Liquid crystal display device and method of driving the same

A liquid crystal display device comprising:

• a liquid crystal panel having a plurality of pixel areas to display an image;
• a data driver configured to drive data lines of the liquid crystal panel;
• a dimming controller configured to generate a dimming value via modulation using any one value within a range from an average gray-level value to a maximum gray-level value of image data input from an external source, and to modulate the image data into modulated image data based on the dimming value and control drive time of a backlight unit based on the dimming value;
• a timing controller configured to allow transmission of the image data modulated by the dimming controller to the data driver, and to control the data driver;
• and
• the backlight unit configured to emit light to the liquid crystal panel in response to a drive signal from the dimming controller,
• wherein the dimming controller includes:
• a data analyzer configured to detect the average gray-level value and the maximum gray-level value of image data input from the external source or the timing controller on a per at least one frame basis;
• a dimming value setter configured to output the dimming value via modulation on a per at least one frame bases using the average gray-level value, the maximum gray-level value, or any one value between the average gray-level value and the maximum gray-level value detected on a per at least one frame basis;
• a data modulator configured to generate the modulated data by modulating the image data from the external source or the timing controller using the dimming value from the dimming value setter, the data driver driving the data lines based on the modulated image data;
• and
• a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) generator configured to generate the drive signal for conversion of a duty ratio based on the dimming value from the dimming value setter to thereby control drive time of the backlight unit.