Subjective comparison of brightness preservation methods for local backlight dimming displays

Local backlight dimming is a popular technology in high quality Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). In those displays, the backlight is composed of contributions from several individually adjustable backlight segments, set at different backlight luminance levels in different parts of the screen, according to the luma of the target image displayed on LCD.

Typically, transmittance of the liquid crystal cells (pixels) located in the regions with dimmed backlight is increased in order to preserve their relative brightness with respect to the pixels located in the regions with bright backlight. There are different methods for brightness preservation for local backlight dimming displays, producing images with different visual characteristics.

In this study, we have implemented, analyzed and evaluated several different approaches for brightness preservation, and conducted a subjective study based on rank ordering to compare the relevant methods on a real-life LCD with a local backlight dimming capability. In general, our results show that locally adapted brightness preservation methods produce more preferred visual outcome than global methods, but dependency on the content is also observed.

Based on the results, guidelines for selecting the perceptually preferred brightness preservation method for local backlight dimming displays are outlined.