What is the difference between LED display and traditional projection?

The screen used for traditional projection is DLP projection. Because of the low brightness, you should turn off the lights, doors and windows when watching. Since the appearance of LED movie screen, its high brightness and high-definition image quality make it unnecessary to use projection equipment for movie playback. In addition, when the light is turned on, the content played on the screen can also be seen clearly. However, as the technical problems have not been improved, the number of LED display manufacturers entering cinemas is very small. So, what is the relationship between LED display and traditional projection? What is the difference between LED display screen and splicing screen?

Relationship between LED display screen and traditional cinema line

What is DLP projection?

DLP projection technology uses digital micromirror chip (DMD) as the main key component to realize digital optical processing. Its principle is to homogenize the light through an integrator, divide the light into R, G and B colors through a ColorWheel with three primary colors, and then image the colors on the DMD through the lens. In the method of synchronous signal, the electric signal of the digital rotating lens is converted into gray scale, and the color is displayed by matching R, G, and B colors. Finally, the image is projected through the lens.

With the continuous improvement of people's material life, the requirements for film viewing are also rising. In 2018, the number of Chinese screens has exceeded 60000, an increase of 9303 compared with 2017, showing a trend of rapid expansion. The rapidly expanding market will inevitably bring about rapid growth in demand, thus promoting rapid growth in demand. In the global theater market, the film screen segment alone has reached a scale of 100 billion dollars, and the total amount of the LED display industry chain in 2018 is only 50 billion dollars.

Although the film quality and film playing technology of traditional theaters have been greatly improved, they mainly focus on laser projection and traditional projection, and their essential principles have not been greatly improved. With the continuous development and maturity of LED display technology, the small pitch LED display technology developed by LED display manufacturers has been greatly improved, and has begun to enter the film market as an operable alternative. Moreover, the image quality is higher, the contrast is higher, the brightness is higher, and the large area is seamless.

 

What is small pitch LED display technology?

Small pitch LED display refers to indoor LED display with LED dot pitch less than P2.5, mainly including P2.5, P2.0, P1.8, P1.5 and other LED display products. With the improvement of LED display manufacturing technology, the resolution of traditional LED display has been greatly improved.

The small pitch LED display screen is the general name of a whole set of systems, including LED display system, HD display control system and cooling system. The small pitch LED display screen adopts pixel level point control technology to realize the state control of the brightness, color restoration and unity of the display screen pixel unit. In the production process of the display screen, the automatic reflow welding process is adopted without manual post welding.

At present, the market demand of LED display screen industry is sluggish, while the film market has great development opportunities. How to enter the film market and seize a hundred billion cakes has become a problem that needs to be considered by major LED display manufacturers. Of course, in addition to solving technical problems, LED screen enterprises should also consider how to pass the DCI digital film certification standard when entering cinemas. According to the standard of Digital Film Advocacy Alliance, LED display must meet this playing standard to replace the traditional way of showing.

 

Samsung's Onyx LED film screen can solve this problem well, and become a multi theater. However, compared with traditional screens, the proportion of LED film screens can be ignored. Therefore, how to make use of Samsung to become a gap in cinemas will be a competition for LED display manufacturers to seize the film market in the future. At the same time, it is also an important magic weapon to get rid of the market homogenization deadlock, price war and weak market demand.

The principle of traditional projection mode and laser projection mode is to project the image onto the screen through the light source for playback. Once someone or an object enters the projection range, a large area of black shadow will be left on the screen, seriously affecting the viewing quality. In addition, the low visibility of the darkroom makes it easy for people to ignore the audience around them, creating a sense of privacy from the psychological perspective.

The LED film screen does not need a projector, so when someone walks by, it will not leave a black shadow on the screen. Moreover, LED display screen adopts modular splicing, which can realize splicing of any size without any splicing gap. It can also support high frame rate+HDR technology and 3D technology. Its self luminous brightness is 10 times higher than the peak brightness of traditional projection equipment, reaching 146fL, creating a good interactive experience environment for the theater line.

 

What is HDR technology?

HDR is a processing technology to improve image brightness and contrast. This technology can enrich the details of each dark part, make dark places darker, and enrich more detailed colors, so that movies, pictures, and game pictures can present excellent effects, and make users closer to the visual experience in the real environment when watching movies and playing games.

The maximum brightness of traditional SDR (standard dynamic range) is only 100 nits. The part above 100 nits in the picture will be distorted (lost). The minimum debugging is 0.1 nits. The part below 0.1 nits in the picture will be lost. HDR technology can make the maximum brightness reach thousands of nits and the minimum brightness reach 0.0005 nits, greatly expanding the details of the parts with brightness higher than 100 nits and lower than 0.1 nits in the picture, while making the whole picture look more transparent and rich in details.

The point spacing of the LED movie screen installed by Samsung is 2.5mm, which is a conventional LED indoor display screen with low cost. Although the small pitch LED display screen has higher resolution, smaller spacing and higher image quality, it has no advantage in cost, so it has not entered the film market at present. However, due to the forward movement of the best viewing area, the viewing area is reduced, and the distance between the first row and the screen needs at least 1.5 meters, so the point spacing of the LED movie screen should also be reduced. That is to say, it will not be a problem for small pitch LED displays to enter the cinema line in the future, but the precondition is to pass the DCI certification and reduce costs.

LED film screen has a certain impact on the traditional film projection mode, and the application of LED film screen also brings new development opportunities to LED display manufacturers. Although Samsung has taken the lead in the film market, it cannot be said that Chinese LED display manufacturers are hopeless. In fact, as early as Samsung, China's LED screen enterprises have entered the film market. However, due to small size, immature technology development and other reasons, they failed to enter the film market.

Now, with the maturing technology of LED display manufacturers and the development of upstream and downstream industry chains, it is not a problem to enter the film market in the future. However, facing such a large market, it is difficult to compete with the film market only by a few enterprises, which requires the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain to complete. Compared with Samsung, Chinese enterprises have accumulated enough technology, but their international popularity is very low. Therefore, if Chinese LED display manufacturers want to enter the LED film screen market, they must constantly enhance their comprehensive strength and international popularity.

In other words, if LED display manufacturers want to enter the film market, they should not only solve the technical and cost problems of LED display, but also pass the DCI certification standard. If these problems are improved, it is not a problem for LED screen enterprises to enter the film market, and they can also reduce the disadvantages brought by the current LED screen industry homogenization deadlock, price war and weak market demand with the help of the 100 billion film market. Therefore, the relationship between the LED display screen and the traditional cinema line is mutual influence, but also mutual restriction.