The Engineer Guy Breaks Down An LCD Monitor, Informatively

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Thursday, March 17th, 2011


We all know basically how an LCD works — there’s a backlight, there are pixels, sub-pixels, and so on. But I was unaware of the polarizing crystals and the reasoning behind top-down refreshes. Bill Hammack from the U of Illinois (and one of my favorite video bloggers right now) shows us what’s what in this great video.

One thing that was not made clear: what about the difference between IPS and lower-grade monitors, offset sub-pixel layouts, or superior methods of backlighting? Guess we’ll have to find out on our own.