Patent ID: 7505027

Claim:
A backlit display, comprising: a backlight to output light at a controllable luminance level; and a light valve to control, per pixel, transmittance of light from said backlight to create an image, wherein in each of a plurality of areas that constitute at least part of said image, luminance of said backlight is controllable in a first manner based upon a first determined brightness property value relating to brightness of said image to be displayed in said each area, and wherein control of said luminance of said backlight is switchable to control in a second manner, different from said control performed in the first manner, based upon a second determined brightness property value relating to brightness of said image to be displayed in said each area, the second brightness property being different from the first brightness property, wherein control in the first manner includes one of luminance attenuation and luminance increase and control in the second manner includes the other one of luminance attenuation and luminance increase.