An adaptive dimming technique controls both LCD panel transmittance and its backlight luminance adequately and locally according to the input TV signal. The technique reduces the power consumption and also improves the picture quality. However, a steep change in backlight luminance distribution due to the application of the technique causes image degradation around the boundary of the segments when the LCD is viewed from an angle. The main factor of image degradation is the illumination of a pixel by neighboring pixel's corresponding backlight when the LCD is viewed from an angle rather than normal direction. From the subjective evaluation of image quality and computer simulation, it is found that the gradient of the backlight luminance variation to luminance at the border of the segment should be less than 0.022 per pixel in order to suppress the image degradation.