Abstract— The contrast and power consumption of today's liquid‐crystal displays (LCDs) can be improved substantially by introducing (local) dimming backlights. In fact, infinite dynamic contrast and power savings of well over 50% have been claimed for such displays. Because these claims are generally made for very specific backlight designs and image content, the contrast gain and power savings are quantified as a function of the number of backlight segments for a large variety of image content.