May 4, 2022, 6:55 am | Read time: 11 minutes

Alongside smartphones and digital cameras, televisions are among the most dynamic tech sectors. New technologies hit the market annually to entice customers with fresh buying incentives. Manufacturers love to impress with cool, ad-friendly abbreviations. But what sounds cool isn’t always useful. In the worst case, conventional technology is sold under a new, appealing term. TECHBOOK clarifies which logos and terms to consider when buying a TV and which TV acronyms can be safely ignored.

QLED – stands for extremely bright images

As a leading TV brand, Samsung is particularly inventive in marketing televisions and boasts the latest QLED technology. This time, the South Korean manufacturer has also teamed up with Chinese companies Hisense and TCL to establish QLED. This is a rebranding of SUHD to QLED, as the new QLED TVs also use the so-called Quantum Dot technology (nano-crystals ensure high brightness and color diversity), which Samsung has been using in its SUHD TVs for two years.

The latest QLED displays provide an extremely high brightness of up to 4000 nits, significantly surpassing the OLED TVs of competitors. Those who watch TV in a bright environment benefit particularly from the strong luminosity.

Triluminos – Sony’s high color diversity

Sony has also come up with a striking name for its particularly color-rich TVs. The TV acronym here is Triluminos. Similar to Samsung, Sony uses Quantum Dot technology to produce particularly pure and numerous colors. The images benefit significantly from the expanded color space.

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OLED – excellent picture quality

OLED displays consist of organic light-emitting diodes. This means each pixel lights up on its own, eliminating the need for a backlight like in LCD TVs (whether SUHD, QLED, or Super UHD). This results in unmatched contrasts: A single pixel can be completely dark while an adjacent one is lit. This allows for excellent detail in dark scenes and the deepest blacks next to brighter image content. Additionally, manufacturers can build incredibly thin displays since no backlight needs to be installed in the housing.

However, this technology is expensive! The lifespan is also shorter than that of LCD TVs. OLED displays also don’t shine as brightly as Samsung’s QLED or LG’s Super UHD models. If you often use your TV in a bright environment, it’s better to opt for one of the new LCD TVs.

Mini-LED and Micro-LED – the future of TV?

Screens with LED backlighting have a significant advantage over OLED panels. Thanks to separate lighting, they can be significantly brighter. Technologies like local dimming already allow parts of the screen to be completely turned off. As a result, these areas are completely black, similar to OLED panels.

Mini-LED

LCD TVs with Mini-LEDs for illumination have many small LED diodes that can be individually turned on and off. This creates a much better contrast between brightly lit pixels and unlit pixels. The advantage: TVs with Mini-LEDs cost only slightly more than devices with conventional LED lighting. Nevertheless, they come close to the excellent contrast and black levels of an OLED TV.

Micro-LED

Micro-LEDs take it a step further. The tiny diodes measure just 50 micrometers in diameter–about one-hundredth of a normal LED. In TVs with standard diagonals and resolutions, this size roughly corresponds to a pixel. This means each pixel has its own backlight. LCDs with Micro-LED backlighting thus offer the advantages of an OLED panel: deep blacks and high contrast. Additionally, due to their design, they can be even brighter. TVs with Micro-LED backlighting can reach up to 5000 nits–no OLED TV can match that. Plus, thanks to LED technology, there’s no need to worry about OLED burn-in. However, this comes at a price. Currently, TVs with Micro-LEDs cost tens of thousands of euros. It will take some time before the technology becomes affordable for consumers.

Full-HD for smaller TVs

Technically, Full-HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) is outdated–at least that’s what TV manufacturers would have us believe. The fact is: The TV programming of private broadcasters in Germany is almost exclusively broadcast in Full-HD. Public broadcasters even still use the outdated 720p standard, which is only HD with a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels. Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube also offer most of their content in Full-HD rather than the higher-resolution UHD format.

Moreover, this resolution is perfectly adequate for smaller TVs unless you’re sitting just a meter away. The general rule is: For screens under 50 inches, you can still buy a Full-HD TV–and get a real bargain! From 50 inches and closer viewing distances, we recommend a TV with UHD or 4K resolution. Even if you’re only watching Full-HD formats, 4K TVs upscale to the fourfold resolution, making the picture appear sharper.

4K UHD for larger TVs

The TV acronym 4K UHD (Ultra High Definition) is standard in current TV models. It describes the screen resolution, which is 3840 x 2160 pixels and exactly four times higher than Full-HD TVs (1920 x 1080 pixels). As a result, image content looks particularly sharp on large TVs from 50 inches, even from a short distance. For TVs under 50 inches, a 4K resolution is usually not worth it.

Even content with a lower resolution looks better on a UHD TV. Through a process called “upscaling,” the TV optimizes the image content to the higher quality by upscaling the images. However, the best images are only achieved with content that truly runs in 4K UHD. These are available, for example, on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube.

8K can be skipped

TV manufacturers sell us 8K resolution as the next big leap in TV picture quality. It is the fourfold UHD resolution, or 7680 x 4320 pixels. It sounds spectacular, but at the moment, it mostly results in one thing: an empty bank account. 8K TVs are still very expensive.

The biggest problem: 8K content is extremely rare. Apart from a few videos on YouTube, the selection is still very limited. Otherwise, the new console generation–PS5 and Xbox Series X–supports 8K resolution. Some smartphones, like the Galaxy S21, can also record videos in 8K. Nevertheless, content with lower resolution also benefits as it is upscaled to the 8K format. However, this only makes sense for really large screen diagonals of about 75 inches or more.

HDR and HDR10 are confusing

The acronym HDR stands for “High Dynamic Range.” HDR videos have a greater brightness range and can display more contrast-rich images and deeper blacks. Every TV with the HDR acronym automatically has HDR10–where the 10 stands for the number of bits.

A conventional TV with 8-bit can display 256 color tone variations of the individual colors red, yellow, and blue (RGB). With 10-bit, there are 1024 gradations. This may not sound dramatic at first. In the end, however, an 8-bit panel can only display 16.7 million shades, while a 10-bit panel can display a whopping 16.7 billion (!).

The problem is that many manufacturers put an HDR logo on their TVs, even though they can’t truly reproduce HDR but can only process these contents to display them at all. These devices are usually recognizable by the addition “HDR Ready.” It’s best to ask the seller if it’s a “real” HDR display.

Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are future-proof

Dolby Vision is a proprietary HDR format. Like HDR10, Dolby Vision provides higher contrasts and a wider color gamut, but on an even higher level. Here, even 12-bit data is processed. In plain language, this means that panels with Dolby Vision can display 68.7 billion colors. Another difference from HDR10: The Dolby Vision metadata stored in the film files is not static but dynamic. This means producers can set optimal values for each scene and each image, while HDR10 makes a compromise setting for the entire film. The problem with Dolby Vision: Companies wishing to use it must pay licensing fees to Dolby, making the TVs more expensive in the end.

An alternative to Dolby Vision is the license-free HDR10+, which also works dynamically. Apart from dynamic metadata, the difference from regular HDR10 is marginal. HDR10+ still offers 10-bit color depth and the same maximum brightness.

Ultra HD Premium – guaranteed good

Because the many TV acronyms have become so confusing, the “Ultra HD Premium” logo was created. This guarantees a UHD standard with HDR10 playback. This means you are buying a TV at a very high level with excellent picture quality. Only Dolby Vision and the new HDR10+ standard can surpass it.

SUHD – outdated term

When the trend towards very bright and high-contrast displays became apparent, Samsung invented the term “SUHD” to distinguish its top models from standard UHD TVs. These displays are not only particularly bright but also offer a high color diversity. The limitation compared to higher-priced devices is not the resolution, which remains at 4K UHD. The difference is that SUHD devices always use LCD panels and not the more expensive OLED variants. However, this is actually a marketing invention–which Samsung has now replaced with QLED.

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Super UHD – LG marketing invention

This is a marketing term from TV manufacturer LG. Under the name “Super UHD,” TVs are marketed that meet both HDR10 and Dolby Vision requirements, are particularly slim, and are supposed to have good sound. However, this is not an independently certified, cross-manufacturer designation. Only LG decides what is sold as “Super UHD.”

Flat and Curved – purely a matter of taste

To give customers a new buying incentive, displays were simply bent inward. Under the TV acronym “Curved,” all curved TVs are sold. It not only looks spectacular but is also supposed to draw the viewer more into the action, especially with a large diameter.

What sounds good also has drawbacks. Especially if you’re sitting to the side, this effect turns negative. And hanging on the wall, it looks odd. So maybe it’s better to go for a flat TV (Flat-TV).

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HDMI-ARC and HDMI-CEC – sensible connection

There is also confusion with connection standards. Two formats are particularly interesting for users: The TV acronym HDMI-ARC means that a TV can not only receive audio signals, for example from a Blu-ray player, but also output an audio signal. This is especially important today, as many customers complement their TV with a soundbar and then only need a single HDMI cable.

HDMI-CEC is important if you want to control multiple devices with just one remote. These must then be connected to the TV via HDMI cable, like a soundbar, a Blu-ray player, or a surround system. However, TV manufacturers are also inventive here and have their own names for the HDMI-CEC standard. At Samsung, it’s called Anynet+, at Sony Bravia Sync, and at Philips EasyLink.

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Conclusion on TV acronyms

If you want to buy a TV, it should have a UHD resolution–provided the screen size is at least 50 inches. In the future, there will be more and more UHD channels and content. If you want excellent picture quality, you should carefully consider the extra cost for Dolby Vision and HDR10 technology.

If you see the TV acronym “Ultra HD Premium,” you can go for it, as it guarantees a high picture standard that supports HDR10+–but not necessarily Dolby Vision.

SUHD, QLED, Super UHD, and Triluminos, on the other hand, are marketing terms from TV manufacturers. They mark the respective top models with the latest technology but thus evade reliable certification, as is the case with the Ultra-Premium logo or Dolby Vision.

For connection standards, you should check whether the desired TV supports HDMI-ARC and HDMI-CEC.