety of portable devices such as mobile phones, gaming devices, watches, even digital clocks and calculators – all of which rely on stored power such as batteries. Also, if you’ll notice, they come in more sizes than CRT TVs. 

Wait, that long ago?

Liquid crystals were discovered in 1888; by 2008, LCD TVs were outselling CRT TVs. Through time, CRTs became obsolete.

In 1888, a scientist named Friedrich Reinitzer discovered that the cholesterol extracted from carrots had properties of liquid crystal. After its discovery, many scientists published papers about it and experimented with this discovery. As time went by, liquid crystals were classified into three types: nematics, smectics and cholesterics. It was also discovered that these liquid crystals react to electricity and that they can switch colors when tampered with. By the 60s, a research facility had experimented with and studied liquid crystals enough to discover how it could be applied for displays. In 1970s, the LCD’s invention was listed to Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt. During that time, it was already being used to produce wristwatches. NEC and Hitachi in the 90s worked hard to make LCD work for computer monitors, as well as televisions. However, it was Samsung who came up with the multi-domain LCDs that became a dominant part of the design in 2010. 

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LCD vs CRT

Aside from the obvious size difference compared to CRT TVs, one of its other advantages is that it doesn’t generate heat because they don’t consume so much power. Earlier LCD models consume 30%-50% of the power that CRT monitors of the same size consume. In addition, more modern LCDs lit with LED use 10%-25% of the power that a CRT display would use. This means that you have more chances of saving energy if you use an LCD TV!

The size and thinness of LCD TVs means that they can be placed farther from the user, reducing the eye-strain. Also, these displays can be produced in any size and any shape. As a matter of fact, you can put several LCDs together will create a bigger picture together; like a stacked resolution, as it becomes larger the more LCDs are added.

If you’re thinking of buying a TV, try going for a compact and light LCD TV. It’s going to help you conserve energy and save your eyes from the strain. Plus, it looks pretty darn good too!

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