dp, the inverter is the power supply for the ccfl backlight & is necissary.
also, I've seen mention of those led strips being 5,000 nit's & worrying about it being too bright, well just fyi, that rating is the light itself directly measured, but when placed in an lcd the lcd itself blocks/absorbs the majority of this light, a lcd brightness measured after passing thru the panel is aprox only 10% of that, the lcd itself will block around 90% of the available backlight, which is why super bright is needed for an end result that's pretty bright.
a 5,000 nit backlight with all taken into acount would give an end result of aprox 500 nit screen, & these #'s can vary slightly depending on the optics & diffusers used in the panel, add a touchscreen & you may be looking at an end result of less than 400 nit screen. it would be nice though if you could just drop one of these in & have a 5,000 nit screen, now wouldn't it
