What Is True RGB, and Why Does It Matter?

Television picture quality has advanced considerably in recent years, but True RGB technology represents a significant new development in how an LED television creates colour.  Designed to deliver richer, purer, and more consistent colour, True RGB brings together independently controlled red, green, and blue LEDs with Sony’s advanced backlight-control technology.

The result is a picture with impressive brightness, colour depth, contrast, and subtle gradation, helping films, television programmes, sport, and games look more natural and immersive.

How does a conventional LED television create colour?

An LED television uses a backlight to illuminate the LCD panel that forms the picture.  Many conventional LED and Mini LED televisions use blue LEDs combined with colour-conversion materials to create the white light required by the display.

The LCD panel then controls how much of this light passes through each red, green, and blue sub-pixel.  This approach can produce excellent results, particularly when combined with precise local dimming, but the quality of the final image depends on the purity of the backlight and the television’s ability to manage brightness and colour accurately.

What makes Sony True RGB different?

Sony True RGB uses separate red, green, and blue LED light sources within the backlight.  These three primary colours can emit light independently, rather than relying on a conventional single-colour LED backlight to create the required spectrum of light.

Sony’s proprietary RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro technology precisely controls these individual red, green, and blue light sources.  The television can therefore adjust the intensity of each primary colour according to the scene being displayed.

This gives the television much greater control over both colour and brightness.  Instead of simply making the entire picture brighter, the system can direct the appropriate light and colour to the areas where they are needed.

Purer and more vivid colour

Because the red, green, and blue light sources are independently controlled, True RGB can produce highly pure primary colours.  This helps the television reproduce a wider range of colours while retaining subtle differences between similar shades.

A vivid red landscape, a deep blue sky, natural green foliage, or the delicate tones of a person’s skin can therefore be displayed with greater richness and precision.  Importantly, the aim is not simply to make every colour more intense.  It is to reproduce colour more accurately, preserving the balance and detail intended by the content creator.

Greater colour volume

Colour gamut describes the range of colours a television can reproduce.  Colour volume goes further by considering how well the television maintains those colours at different brightness levels.

Some displays can reproduce a wide range of colours at moderate brightness but may lose saturation as the image becomes brighter.  True RGB is designed to maintain rich, accurate colour across a broader brightness range.

This is particularly valuable with HDR content, where bright highlights, deep shadows, and strongly saturated colours can appear together in the same scene.  By independently controlling the three primary light sources, the television can produce brighter colours without causing them to look pale or washed out.

Better contrast and more precise light control

A great television picture requires more than brightness alone.  The screen must also control where that brightness appears while retaining detail in darker areas.

RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro manages the brightness of the red, green, and blue LEDs with high precision.  This improves control of bright objects against dark backgrounds and helps reduce unwanted light spreading into surrounding areas, commonly known as blooming.

The system is also designed to preserve subtle details at both ends of the brightness range.  Bright areas can retain their colour and texture without appearing clipped, while darker scenes can reveal more detail without losing their depth.

Smooth gradation and subtle shading

Many cinematic scenes rely on gentle transitions between different colours and levels of brightness.  Examples include the changing tones of a sunset, a softly lit face, mist moving through a landscape, or shadows across a dark interior.

True RGB combines independent colour control with sophisticated signal processing to reproduce these transitions smoothly.  This helps prevent abrupt bands of colour and allows delicate shades to remain visible, giving the picture a more natural sense of depth.

Consistent colour from a wider viewing angle

Picture quality can change when an LCD television is viewed from the side.  Colours may appear less accurate, and brightness can reduce as the viewing position moves away from the centre of the screen.

Sony uses precise RGB LED control and its viewing-angle technology to help maintain colour accuracy and gradation from a wider range of seating positions.  This makes True RGB particularly useful in larger living rooms, where viewers may not always be sitting directly in front of the television.

Designed for real living rooms

Televisions are often watched in rooms with daylight, lamps, and other sources of ambient light.  A display therefore needs sufficient brightness and colour volume to prevent the picture from appearing flat or faded.

True RGB is designed to produce rich colour and strong contrast in these everyday viewing conditions.  The increased colour volume helps vivid shades remain convincing at higher brightness levels, while the television’s processing adapts the picture to the content being shown.

The flagship BRAVIA 9 II also includes Sony’s Immersive Black Screen Pro screen treatment, which is designed to reduce glare and reflections while preserving deep blacks in brighter rooms.

Created to respect the filmmaker’s vision

Sony has extensive experience in professional cameras, mastering monitors, film production, and cinema technology.  This expertise has influenced the development of True RGB, with the aim of reproducing the colour, brightness, gradation, and detail intended by filmmakers and other content creators.

The BRAVIA 9 II and BRAVIA 7 II also include Studio Calibrated picture modes for compatible streaming services.  These modes are designed to present supported content with picture settings tailored to the service and the creative intent behind it.

Which televisions feature True RGB?

True RGB is available on Sony’s BRAVIA 9 II and BRAVIA 7 II television ranges.

The BRAVIA 9 II is Sony’s flagship True RGB television and features the company’s most advanced backlight-control system.  It combines RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro with RGB Triluminos Max and Luminance Booster Pro to deliver Sony’s highest level of True RGB picture performance.

The BRAVIA 7 II brings the core benefits of True RGB to a wider selection of screen sizes.  It uses independently controlled three-colour RGB LEDs and RGB Backlight Master Drive Pro to produce rich colour, high brightness, strong contrast, and impressive picture depth.

Is True RGB the same as OLED?

No.  True RGB and OLED create images in different ways.

In an OLED television, each pixel produces its own light and can switch off individually.  This gives OLED exceptional control of black levels and contrast.

True RGB is an advanced LCD television technology that uses a separately controlled RGB LED backlight behind the LCD panel.  Its strengths include high brightness, a large colour volume, pure primary colours, and strong picture performance in bright living rooms.

Both can deliver excellent picture quality, but they use different display technologies to achieve it.

A new generation of Sony BRAVIA colour

True RGB is more than a new name for a conventional LED television.  It is Sony’s complete approach to generating and controlling red, green, and blue light independently within an advanced television backlight.

By combining pure RGB light sources, precise backlight control, advanced processing, and Sony’s experience in professional imaging, True RGB is designed to reproduce colour with greater richness, accuracy, and consistency.

Whether you are watching a cinematic drama, live sport, a nature documentary, or the latest game, True RGB allows every colour, highlight, shadow, and subtle shade to contribute to a more convincing picture.

Discover Sony True RGB on the BRAVIA 9 II and BRAVIA 7 II, available at the Guernsey Electricity shop.

Take a look at the full range of Sony televisions.