1. What is a Mini LED Display and What Advantages Does It Have?
A Mini LED display refers to a liquid crystal display (LCD) that uses Mini LED backlight technology.
Ordinary LCDs, whether using side-lit or direct-lit backlighting, typically have only a few hundred or even dozens of LEDs (with sizes of 1mm or larger), so they can have at most a few dozen local dimming zones (which cannot achieve precise and delicate control over backlighting).
In contrast, Mini LED displays use thousands to tens of thousands of Mini LED chips (with sizes under 1mm), forming hundreds to thousands of direct-lit local dimming zones to replace traditional backlight modules, hence the name Mini LED LCD.
|
Ordinary (Traditional) LED Backlight |
Mini LED Backlight |
|
|
LED Chip Size |
1.4~4.0mm |
50~500μm |
|
Number of LEDs Used |
Dozens to a few hundred |
Thousands to tens of thousands of LEDs |
|
Backlight Zones |
Ordinary dozens of zones |
Hundreds to tens of thousands of zones |
|
HDR |
Poor |
Perfect effect (Peak brightness can easily reach 1000 nits or more) |
Ordinary Display: LED Light Bar
(Size 4 x 1.4mm)
Mini LED Matrix
(Chip size 50~200μm)
Compared to traditional LED backlighting, Mini LED has many advantages, making it suitable for high-end LCD solutions:
1. It can directly use RGB three-color LED modules, covering a wider color gamut. Most Mini LED displays can achieve 99% coverage of Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color spaces, with color vividness comparable to OLED.
2. Mini LED can achieve uniform heat dissipation at high brightness (>1000 nits), which is not possible with traditional discrete LED solutions.
3. Mini LED backlighting can achieve ultra-thin direct-lit LCD displays, widely used in lightweight portable consumer electronics, such as AR/VR glasses, smartphones, laptops, etc.
4. Mini LED, combined with precise local dimming, can achieve ultra-high contrast (1000000:1), making blacks deeper and whites brighter.
The Mini LED backlight packaging uses flip-chip Mini LED chips to achieve uniform light mixing directly, without the need for lenses for secondary optical design. Due to the small chip structure, it helps to make the local dimming zones more detailed, achieving a higher dynamic range (HDR) and better contrast. On the other hand, it can also shorten the optical mixing distance (OD) to reduce the overall thickness, achieving ultra-thin designs.
Mini LED backlighting can combine with local dimming technology to control the on/off and brightness adjustment of corresponding backlight zones in real-time according to the brightness and darkness of various parts of the TV signal, making blacks blacker, whites whiter, and colors more naturally vivid, providing an immersive visual experience. This is why Apple adopted Mini LED in the iPad released in 2021.
In addition, compared to OLED, the advantages of Mini LED are: lower cost; no burn-in risk, which is the biggest flaw of current OLED displays; higher brightness, as OLED limits brightness to maintain lifespan.
2. What Are the Number of Mini LED Chips and Zones, and Is More Always Better?
Mini LED displays are essentially still LCD products, but they have made significant progress in backlight modules, using Mini LEDs as the backlight source, leveraging more small chips to provide more backlight zones, thus achieving better contrast and brightness. Therefore, there are two key metrics in Mini LED technology: one is the number of backlight zones, and the other is the number of Mini LED chips.
For displays, the more backlight zones there are, the better the picture quality, which affects many factors that significantly influence picture quality, such as contrast, dark detail, light control, and black levels. From this perspective, the number of backlight zones is more important. With a sufficient number of backlight zones, the more chips there are, the better, as this relates to brightness, uniformity, and other important parameters. More detailed backlight zones will enhance the correspondence between the backlight dimming area and the LCD pixel layer, improving HDR effects. However, more zones and chips also increase costs.
3. How Many Backlight Zones Are Enough for Mini LED Displays? How to Choose the Number of Zones?
Currently, there is no unified standard in the display industry. However, the television industry, which overlaps with certain display usage scenarios, has introduced a “Television Backlight Zone Standard,” which divides backlight zones into several levels: dozens of zones, hundreds of zones, 300 zones, and 2000 zones, using a 75-inch television as an example.
When the number of backlight zones is only in the dozens, there is basically no difference in contrast compared to displays without backlight zones, and the effect on picture quality is very limited. Only when there are large areas of dark colors can obvious differences be seen. However, when reaching hundreds of zones, the contrast approaches 5 times, significantly improving picture quality. From hundreds to 300 zones, contrast also sees a significant increase, exceeding 10 times compared to hundreds of zones, leading to a notable improvement in overall picture quality.
However, once the number of backlight zones reaches 300, the increase in contrast slows down significantly. There is basically no difference between 500 zones and 300 zones, nor between 2000 and 2500 zones, and there is almost no improvement beyond 5000 zones. This means that in actual visuals, the naked eye cannot perceive any difference. So, if there is not much difference in picture quality between 500 and 300 zones, is it necessary to buy a more expensive display with more zones?
Of course, it is necessary. The reason is that displays are not only suitable for movie watching, AAA gaming, and similar scenarios where TVs are used and are less sensitive to light halos, but they also often serve professional design, video editing, text office work, etc., which have extremely strict requirements for picture quality or halos. Therefore, we cannot completely rely on the “Television Backlight Zone Standard” to define whether the number of zones in a display is sufficient.
Thus, the question of how many zones are enough needs to be defined by different scenarios. If you usually watch movies, TV shows, or play AAA games, a Mini LED backlit LCD display with over 300 zones will provide an amazing experience, far surpassing traditional backlit displays. Therefore, choosing mainstream Mini LED backlit LCD displays on the market with 384, 576, 1152, or 2304 zones will generally provide a relatively good experience.
For text office work, professional design, and video editing scenarios, the more zones in a Mini LED backlit LCD display, the better.
When choosing a Mini LED backlit LCD display, indeed, the more zones, the better the display effect. However, we should not only focus on the number of zones but also consider our actual usage needs and budget. The comprehensive performance of the display in various aspects should guide our choice. A display is not just about the number of zones; high color accuracy, wide color gamut, high resolution, high refresh rate, and rich interfaces are all factors to consider when purchasing a display. Users can prioritize different parameters based on their usage scenarios and needs.
INNOCN 27M2V High Refresh Rate Mini LED Art Display is a display that meets the needs of both professional design and high refresh gaming. With 1152 zones and 2304 Mini LED chips, it offers ultra-high brightness and high dynamic range, satisfying HDR1000, achieving precise light control, and bringing AAA game graphics and HDR videos to life; paired with a 4K resolution IPS LCD screen, it covers 99% DCI-P3 and 99% Adobe RGB wide color gamut, calibrated at the factory with color accuracy △<2, accurately restoring true colors, meeting professional design and editing needs; with a 160Hz refresh rate and 1ms fast response, it can handle competitive gaming with ease, meeting all your daily usage needs.
4. What Role Does Local Dimming Play in Mini LED Backlit Displays?
Local dimming controls the local dimming function of the Mini LED backlight. When enabled, it adjusts the local dimming of Mini LED zones to meet the needs of different usage scenarios. When enabled, bright areas appear brighter, and dark areas appear darker, presenting a higher dynamic range. The control logic for Mini LED chip switching and brightness is determined by the brightness required by the display area it manages. In high-brightness areas, Mini LEDs will present high brightness; in low-brightness areas, they will present low brightness; and in completely black areas, they will turn off completely.
Liquid crystal panels cannot completely block light penetration, so under backlight conditions, pure black cannot be displayed. This leads to a scenario where if a group of Mini LED chips corresponds to a display area with both high-brightness and pure black images, and the display determines that this group of Mini LEDs should be lit, the black image in that display area will allow a small amount of light to seep through, making the black less black. If the adjacent area displays pure black and the corresponding Mini LED chips are completely off, then there will be a brightness difference between the black images in these two areas, which is the cause of Mini LED halos. Furthermore, the higher the display brightness, the fewer zones there are, and the darker the environment, the more pronounced the halo effect will be.
When using a Mini LED display with local dimming enabled, you may notice halos when typing, coding, playing games, or watching videos with many dark scenes against a black background. Even when moving the mouse on a completely black background, you may see halos following the mouse movement. In the process of drawing, designers may misjudge the colors due to differing brightness levels of the backlight zones. Also, for fast-paced FPS games like “CS GO”, the local dimming function may affect players’ judgment of the visuals.
Therefore, it is recommended to disable local dimming when using dark system themes, coding in dark interfaces, creating with Adobe software, or playing competitive FPS games. However, for video playback or non-competitive FPS gaming scenarios, local dimming can be enabled to experience better visuals.
5. How to Adjust Local Dimming in the Menu?
INNOCN provides a manual control feature for halo control algorithms in the OSD menu of the display, called Backlight Contrast. The smaller the value of Backlight Contrast, the smaller the halo; the larger the value, the better the color accuracy. To achieve a smaller halo, adjust the Backlight Contrast towards 0; to achieve better color accuracy, adjust the Halo Control towards 100. Users can confirm adjustments using a pure black screen and a white circular area in the middle, setting the best balance point based on different usage scenarios.
6. How to Use the HDR Function of Mini LED Displays?
Windows System:
To enable HDR for gaming or video playback on Windows, first ensure your graphics card supports HDR, and that the cables connecting the display meet HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4 standards. Then, in the display’s OSD menu, turn on HDR. INNOCN displays offer various HDR modes with different color calibration options, allowing users to choose their preferred HDR mode.
Next, enable HDR on the Windows system. Go to the Settings feature in Windows, then System > Display > HDR settings, select the display you want to enable HDR for, and turn on the switch next to Use HDR. Ensure that the switch next to Play HDR Video is also turned on.
Finally, just use a player that supports HDR video and play HDR video with the correct settings, or enter a HDR-supported game and enable HDR in the game settings to fully enjoy the stunning visuals of the INNOCN Mini LED display with high contrast, wide color gamut, high brightness, and high dynamic range.
Mac System:
For Mac systems, similarly, first enable the HDR function in the display, then follow these steps to enable HDR mode on a Mac:
Click the Apple menu in the upper left corner;
Click System Preferences;
Click Displays;
Select the HDR display you want to use;
Click the Display tab and check the box next to High Dynamic Range.
After enabling HDR mode on Mac, you can use HDR playback software to start watching HDR videos.
Regarding HDR usage, here are some common questions:
Q- After enabling HDR mode in Windows settings, why does the display look very gray?
HDR signal transmission involves data sending and image parsing. Thus, when HDR is enabled in Windows, it transmits according to HDR data signals. The display also needs to synchronize with HDR. In normal desktop conditions, a 0-256 range of image information is sent, leading to dull visuals. In HDR sources or games, the image sent is in a 0-1024 range, resulting in normal brightness.
Q- After correctly enabling HDR mode, why are the brightness levels of non-HDR content either too low or too bright, or why can’t brightness be adjusted?
This is because after enabling HDR mode, the brightness of each pixel is determined by the brightness information contained in the received display signal. Therefore, after enabling HDR, the brightness cannot be manually adjusted, and since SDR content does not contain HDR brightness information, it can only be controlled by the system. You can set the brightness of SDR content in the Windows Settings under System > Display > HDR settings, in the SDR content brightness feature.