LED backlit panels gained increasing prominence in the broadcast industry in 2008. As you would expect from a market leader, for over a year now, Autocue’s in-house design and manufacturing team have been working with panel industry experts and customers to evaluate the benefits offered. The conclusion – that this technology does not yet offer our teleprompting customers sufficient value to justify the price premium, and to overcome the potential ‘end of life’ risks.

These new LED backlit panels use hundreds of individual LED lights rather than traditional fluorescent tubing to give a more consistent distribution of brightness and greater contrast. In theory, this should make text easier to read, even at lower levels of brightness. Some prompting companies and panel manufacturers claim that the panels will also dramatically reduce power consumption, heat and the on-camera weight.
Autocue put these claims to the test by comparing 19-20” LCD panels with LED backlights alongside those with fluorescent backlights. The contrast ratio was indeed much higher in the LED backlit panel. However, the two monitors were identical in weight, and at the same level of brightness, the LED backlit panel actually required 8% more power. To test ‘readbility’, we put the two panels side by side on our stand at IBC 2008 and offered customers the opportunity to make a determination. Around 75% of customers found the existing fluorescent backlit panels easier to read, with only 20% of customers preferring the new LED backlit panels (the remainder saw no significant difference).

These tests cast significant doubt over the benefits offered by the current generation of LED backlit panels, and there are further concerns. Whilst LEDs have reduced significantly in price, the panels are still around 20% more expensive than traditional fluorescent backlit panels. Also, as with any new technology of this kind, there are still question marks over the ‘end of life’ of the product. The Mean Time Between Failures (MTBFs) for the LEDs in the backlights are still very theoretical as they are very dependent on heat. Even if a single LED were to fail and require replacement, the repair and cost is the same as if an entire panel were to fail.

Of the 200 customers that evaluated the technology at IBC, none of them (even those that found the LED backlit panels more readable) would be willing to pay the extra 20% premium for the LED product. According to our research, this view is clearly reflected in the product ranges of the five leading panel manufacturers, i.e. Samsung, LG, AUO, CMO and Sharp. Sharp will be the first to offer a panel larger than 15”, namely a 19” model that will be finished mid-2009. All of the others are focusing on smaller panel sizes (less than 15”) to increase their experience and determine the long-term reliability of the technology. This means that currently none of the leading manufacturers are offering a panel in the 15-20” size range - the teleprompting standard for broadcast studios around the world.

In summary, our testing and industry research suggests that LED backlit panels do not yet offer sufficient value to teleprompting customers to justify the price premium and the ‘end of life’ risks. We will continue to monitor developments in the technology, together with other technologies in the pipeline, including OLED. Once the technology is ready, our existing design can easily be adapted to integrate the new panels, as was the case in the move from CRT to LCD in the 1990s. For now, we will continue to look for ways to enhance the experience of our customers through improvements in the LCD panels we use (a new generation will be unveiled at NAB 2009), our mounting hardware, and in the functionality of our proprietary software.

By Frank Hyman, CEO Autocue Group.