LED movie screen! Why is the 20m screen so important?

From a technical point of view, the 4K 20-meter DCI-certified screen, and the previous DCI-certified 2K 10-meter screens, are almost a matter of “expanding the scale of splicing”. However, as the largest LED movie screen currently certified by DCI and the world’s first 20-meter LED movie giant screen, the product of Times Huaying still arouses extensive thinking in the industry.

The different “rules of the game” in the film screen market

For the traditional large-screen LED display market, the core competition focus is “dot spacing”. That is, the ability to manufacture more reliable and smaller pixel pitch products in a more economical way is the “main line of technical competition” in the LED display large-screen industry.

However, the movie screen market has been dominated by “projection” technology for a century, and the focus of technological competition in this market has fallen on “projector brightness”. The core reflection of the projector’s brightness level in the screen effect is “how big the screen can be projected under the quality of the picture”: Therefore, the movie screen has a supply structure of different specifications such as 7 meters, 10 meters, and 20 meters.

At present, the LED large screen has just entered the film screen market, and it is obviously not the time when it has the ability to set rules and establish rules. Continuing to abide by the original product rules of the projection movie screen market is not only a guarantee of the effect of movie playback, but also a respect for the “cinema” habit in the actual market. In this process, LED screens that seem to be infinitely spliced must also adopt traditional screen specifications such as “10m/20m” to obtain market access certificates.

DCI certification is a film projection and copyright protection standard dominated by Hollywood content parties. Although its legal status is a “voluntary corporate group standard”, the global market practice over the years has made it the de facto industry entry standard for “movie screens and projection equipment” in the international market.

Therefore, in order to enter the 20-meter cinema line market, the LED large screen must obtain the DCI certification of the 20-meter screen. Especially when more than ten models of 10-meter LED movie screens have obtained DCI certification, the 20-meter certification is not a technical issue, but a “market rule” issue. ——Since it is a product of new technology following the old rules, the greatest significance of the new 20-meter LED screen DCI certification of Times Huaying is “the game of interests between traditional technology and new technology” and “the vested interests of projection film screens.” The competition boundary between the Group and the LED Large Screen New Power Group has undergone tremendous changes.

What does a 20-meter LED screen mean? Industry observers pointed out that the price of LED movie screen and DLP projection equipment crossed about 20 meters. That is to say, although more than ten 10-meter LED movie screens have obtained DCI certification, all of them are products whose cost is significantly higher than that of traditional projector movie projection equipment.

At the heart of projection projection equipment is the brightness level. The 10-meter screen corresponds to the entry brightness level of projector equipment in the cinema market, and it is one of the “most economical” products. A 20-meter screen means that the projector needs 4 times the brightness of a 10-meter screen: whether it is a single-machine brightness improvement or a dual-machine stacking scheme, it will raise the technical difficulty of the projector to a level.

In comparison, on a 20-meter screen 4K display, the core technical requirement of the pixel pitch index will be doubled compared to a 10-meter 4K screen, and the pixel density will drop by 75%. Although the splicing area has also increased to 4 times that of the 10-meter screen, the technical difficulty of the core spacing index has decreased, making the cost change more controllable. This will help to gradually form its comparative advantage in cost competitiveness.

At the same time, from the perspective of the theater operator, the 10-meter screen is an economical theater; the 20-meter screen focuses more on the visual shock effect, which will be beneficial to the brightness, contrast, and color of the LED large-screen display. and other advantages. At the same time, the more effective 20-meter screen hall, the cost tolerance of the cinema side will be better. In addition to the difference in demand for projection effects, many of the projection equipment in the 10-meter hall are also equipped with “roomless” configuration, but the projection equipment in the 20-meter hall must occupy the space of the computer room – this will help the LED screen to take advantage of the natural roomless demand. . In addition, the diversified operational requirements of the 10-meter hall are not as high as the height of the 20-meter hall: the larger space area of the 20-meter hall allows it to better develop talk shows, concerts, and e-sports events under the high-brightness mode of the large LED screen. , movie restaurant, conference live broadcast and other diversified operation modes.

That is to say, the certification of the 10-meter LED movie screen by DCI is more of a technical symbolic recognition. Because in the 10-meter hall, the competitive advantage of LED screens is suppressed by projection equipment. However, after the DCI certification of the 20-meter LED movie screen is issued, it means that projection and LED screens have entered a more “anxious” competitive situation in the movie market, and even LED screens have a slight advantage.

In other words, behind the DCI certification of the 20-meter LED movie screen of Times Huaying, there is a deep “transfer” trend of industry interests, which also means that the LED movie screen has truly crossed the “turning point” of marketization.

A new stage for movie screen LED display technology to play its advantages

Compared with traditional projector film projection equipment, the advantages of LED display are huge: such as advantages in color and color gamut, and a great improvement in contrast; especially in terms of brightness, LED movie screens not only meet the standard cinema black light mode of 48NIT It also has the performance support capability of differentiated operations provided in the highlight mode of up to 300 to 500 nits – the brightness adjustability of 48 to several hundred nits is a huge advantage of the LED movie screen.

Especially in the operation process, 48nit is basically the standard brightness of the new equipment of the projector projection system, and with the long-term use of the equipment, this projection brightness performance may continue to decline; but the LED screen can be between 48 and 300 to 500 nits. Free adjustment, it can be said that 48nit is the lower limit of brightness for its lifetime application. And from the perspective of future display needs, 3D and naked-eye 3D both have higher requirements for brightness and resolution; in the future, the super-large screen of the cinema line will enter the 8K era, and the large LED screen has mature technology in 8K display technology. , while the projector 8k projection system is still in the exploratory stage.

However, this does not mean that the LED movie screen has no disadvantages: for example, on the 10-meter screen mentioned above, LED is difficult to match the economy of mature projection equipment. For another example, the LED movie screen needs to improve the “pixel granulation” problem for the appreciation of high-quality movie audio-visual entertainment. In this regard, the unique pixel surface optical processing technology of Times Huaying HeyLED movie screen has greatly increased the pixel fullness from about 15% of ordinary LED screens to about 75%, greatly improving the problem of pixel granulation of LED point light emission.

Industry experts pointed out that in recent years, the growth of LED display applications in indoor markets and close-up viewing scenes has become the core position of industry development, which has greatly promoted the development of LED display “pixel optical structure” design technology, and accumulated a large number of improved pixel particles. industry experience in chemistry issues. This is completely different from the situation where projection displays always face the “brightness limit challenge” on large screens.

That is, the solvability of the brightness performance bottleneck and cost problem of the projector movie screen is much worse than that of the pixel granulation of the LED movie screen. In particular, the more it develops to ultra-high-definition displays such as 4K/8K, the more the pixel pitch of the LED screen will be reduced, and the less significant the problem of pixel granularity will be. That is, through LED crystal packaging structure, lamp bead optical lens design and higher pixel density integration, LED movie screens can completely overcome the problem of pixel granulation with a large number of mature and proven solutions. The 20m/10m LED movie screen can pass the DCI certification, which also verifies the continuous progress in its technical experience.

To sum up, the DCI certification of the 20-meter LED movie screen shows that this new movie projection scheme is “stepping towards maturity”. It is believed that in the near future, there will be a complete LED movie screen solution system ranging from 7-meter small halls to IMAX giant screens. The 100-year history of cinema projection and projection company is about to enter a new stage of dual technology competition and cooperation.