2025 was the beginning of the end of the TV brightness war

Much for illustration the audio industry’s compression-driven loudness war, which reached its distortion-fueled apex (and not the bully kind) pinch Metallica’s Death Magnetic successful 2008, the tv manufacture has been having its ain conflict the past mates of years: the brightness war. Sparked by the preamble of HDR and its higher brightness mastering levels, brands began to push show exertion to execute the basal ray output for HDR movies.

As we deed the 10th day of HDR’s preamble (to the user space, astatine least), 2025 felt for illustration a caller crescendo successful the “who tin beryllium brighter” back-and-forth betwixt brands. Not only did we get our first 5,000-nit TVs (albeit nether very circumstantial settings) from TCL and Hisense, we besides sewage a large measurement guardant successful OLED exertion pinch Primary RGB Tandem exertion from LG Display. It was only a short while agone that TVs were struggling to deed 2,000 nits — now they are tin of much than doubly that brightness.

While I don’t deliberation the brightness warfare has reached its Death Magnetic moment, 2025 could beryllium a precursor to specified a reckoning.

The biggest TV technological accomplishment we saw successful 2025 was Primary RGB Tandem panels successful displays from LG, for illustration the LG G5, the Panasonic Z95B, and the Philips OLED950 and OLED910 (neither of which is disposable successful the US aliases Australia). It was a important alteration successful OLED sheet composition, moving from a three-stack sheet consisting of a yellowish furniture sandwiched betwixt 2 bluish layers to a four-stack creation pinch a red-blue-green-blue furniture configuration. This greatly improved the imaginable ray output from the OLED sheet (LG Display claims up to 4,000 nits) and colour purity.

Not to beryllium outdone, companies for illustration TCL and Hisense followed successful the footsteps of Sony and its Bravia 9 from 2024, expanding the capacity of mini-LED displays to staggering levels. Improvements were besides made successful backlight control, combatting the biggest drawback successful LED TVs — achromatic levels that suffer from ray blooming — bringing their achromatic level capacity moreover person to OLEDs. Both Hisense and TCL expanded the section dimming capacity of their TVs, and TCL decreased the optical region betwixt the backlight and the screen, minimizing blooming moreover further.

2025 besides saw the preamble of a caller TV exertion to the user market. The mini-LED tech that’s (literally) down high-end and midrange LED TVs uses achromatic aliases bluish LEDs pinch quantum dots aliases colour filters to create colored light. But astatine CES 2025, Hisense showed disconnected its caller RGB mini-LED, which uses individual mini red, green, and bluish LED backlights. TCL precocious announced its ain RGB mini-LED — the Q10M — which will first beryllium released successful China. And Samsung showed disconnected its ain type of the tech, but called it micro-RGB because the individual backlights are moreover smaller (this is not to beryllium confused pinch the emissive micro-LED exertion Samsung has been processing for years). When I saw it successful August it was perfectly stunning. The TV has unthinkable brightness and vibrant colors. Sony has besides been processing RGB TV technology, which it’s confirmed to maine will beryllium debuted successful the outpouring of 2026.

The imaginable of this RGB exertion is huge, but the manufacturing challenges of it and the processing required intends they’re each massively expensive, ranging from $12,000 up to $30,000, depending connected shaper and size. Still, I afloat expect tons of breathtaking news astatine CES 2026 — and successful the months aft — astir much TVs pinch mini-RGB (or micro-RGB, successful Samsung’s case) technology. For example, erstwhile I talked to Samsung astatine the uncover arena for the micro-RGB TV, it said breathtaking things were connected the sky for the TV. That could mean much manageable sizes (maybe a 65-inch model), moreover if it doesn’t mean much accessible pricing. The truth that the micro-RGB LEDs are truthful mini could let them to beryllium packed person together successful smaller TVs. Here’s hoping.

With each of these technological innovations, though, comes the imaginable for moreover higher brightness. This tin beryllium useful for combating ambient ray successful a sun-drenched surviving room, but it could besides origin you to squint if the ray is excessively agleam successful a darker environment.

Extra brightness isn’t inherently bad. But if we already person mini-LED TVs tin of 5,000 nits, which should theoretically beryllium capable to show HDR contented mastered astatine 4,000 nits (currently the highest brightness mastering level), is location a request to proceed to push beyond that? Since OLED is still down mini-LED erstwhile it comes to brightness, we’ll apt spot continued betterment there. But if mini-LED manufacturers are pushing brightness simply for the expertise to opportunity they’re the brightest, a amended usage of resources would beryllium to create amended image processing and improved achromatic level performance.

At the tallness of the loudness war, compression — the instrumentality relied upon to make audio tracks louder — became overused and diminished move range, robbing euphony of its nuance. Loud for the liking of being large ruined galore recordings. Thankfully, the manufacture has successful wide backed disconnected from that a bit, chiefly because of loudness specifications from streaming services (which has its ain group of issues). In the aforesaid way, an image that’s agleam for the liking of being agleam is arsenic harsh connected the eyes arsenic a highly compressed audio way is connected the ears. There will, astatine immoderate constituent soon, beryllium a infinitesimal erstwhile it’s been pushed excessively far.

What it comes down to is really good a TV will grip each of the brightness it’s tin of. Will it blast america pinch ray — a ocular type of Death Magnetic — aliases will it usage its processing to springiness america dazzling specular highlights? The reply is not really agleam a TV tin get, but really good its brightness tin beryllium utilized to create an engaging image that dazzles and entertains us.