Patent ID: 8804071

Claim:
A liquid crystal display device, comprising: a liquid crystal panel having a width in a first direction and a length in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction; a backlight unit comprising a light source section facing a rear surface of the liquid crystal panel, the light source section comprising a substrate and a plurality of light sources arranged on the substrate to face the rear surface of the liquid crystal panel, the light source section having a width in a first direction and a length in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the light source section being oriented so that the length of the light source section corresponds to the length of the liquid crystal display panel; a plurality of lenses facing the rear surface of the liquid crystal display panel, respective ones of the plurality of lenses being located between respective ones of the plurality of light sources and the rear surface of the liquid crystal panel; and a control device for controlling luminance of the plurality of light sources, wherein: the width of the light source section is smaller than the width of the liquid crystal panel; the liquid crystal panel is sectioned into a plurality of illumination zones that extend in the first direction and are arranged side by side along the second direction the plurality of light sources are arranged along the length of the light source section; the plurality of light sources are respectively assigned to the plurality of illumination zones so that one or a plurality of ones of the light sources are assigned to respective ones of the illumination zones defined on the liquid crystal panel, the plurality of lenses respectively expand light from the plurality of light sources toward the plurality of illumination zones of the liquid crystal panel; and the control device controls the luminance of each of the one or the plurality of ones of the plurality of light sources assigned to each of the plurality of illumination zones, separately, based on video data input to the control device.