The new TV makes use of incredibly small LED drivers, which in turn come with a few advantages. Due to their smaller size you can fit more LEDs onto the backlight panel. The drivers, which are about the size of a sesame seed, are also capable of controlling said LEDs to a high degree. Instead of two or three dimming settings, like on, off, or medium, the controllers instead manage a close to infinite amount by controlling factors like voltage. So, thanks to the proprietary little chip, you’ll be getting exceptional contrast, along with lower power consumption.
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As for what the TV looks like in person — it’s complicated. While the prototype looks great when side by side with another TV, you can only really appreciate it if you peel back the device’s layers and look at the backlight itself. The LEDs are so precise, you can actually make out images on the backlight board alone. Sony demonstrated this first by applying a setting that makes just the backlight fire, and then by showing us a TV that has been stripped back to said backlight. A similar thing was done to a competitor’s television — which has a pretty vague backlight in comparison.
