Are direct LED Walls really that good?

[w.mayer]

Form the CES Sony Event.

Take a look especially the 2th picture in full resolution!

[donaldk]

I can't do full resolution/size viewing but even on my old laptop LCD it shows the tiles and the module edges.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Due to shinny nature The cled tiles are definitely more visible than the Samsung wall.

In the Samsung and Silicon core the black lines are misalignments in the  z axis.

When I first  went up to see the Samsung 1.5 at corporate. (This panel displays a 10 bit signal at 8 bit. The new one subjectively looks 12 bit by comparison.) The image was riddled by black lines and white lines. However the same 2.4 type panel was spectacularly well aligned The most structure free led tile display I have ever seen was the Samsung signage 2.4 on a huge display  outside of the Samsung cues 2018 booth.

So the existing Samsung 8 bit panels trully can be seamless. The installers came from the factory on Christmas’s day and started assembling the huge wall.

Very comforting to see, as I was very worried.

As to the wall, we have ordered 2 percent of the global production, We are now collaborating at the highest factory level.

[donaldk]

Peter, 'The Wall' is completely different technology as the current crop of SMD LED wall Samsung is selling into signage and Cinema. The Micro LED modules are made up of small tiles of tiny leds embedded in the surface material. These tiles are pre-assembled into the modules, so the front to back alignment does not rely on your team's workmanship, but on the quality control in the factory. And since we have been able to see the structure in the Sony on multiple occassions, it is something to be concerned about/make sure it is not bothersome in these MicroLED displays.

[w.mayer]

I talk with some people that saw the Samsung "The Wall TV" at CES 2018 some weeks ago.

They report to me that they do not like the reflections that you can see in this picture down beside
that they can see the gabs and the modules.
Like me when I saw last year the CELED from Sony I ask myself are this really the future?

As I have post many times already Pr. are not dead they just need some new Innovation to catch up with Black Level and HDR.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

https://youtu.be/9cW-D5Mj2ZU

You can see the reflections of light but it does not act like cled like a mirror. It is less reflective like a tv.

When i first saw the the 1.5 smd samsung  it was really bad in the module alignment, then at ces the same smd was perfect on 4 x 3 meters, the korean techs know how to fix that.

Now the wall Cabinets are really big

Cabinet size is 806.4mm x 453.6mm

-      Module size is 100.8mm x 151.2mm

The one in Vegas the upper right cabinet must have been whacked at shipping as there was a gap between 2 modules. That being said how they were able to make the module seams from mediocre to excellent in 3 months, i believe module visibility will be perfected the same way.


But i agree projection will make a comeback when barco perfects the new zone dimming like tech, just hope they ditch the blu laser too.

[donaldk]

The gloss is noticable indeed. I was told i need glasses, as without a pointer i would not see the gap/module edge. And even then, of course Samsung was wised up from Sony demo's the cord was at least three meters away. Sony's initial showing at IBC was without guard. The guard distance at the CLED demo's has been growing, but is still considerably shorter than at the The Wall demo at ISE. There was only one prototype, so at ISE we saw the same unit as shown at CES. It was flown in from the US.

Content showed a lot of blue and green, little blacks, so that would mask such artifacts.

However ArrowAV posted elsewhere that he got the promise, via email, there would be no discernable edges and modules at two meters, in the final product.

I must say the Samsung 1.2mm pitch SMD LED HD was one of the best looking Regular LED demos at ISE. If I remember correctly it consisted of only 4 modules. So not many gaps to show to begin with, though of course with SMD you get small substrates that may cause edges within the modules. But the Delta HD display was also only 4 modules and looked less good.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Also the glass is optional on the wall, you can get a mat finish. Where they showing the upcoming 1.2, or the 1.5?

[donaldk]

There were two 1.2 mm pitch HD units upon the outside wall of the Samsung booth. Samsung basically has its own small hall, but there is also an entrance/exit, aswell as an escalator at that hall, so the booth was delimited by a wall, and sometimes a ribbon next to the Samsung information/welcome desk/reception.

And somewhat over zealous scanner ladies, scanning you three times in five minutes. Sending you back to get scanned again.

Samsungs' Cinema liason said Samsung does have a 0.9mm pitch LED display somewhere in its product portfolio, but I have never seen that mentioned anywhere. Samsung Display Solutions has only been promoting the IF 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 for the past few years. Now it is promoting the Flip;-).

[Peter CINERAMAX]

In its NAB opening press conference, the media were able to get a full briefing on all of Sony’s new equipment for broadcast and cinema production. Most of the event was focused on cameras and other workflow equipment for broadcast production. But not all of it!

While we won’t get into the details suffice it to say that broadcasting is becoming far more agile, flexible and efficient with trends for cloud operations, remote production, and IP solutions. All of Sony’s equipment will get SMPTE ST-2110 support for video over IP very soon, for example.



For me the biggest impression was the 8Kx4K (32’ x 18’ 9.75 x 5.5m) CLED display. This is an RGB microLED video wall solution that was not only massive but showed incredible images – most of the time. I say most of the time because content that was shot at 24 or 30 fps showed huge amounts of judder when viewed close up. It decreased a bit with distance, but was still noticeable. Judder is known to be more perceivable as brightness increases and as the screen size increases (In my view, also as the resolution increases - Man. Ed.). Judder that was not objectionable on SDR content can now become objectionable if produced in HDR.

Field of view matters too because large FOVs engage more of your peripheral vision, which is more sensitive to judder. But sheer size has an impact too. For example, consider a fast moving ball on a 65” display. Maybe the ball moves 1/10 of an inch between frames on the 65” screen but it could move an inch on the big 32’-wide screen.

There are a number of ways to mitigate judder (there was a nice paper by Dolby from the Technology Summit on Cinema which I will report on elsewhere), but one important solution is higher frame rate. Sony said that for NAB, they shot some new Carnival footage using their new broadcast 8K/120fps camera (UHC-8300). This footage did not have the judder so noticeable on other sequences and illustrates the issues with low frame rate HDR content with high luminance (the Sony CLED goes to about 1000 cd/m²). This content looked absolutely fantastic, proving that frame rate matters.

At the event, Sony also announced that Fox Sports has chosen this CLED for its studio set in Moscow during their upcoming World Cup coverage, from June 14 to July 15.

Turning to professional monitors, there were no new products introduced, but Sony highlighted their BVM-X300 OLED reference monitor, a workhorse for color grading, along with their PVM-X550 a 55” client monitor. The smaller BVM-E171 is for HD HDR applications.

Sony said it is releasing firmware updates for these two monitors at NAB. The common feature upgrades are, Flexible Area Marker enabling two markers to be freely set on one 4K screen, Time Code Display capabilities for the display of LTC and VITC time code at the top or the bottom of the 4K screen, and New Input Setting to simplify a flow of settings into one integrated assignable button. High Brightness Mode for PVM-X550 delivers wider dynamic range to reproduce more realistic colors and to optimize 4K color grading with over 180% in HDR Peak Luminance, when compared to the current PVM-X550.

Sony reference monitors

Gary Mandle, long time professional monitor expert at Sony, will also be retiring soon (say it isn’t so!). He has also been a knowledgeable, friendly, first class guy. We wish him luck wherever his wings take him.

Of course, Sony had their latest TV models showing beautiful image. We learned that reviewers who tested the 100” Z9D flagship TV report that it can sustain 2900 cd/m² in a 10% window “for hours.”  That’s impressive.

[donaldk]

The first time Sony showed regular 8K, not just the bottom half of the advertised 8K screen, two 4K screens side-by-side.

180% of what HDR Peak Luminance? It is still using LGD panels.

[w.mayer]

Next week the first Germany Samsung LED Cinema Wall will be open at the "Traumpalast Esslingen Cinema".

This is good news for me as this one is only good 2 hours by car one way away form my home.

Sad is that like the only other Europe one in Swiss Zug they are not playing 3D at the moment!
Looks like something is not ok with 3D as from both locations I hear that it can be take some time to play 3D.

I will wait for 3D is working (likely after our summer holiday) and  drive with my family to see how it looks in 2D and 3D and report here.

[ledrus]

It seems that price war started between LED display manufacturers. Most of them, for example Planar/Leyard, significantly reduced MRSP prices (price cut of 20-40%) for LED Displays. Recent price list from Planar/Leyard could be found here:http://www.planar.com/media/437512/p...s-epl-2018.pdf. Now  the price of 1.2 mm pitch LED Cabinet TWA 1.2
is 13,770 USD (or 17,000 USD/sqm). The Full HD LED display based on TWA 1.2 cost of 55,080 USD (without processor, installation, frame structure etc.)

[donaldk]

I remember when I had to drag out a figure from that lady from Slovenia (Leyards EU HQ pre Planar acquisition, now there is also sales from France and EU reps here in Holland), the 1.2 was new, finally she said $42K per square meter, 'but we have a new pricelist each quarter'. Compared to that the price has come down tremendously but that was what 10-15 pricelists ago? And the 0.7 should available soon, so 1.2 is no longer that special.

That 55K plus tax and ex factory/EU warehouse breaks the 79K, or was it 76 I forget, record by Vivitek (the larger Delta was 90K-ish) as announced for ISE. Of course that was for a complete display. And Samsung ships same series spare modules in its $99K list Residential package. If one has to pay for those seperately.

So what is the actual selling price?

[ledrus]

You are right donaldk, now Leyard also offer LED display with 0.7 mm pitch in its premium DL2/DLX series, but price is about 78.000 USD/sqm. But I doubt that we will see this 0.7 mm LED product in the real installations, except its demonstration at the ISE/NAB/Infocomm.

Despite big cut off of LED prices, the prices for streamline Directview LED Displays is still expensive. For example,  above mentioned Leyard offer 0.9 mm LED display (TWA 0.9) for 35.000 USD/sqm (in 2016 price was about 100,000 USD/sqm), but there are only several commercial installation of 0.9 mm LED displays (from SiliconCore, Leyard, Unilumin and Liantronics).

Nevertheless, 1.2 mm LED Displays now is mature technology and there many commercial installations (mainly for command centers and broadcast studios), and I think that this category (1.2 mm) of small pitch LED displays is most interesting and significantly increasing of shipments of these LED displays are expected in the next 1-2 years.