TVs

Tech 11 Sep 2026 9 min read

What Local Dimming Changes on LCD TVs and Monitors

A dark movie scene can expose a basic limitation of an LCD screen. The picture may show a bright lamp against a black night sky, yet the supposedly black parts look grey. On another LCD, the same scene can have much deeper dark areas while the lamp stays bright. One feature that can create this difference is local dimming. Instead of running the entire backlight at one brightness, a local-dimming LCD can reduce the light behind dark parts of the picture while keeping other areas brighter. This can improve contrast, especially in high dynamic range (HDR) video, but the result depends heavily on the backlight design and the system that controls it.

Displays LCD

Tech 11 Sep 2026 10 min read

Variable Refresh Rate: What It Changes on a Display

A game can run at 60 frames per second one moment and 53 the next. A conventional display, meanwhile, may refresh on a fixed schedule. When those two rhythms do not line up, motion can show tearing or uneven pacing even when the average frame rate seems reasonable. Variable refresh rate (VRR) changes that relationship. Instead of requiring the display to refresh at one fixed interval, compatible hardware can vary the timing of refreshes so they follow frame delivery more closely.

Displays Monitors

Tech 09 Sep 2026 8 min read

How HDMI ARC and eARC Send TV Sound to a Soundbar

Connecting a streaming box or game console to a TV is easy to picture: the source sends video and audio toward the TV. A soundbar creates a less obvious problem. If the TV is receiving the sound, how does that sound travel back out through an HDMI cable to the soundbar? That is the job of Audio Return Channel, usually called ARC. Its newer counterpart, Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), serves the same basic purpose while supporting more demanding audio formats and improving parts of the connection process.

HDMI Audio