Technically LED TV’s are very similar to LCD TVs and belong to the same family. The main display on a LCD TV is the same liquid crystal display as on any other LCD TV. What differs in a LED TV is how the backlighting is provided in it, which can change the picture quality drastically.

Regular LCD TVs use a form of fluorescent lighting from tubes and can also use a vast array of flat lights, whereas LED TVs use light emitting diodes to light the panel. As the types of fluorescent lights in regular LED TVs differ, there are different types of backlighting techniques for LED TVs also. For example, Sony, which is one of the leading brands of LED TVs have a panel of LEDs behind the LCD panel, and the LEDs used are tri-colored, which allow them to be controlled in banks, resulting in a feature called “local dimming”. This dimming allows for a better contrast and black levels by allowing the darker areas of the picture to have the backlighting dimmed behind them. Some manufactures boast really thin LED TVs as a result of the LED lights surrounding the edge of the panel. But since they do no feature local dimming they are practically the same as LCD TVs in terms of picture quality.

So we will be discussing how local dimming LED TVs differ from LCD TVs.

• Contrast Levels : To create darkened areas in the picture, LCD TVs have to block the light by twisting the crystals to a closed position therefore providing a low-contrast ratio and lesser detailed darker areas of the picture. This shortcoming of LCD TVs has been corrected using the local dimming technology to create darker blacks and a better picture.
• Color Accuracy : With LED’s used just for backlighting the two technologies don’t differ too much. But by using RGB led’s or a color wheel LED tvs are capable of displaying realistic colors.
• Viewing Angles : There is no doubt that LCD TVs have improved their viewing angles but even then this technology suffers from this shortcoming and even higher end LCD TVs suffer from contrast degradation when viewed from an angle even at a short angle of 30 degrees from the center. However LED TVs have done a great deal in improving the viewing angle, which in some cases is even higher than that of plasma TVs.
• Fast moving video playback : The capability of dsplaying a fast moving video without any judder is the function of the refresh rate and the response time of a TV which has nothing to do with the backlighting technique used one should  always compare these parameters before making a purchase.
• Longetivity : even though LED tv’s are new in the market and haven’t got much history, companies do claim a life of approximately 100,000 hours from their televisions.
• Power Consumption : The edge lit LED TVs do consume less power than a LCD tv of the same size, local dimming LED tv’s however consume a lot more power and are close to the power consumption of plasma TVs.

So for those looking for a better picture quality, and are not so concerned about power consumption local dimming LED tv’s are the smarter choice.