00:00Hey guys, I just got back from Tokyo where I had a semi-exclusive look at Sony's latest display
00:06technology that's in the pipeline for 2026. And as you probably already guessed by the title of
00:11this video, it's RGB mini LED. And while Sony isn't the first TV manufacturer to announce
00:16development for RGB mini LED TVs, from what I've seen with my own eyes, it could be a game changer
00:23for large screen displays. Let's break it down. Though I do have to clarify outright that I really
00:27wasn't allowed to film anything, but I could take one photo and you'll see it on later in this video.
00:32Otherwise, everything else is imagery provided by Sony for reporting purposes. So put this in the
00:38context of traditional QLED displays. Those rely on a white LED backlight that passes through the
00:44quantum dot sheet to produce color. But Sony's RGB mini LED system takes a different approach.
00:50Each pixel doesn't just get brightness, it gets color directly from the backlight itself. Instead
00:55of relying on a single white light source, it uses red, green, and blue LEDs within to control
01:01colors independently across all the dimming zones. This means that in a perfect world where all the
01:06LEDs are controlled properly, a larger color volume, sharper color peaks, limited blooming,
01:11purer reds, and hopefully dramatically improved color accuracy. I mentioned color volume. Sony is
01:17saying that the color volume of its RGB mini LED backlight prototype they demoed is four times larger
01:23than Sony's A95L QD OLED, which is considered by pretty much everyone to be the best OLED TV on the
01:29market. Actually, having had the chance to see both side by side, I could see in real time the RGB
01:35mini LED tech keeping colors rich and saturated even in darker areas of the screen, maintaining detail
01:41and those shadows where traditional displays tend to lose it. I so wish I could show you the way Sony
01:47had it set up, especially the one demo where the backlight was switching between just using white
01:52versus the RGBs, and the difference was very significant, especially when it came to off-angle
01:57viewing and limiting color distortion. They're, again, something that's usually considered to be a
02:01benefit of OLED. But one of the biggest advantages over OLED? No screen size limitations. Because this
02:07technology isn't constrained by organic materials, it can scale up to massive displays over 100 inches
02:14with apparently no loss in quality. Again, however, that has to do with control. Sony is claiming that
02:19the precision of this backlight is next level. The prototype I saw has 66-bit backlight control.
02:25That's just wild compared to even the 22-bit control on Sony's current Bravia 9 mini LED TV
02:31powered by that next-gen driver I showed you the last time I went to the HQ. I know I've been complaining
02:36about how I can't show you much, but Sony actually did bring out a very small condensed version of an
02:42RGB mini LED backlight and threw up my initials. I'll show it here. It's really not as effective as
02:47the demos I saw of the backlight in action with actual footage, but at least you can see a little
02:52bit of those colored LEDs. It doesn't feel totally appropriate to call what I saw a concept. Sony has
02:57clearly been working on this for many years, and I definitely expect we'll see more to come.
03:02A lot of people, maybe more specifically TV enthusiasts, are definitely tracking RGB mini
03:07LED as one of the next big innovations, so there's a lot at stake for which manufacturer manages to do
03:13it best. Bottom line, Sony's RGB mini LED isn't just another incremental upgrade. It's a completely
03:20new way of handling backlight technology that could finally bring OLED-level contrast, viewing angles,
03:26and color accuracy to massive screen sizes. It's still in development, again, Sony isn't assigning it
03:31to any actual product for the time being, but if what I saw in Tokyo is anything to go by,
03:37we'll be paying attention, so make sure you subscribe to this channel, hit that like button,
03:40and let me know what you think about what Sony is up to in the TV labs.
03:44Otherwise, that's it for me. Thanks for watching, you guys. I'll catch you next time.
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