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Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-29-2017, 01:05 AM:
Samsung Electronics Premieres the Theater of the Future with New Cinema Screen Technology
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-premieres-the-theater-of-the-future-with-new-cinema-screen-technology
quote:
Samsung Electronics will unveil its latest visual display blockbuster, the new Samsung Cinema Screen. As the world’s first High Dynamic Range LED theater display, the cinema screen delivers unprecedented picture quality and brings movies and other on-screen contents to life with higher vibrancy and accuracy.
Samsung will formally debut the cinema LED screen at a series of preview demonstrations during March 27-30, 2017 at the Cinemark Century Orleans 18 and XD Theatre, located inside The Orleans Hotel & Casino. The premiere will coincide with the neighboring CinemaCon 2017 conference, the largest and most important gathering for the worldwide motion picture theater industry with attendees from more than 80 countries.
The 34 foot Samsung Cinema Screen easily accommodates modern theater dimensions. In addition to delivering LED picture quality at 4K (4,096 x 2,160) resolution, the screen also exceeds the highly-esteemed DCI specifications used to ensure a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability, and quality in digital cinema. As a result, the new Samsung screen’s performance surpasses traditional projection-based technologies’ visual capabilities for a realistic presentation and is guaranteed to impress even the most entertainment-savvy guests.
“As the popularity of advanced at-home entertainment systems and streaming platforms increases, theaters must reposition themselves as a destination for an incomparable viewing experience that consumers simply cannot encounter anywhere else,” said Sang Kim, Vice President of Samsung Electronics America. “Our new Cinema Screen technology brings a more powerful and high-quality picture to the big screen, creating an environment where viewers feel as if they are part of every scene.”
The Cinema Screen’s direct-lit LED technology truly delivers High Dynamic Range (HDR) to the cinema, showcasing on-screen contents at a peak brightness level nearly 10 times greater than that offered by standard cinema projectors (146fL versus 14fL) with improved uniformity and free of optical distortion and interference. This futuristic exhibition also offers a highly accurate and superior color presentation that will capture the viewer’s eye. Complementary ultra-contrast and low tone grayscale settings enable the screen to showcase both brightest colors and the deepest blacks at a nearly infinity:1 contrast ratio.
The innovation present in Cinema Screen will be matched with an innovative audio solution powered by Harman Professional Solutions’ Cinema Group (a recently completed acquisition) and Samsung’s Audio Lab. Details will be forthcoming about this combined evolution in cinema “Sight & Sound.”
“Harman is excited to continue its collaboration with the Samsung Cinema Screen team and the Samsung Audio Lab. With our expertise in cinema sound systems, we look forward to helping to extend Samsung’s leadership in Visual Display solutions into the theater,” said Brian Divine, Vice President of Tour and Cinema Solutions Group.
As the demands for movie theater space evolve, the Samsung Cinema Screen offers the versatility to satisfy various audience needs. The screen maintains its advanced presentation capabilities in ambient lighting conditions regardless of the featured on-screen content and accommodates users who wish to utilize their theaters for corporate events, concert and sports event viewing, and gaming competitions.
“The launch of our cinema LED display is merely the latest step toward our vision for a complete end-to-end theater experience powered by digital signage,” said Seog-gi Kim, Senior Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “Through modern technologies ranging from touch-screen self-ticketing kiosks to digital concession menu boards and interactive movie posters, Samsung already is helping theaters improve customer engagement and boost operational efficiency. We look forward to continuing to serve as a total solutions provider for the theater industry and finding new and exciting ways to improve the customer experience.”
The Samsung Cinema Screen is currently undergoing the DCI certification process and recently completed compliance test at Keio University in Tokyo.
In before "Well they've finally done it - DCinema has now literally turned movie going into watching a giant TV"
Now that that's out of the way... this is an interesting idea with a few positives and negatives.
I've been wondering about this type of approach for a while - I've often thought that drive-ins might benefit from being able to use screens similar to electronic billboards to run shows in broad daylight, but there's never really been any attempt to create a non-projector based display system that was also DCI compliant.
This Samsung display should be able to produce superior color accuracy and contrast compared to projection simply by the fact that they aren't projecting onto a white surface that also reflects every other light source in the room. Not to mention the recent leaps display panels have gone through. While just a few years ago, video black was a dark shade of grey, today even medium price range television panels have the capability produce absolute black. I would expect these cinema panels to yield some pretty impressive specs in terms of image quality.
But while image quality improves, there's a real set back for sound. You can't place speakers behind it. You could compromise on a 5.1 or 7.1 set up by flying the front speakers above the screen (remember Torus screens?), but this approach really won't work for immersive audio like Atmos, Auro, or DTS:X. How weird will it be to have a system capable of pinpointing a sound anywhere in the auditorium except where the screen is? Huge setback, especially considering they want to target this as a PLF product initially.
Another concern would be vandalism. What happens if somebody chucks a full soda cup, or maybe a baseball into one of these? Hopefully they're built to be more durable than consumer displays.
Finally this might usher in the final death knell of masking. In the film days, masking was needed primarily to hide vinietting from the edge of the frame. Digital provides a hard edge, and so some have already started to do away with masking in order to cut costs. Masking still had some other benefits though - particularly improving perceived contrast. With a panel capable of showing a truly black letterbox or window box, I can't see anyone building nice front ends with masking systems anymore. I feel like a small part of showmanship goes away with this.
Lastly I'm concerned by the rumor (unsubstantiated at this point) that the demonstration is being exclusively closed for anyone except exhibitors and studios. From what I've heard, they aren't showing this demo to cinema equipment dealers yet. This worries me that Samsung is trying to sell direct to exhibitors and cut out dealers and service providers. I'll update this post if I find that these rumors about who is allowed to see the demo aren't correct.
Nonetheless, an interesting and different idea. Your thoughts? ![[dlp]](graemlins/dlp.gif)
Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 03-29-2017, 09:22 AM:
Is the measurement of 146 fl using the same kind of instrumentation as the standard projection screen of 14 fl?
Why would an image ten times brighter than we now see be comfortable? Maybe, as mentioned, for daylight imagges, like a drive in or shopping center, but theater???
Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 03-29-2017, 09:23 AM:
Wow! I wonder what this thing costs. I've been hearing for quite a while that the ultimate contrast would only be available on an emissive display. However, it always seemed that such a large display would be impractical for a while.
On luminance level, flicker could become an issue as the flicker fusion frequency rises with luminance. On other bright displays (such as laser), are they increasing the flash rate?
As you point out, sound will be interesting. I wonder if the next thing is a small sound transducer per pixel interleaved with the LEDs.
Harold
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-29-2017, 10:05 AM:
quote: Richard P. May
Why would an image ten times brighter than we now see be comfortable?
Our eyes will adapt to this brightness the same way as it does in daylight. Actually, the brightness that is standard in cinemas nowadays is at the lower edge of allowing proper color reception at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photopic_vision
It was a very conservative choice, to suppress flickering in the film days, and being limited by equipment capabilities (both for film and digital). There is no reason why you shouldn't have higher luminance in cinema.
The entertainment industry is aiming for HDR and much higher luminance figures currently. So, it does make sense, and is also easy to accomplish, to use higher brightness with this technology.
@Harold: It won't be cheap for a while, but what does a 3P/6P laser cost currently?
Wether audiences like a self-illuminated 'screen' or prefer the old reflecting style, I don't know...
- Carsten
Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 03-29-2017, 10:31 AM:
Finally, the "daylight drive-in screen" arrives, 60 years late!
Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 03-29-2017, 11:15 AM:
Thanks Mike for this new screen info. I hope they can make It way larger then the mid 30 foot size. Is it flat or curved? Will It work for 3-D content? Speakers can be placed below or on top to still give you a good stereo spread across the screen. I have seen many of these very bright LED screens at rock shows and they are almost to hot bright and very distorted up close. We do video at a huge bodybuilding show event up near Seattle WA each year and they don't use the old Barco video projectors these days but have 2 of these new LED video walls hanging off the side of the stage. They have to be turned way down to make the picture look good. I was not to happy with the black level. Now lets see our friends at Dolby Lab®s in San Francisco what they are working on, I hear It's a huge LED curved screen for 3-D without glasses. Very hush hush at this time. Theatre owners now installing Dolby Cinema® or Dolby Vision® will need more money to spend for the latest DolbyScope(sm) LED screen or whatever they call It. Out with the old in with the new $$$$.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-29-2017, 12:40 PM:
If this screen is not ridged and can be easily curved, sound might not be as difficult as it sounds :-) The Kloss/Advent VideoBeam years ago used a complex concave screen (curved horizontally and vertically) like the Torus screen and it had a speaker system aimed at its hard surface. The curves reflected sound back to the audience in such a way that it created the very real illusion that sound was coming from the center of the screen and not the speaker positioned 8 feet away from it. This could possibly be a solution, but quite frankly, we have a non-perf screen and have speakers on either side and above it and get a 5.1 sound that works just fine. Trick is, you can't have the speaker stacks visible. If you can see the speakers, your brain will always tell you the sound is coming from them. They've got to be covered or otherwise disguised.
There is no reason at all why this screen can't do polarized 3D same as the LG's passive polaroid TVs. This is essentially a 4K OLED TV, times 15. Ever see the Cisco screen on the ABC Jimmy Kimmel Show? They've got this down pretty much to a science; this shouldn't surprise anyone as it is a natural progression from JumboTron to CinemaTron. Only thing is, if people thought the cost of converting to digital was expensive, this going to make buying a digital projector look like child's play.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-29-2017, 01:26 PM:
30 feet, just right for us! Now if only I had the quarter of a million dollars or so. (that's my initial guess)
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-29-2017, 01:45 PM:
I know we all discussed this flat screen thing here 20+ years ago when it was still called Brad Miller & Associates....
In that 20 years LCD Display technology has been moving perhaps faster than any other developing technology in electronics. Beginning in about 5 years I would look for these to be a rolled up screen ship-able in a tube just like we do it today. Probably up to ~50 feet wide. Just the savings in building construction NOT having to build a mezzanine for projection will offset at least a third to half the costs over a 14 screen theater. Power savings would be astronomical.
Mark
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-29-2017, 02:44 PM:
If they could increase the size and decrease the price, this would be ideal for drive-ins.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-29-2017, 03:26 PM:
This Samsung Cinema Screen sounds like it could be a giant version of a HDTV set rather than a football stadium jumbotron. The screen would have an LCD filled panel (or more likely tiled LCD panels) back-lit with LEDs, just like home TV screens. This would have to be a modular device rather than just one single, giant sized piece of gear. How else will you get it into an existing building? I still wonder if this isn't just a straight, exposed LED solution due to the 2.5mm pixel pitch of this 34' wide screen.
Daktronics is breaking new ground with its LED products in the new Mercedes Benz NFL stadium going up in Atlanta. The 58' tall by 1075' wide 360° circular jumbrotron going into the circular hole in this stadium's roof is the main topic of conversation on that project. But Daktronics will install 3 Ultra HD resolution jumbotron signs with a 2.5mm pixel pitch at other spots on the stadium site. That tid bit is what has me wondering about Samsung's prototype cinema screen.
quote: Mike Olpin
I've been wondering about this type of approach for a while - I've often thought that drive-ins might benefit from being able to use screens similar to electronic billboards to run shows in broad daylight, but there's never really been any attempt to create a non-projector based display system that was also DCI compliant.
The cost per pixel has been way too high to apply exposed LED sign technology (like what you see in football stadiums and digital billboards) to movie theater screen use. High profile locations like Times Square in NYC or an NFL stadium get enough traffic to justify the massive expense.
The cost per pixel has been coming down, but as far as I know it is still A LOT more expensive than the projector/screen approach. It may still be more expensive even if you're comparing a dual 4K 6P laser projection system versus a jumbotron screen with true physical 4K resolution. The 4K jumbotron screen would only be huge and bigger than that depending on the pixel pitch between each cluster of RGB LEDs. 4mm is the smallest pitch I know of in regular commercial use. A 4096 X 2160 4mm display would be 16384mm X 8640mm or roughly 53' 9" X 28' 4". Jump up to a 6mm or 10mm pitch and that display gets enormous.
Color control on these jumbotron displays (especially the ones from Daktronics) have dramatically improved over the past decade. High key colors have a level of purity and brilliance that go way outside the limits of NTSC gamma. They still have a little more improvement needed with resolving subtle details in the highlights and shadows. However, I think some of that issue has more to do with LED brightness levels that can get overpowering if not adjusted properly. There's nothing quite like driving up on an outdoor LED billboard at night time that is beaming at daytime brightness levels. It's not quite as bad as looking at a welder's torch with naked eyes, but it's not fun either!
quote: Mike Olpin
But while image quality improves, there's a real set back for sound. You can't place speakers behind it.
I have seen some creative "porous" LED displays before (like at a few different concerts), although these are typically lower in resolution. Traditional jumbotron LED signs are made with solid black plastic/metal faces and pack in a good bit of weather sealing as well since they're mainly used outdoors. It is possible to make driver board tiles where the faces have a kind of honeycomb appearance and allow sound to pass directly through the face. Big downside: all those tiny holes will be a magnet for dust and other contaminants (like gunk thrown at the screen).
quote: Mike Olpin
Another concern would be vandalism. What happens if somebody chucks a full soda cup, or maybe a baseball into one of these? Hopefully they're built to be more durable than consumer displays.
I don't know about this Samsung prototype item, but a traditional outdoor jumbotron sign can take quite a bit of punishment. They have to withstand some decent sized hail from severe thunderstorms. If any parts of the sign are taken out of commission you just replace what ever driver boards were damaged.
Posted by Pietro Clarici (Member # 4937) on 03-30-2017, 05:11 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
The screen would have an LCD filled panel (or more likely tiled LCD panels) back-lit with LEDs, just like home TV screens.
It's actually a "conventional" direct LED wall.
It is said to be similar to Sony CLEDIS (which, by the way, is being shown at CinemaCon as well), only with a more reasonable pixel pitch which makes it 4K on a 34ft wide setup.
A CLEDIS cluster of comparable size would be 8K, and approximately $1,5M.
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-30-2017, 11:45 AM:
quote: Scott Norwood
If they could increase the size and decrease the price, this would be ideal for drive-ins.
It's an interesting thought, Scott, but I'm not yet sure how practical something like this would be.
We've certainly noticed the high-def billboards out there. A couple of years ago, we were at the NAB convention in Vegas, saw some of the outdoor signage and agreed you could just about pull off a daytime presentation.
A couple of problems: First of all, the drive-ins place in (what's left of) the grand scheme. I don't think people would be quick to adjust to watching movies from their car in broad daylight. To me, that seems just a bit weird. Even an indoor house is dark, so that expectation may be difficult to overcome. Granted, you could get your show on the screen earlier, but that may not justify the cost of the screen.
There's also the matter of customer vandalism. Occasionally, we have to escort someone's little angel from the playground, after catching him(her) lobbing rocks at one of our screens. Naturally, this occurs after we've just painted one of them and we're a bit over-sensitive to this kind of treatment. Some kid lobbing a rock at a million-dollar electronic screen? Don't want to think about that.
There's also the matter of numbers. I think too few of us would be at a financial level to attract the interest of the manufacturers.
Size-wise, we're still not quite there. My screens are between 60 and 86 feet wide.
Interesting as this is, I think the next progression, for those of us who try to keep up on such things, would be laser.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-30-2017, 12:45 PM:
I'd never want to watch a drive-in movie in the daytime. The sun would cause all kinds of glare on your windshield, and it'd get hot so you'd have to run the A/C all the time, plus it'd just be weird.
I do agree it'd be great for drive-ins to be able to start their movies before it gets completely dark though -- I wouldn't mind starting to watch a movie in the relative cool of the evening when the sun wasn't beating down.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-30-2017, 01:25 PM:
quote: Jack Ondracek
Size-wise, we're still not quite there. My screens are between 60 and 86 feet wide.
There are LED jumbotron signs much bigger than that. It's totally possible to create a giant sized LED drive in movie screen with a picture bright enough to withstand direct sun light. 2K or 4K resolution isn't a problem either. Cost is the main problem. None of it is cheap.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-30-2017, 01:32 PM:
So I'm just curious, WHY are these big displays so expensive? Considering the billboards are so ubiquitous now, shouldn't the cost be coming down? (Or is it?)
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-30-2017, 02:38 PM:
Costs have come down quite a bit, but they started at absolutely stratospheric highs. The first 14' X 48' full color outdoor digital billboards cost $700,000 to $1 million, and these were not high resolution boards either. We're talking 26mm to 35mm pixel pitches, which is pretty coarse but acceptable when viewed from a car speeding by on a freeway. Today the same size board in a tighter 19mm pitch can be bought for around $175,000. The price has gone from close to $1000 per square foot down to about $270 per square foot. And that's from reputable American manufacturers, not fly-by-night imported crap.
Outdoor LED billboards are not what I would call high resolution at all. We just installed one near Duncan, OK that measures 10' 6" tall by 36' across and has a 638 X 176 pixel layout. As you pack more LEDs into a panel you're going to be paying more and more money. The cost of all those materials scales up geometrically. There's all the individual LEDs, all the plastic and other materials in each driver board and then all the wiring to put it all together. There is a lot of pressure to bring down prices, especially with all the cheap junk coming in from China. But the prices can go only so low just from what commodities like oil and steel cost.
Even if you could get the price of each individual LED diode down to just 1¢ the LEDs in a 4K resolution jumbotron alone would cost $26,542.08. That's before you add in all the other labor and materials costs of the driver boards.
I'm just wondering what the sweet spot would be to get a LED-based movie screen into practical cost territory for a theater. It would have to at least be competitive price-wise with the price combination of a d-cinema projector and traditional screen.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-31-2017, 02:53 AM:
I've seen the first 4K giant LED screen demo a few years back on a trade show. It was pretty impressive and I immediately wondered if we would be getting close to this kind of technology being ready for movie theaters.
The positive aspects are pretty clear:
- An enormous bump in brightness and color gamut compared to Xenon based Digital Cinema.
- Since the screen itself is emmisive, maybe the first legitimate reason to entirely omit masking.
- More flexibility in seating arrangements, because there's no longer a need to account for projector placement.
- A legitimate reason to strip the booth, although in my opinion, a theater should have a booth in the back, whether there's actually a projector or not. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Since such a screen works well with the lights on, it would allow a theater to use the room for live events where a screen is needed. You could also show a movie with the lights on, which might be useful for certain groups like shows for small children and their parents, certain groups of disabled, etc.
So, besides the costs, it sounds all great. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely convinced:
Screen Door effect
We probably all have seen the effect of LED walls on TV. It looks great in zoomed out shots, but once the camera gets closer, the individual dots become visible, the screen door effect is as in your face as you can get and often you even see moire effects on digital recordings.
The space between pixels of most LED displays is much larger than modern DLP and LCoS will achieve. Besides that, you can still slightly defocus the image to reduce it.
I've seen some solutions for the screen door effect where they added a diffuser in front of the screen. Unfortunately that diffuser was cloudy white, but maybe you could implement some diffusing technique that keeps the off-state of the screen as dark as possible.
The screen door effect really is a serious issue, because even with a 4K resolution, it will be visible and a major distraction on larger screens and in front rows.
Acoustics
It has been mentioned several times before. But the fact you cannot put speakers behind the screen is a major problem. It also negates all the modern MDA audio initiatives, where the amount of channels not only around you, but also behind the screen is on the rise.
In my opinion, for small screens, placing the front speakers below or above the screen, will still result in an acceptable stereo image. But on any larger screen, where this technologies sweet spot will probably be, you will get a very unrealistic result.
Bobby mentioned "porous" screens and although they do exist, they will only increase the screen door effect and those pores will indeed slowly fill up with dust, so you need to clean it regularly. The cleaning process will probably be cumbersome.
Another problem might be acoustics in general, since you now introduce a large, flat and hard surface on one side of the room. Maybe you could use the reflectiveness of this "screen wall" for something useful, like pointing speakers at it and therefore counter the lack of speakers behind the screen. I'm not really sure how such a setup should look like and what the end result would be.
One resolution fits all
While with a normal screen, you at least have the possibility to zoom your image or use other image sources than your "main projector" to fill the screen, that won't be a possibility anymore with this screen. Since it is dark and not particularly reflective, it won't work as a projection surface. So, you're stuck with the characteristics of this screen wall.
Color calibration
Maybe Samsung fixed this problem, but many LED screens suffer from bad color calibration, especially between modules. Like almost any technology, it needs recalibration and since every pixel is its own light source, it needs a correct calibration on pixel level.
Maybe there is a way to automate it, with a very high resolution, calibrated camera, but unless this problem is solved, your image will probably rather quickly look like an uncalibrated Sony projector.
Durability and maintenance
Most LED walls are much more durable than any normal projection screen in regards to vandalism, so not so much worries there.
But it still remains to be seen, what the MTBF of a giant cinema wall screen will be.
Although LED walls are usually built using separate modules, you will most likely need special equipment to replace those modules in hard to reach places. Something you need to account for during construction or retrofitting.
Another concern would be long-time support. We all know how quickly vendors EOL a product those days. If you put, for example, $250K into your new, shiny screen wall, you do not want to find your investment being EOL after 5 or so years.
Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-31-2017, 06:21 AM:
Well, here it is.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-31-2017, 10:04 AM:
Oh lookie there... A theater with movable masking!
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-31-2017, 10:07 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Another concern would be long-time support. We all know how quickly vendors EOL a product those days. If you put, for example, $250K into your new, shiny screen wall, you do not want to find your investment being EOL after 5 or so years.
Excellent point, Marcel. I hadn't thought of that.
Our drive-in screens are between 39 and 67 years old, and have outlasted two former owners. Imagine, being told your screen's manufacturer no longer supports your model, or some critical chip is no longer available.
It's bad enough, worrying about that with our new projectors. Already, the company that made our 5-year-old servers has been absorbed by a former competitor.
As we did with digital, I think we'll sit back and watch others get ahead of us on this one!
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2017, 10:34 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
We probably all have seen the effect of LED walls on TV. It looks great in zoomed out shots, but once the camera gets closer, the individual dots become visible, the screen door effect is as in your face as you can get and often you even see moire effects on digital recordings.
The "screen door effect" is only noticeable with exposed LED displays if you're close enough to see the pixel grid. This screen Samsung is demo-ing has a very tiny 2.5mm pixel pitch. That's far tighter than the pitch you see on outdoor LED signs (16mm, 20mm, 24mm, 35mm).
Moire is not a problem with LED displays if you are looking at them with your own eyes. Flicker and moire are both problems when trying to photograph these signs. The pixel grid in the camera's imager is conflicting with the pixel grid of the LED display, if the pixel grid is coarse enough to be visible.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
It has been mentioned several times before. But the fact you cannot put speakers behind the screen is a major problem. It also negates all the modern MDA audio initiatives, where the amount of channels not only around you, but also behind the screen is on the rise.
Not being able to place speaker directly behind the screen is a big problem. However, stage speakers have been placed above & below movie screens before (many years ago AMC's put solid "Torus" screens in their "HITS" rooms). You cannot put speakers behind these giant sized LED TV sets being sold to consumers. They have to stick speakers or sound bars underneath them and/or flank them with speaker towers.
Next gen surround formats like Dolby Atmos are really only improving the surrounds. None of those formats are doing anything revolutionary with the stage channel speakers.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
While with a normal screen, you at least have the possibility to zoom your image or use other image sources than your "main projector" to fill the screen, that won't be a possibility anymore with this screen. Since it is dark and not particularly reflective, it won't work as a projection surface. So, you're stuck with the characteristics of this screen wall.
LED displays with a fixed resolution have one big advantage: the image will be in perfect focus 100% of the time. It won't matter if the display is flat or curved either. No vignetting. No uneven brightness. That absolutely cannot be said at all about most d-cinema projector setups. On-screen type from the opening credits and end credits is a dead giveaway on just how blurry many projectors are set.
If a LED display is set too bright the physical over glow of the LEDs can crush subtle details like strands of hair.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Maybe Samsung fixed this problem, but many LED screens suffer from bad color calibration, especially between modules. Like almost any technology, it needs recalibration and since every pixel is its own light source, it needs a correct calibration on pixel level.
Maybe there is a way to automate it, with a very high resolution, calibrated camera, but unless this problem is solved, your image will probably rather quickly look like an uncalibrated Sony projector.
Jumbotrons from the late 1990's and early 2000's had more issues with color performance. A hell of a lot of improvement has taken place since then. It also cannot be stressed enough that you get what you pay for with LED signs. The cheap, imported stuff from fly by night companies isn't built to last, unlike the better products from companies like Daktronics and Watchfire. LED displays can use the entire RGB color space and have many thousands of levels of adjustment. This is important as the board ages. Individual driver board tiles are going to go bad from time to time. Stuck or dead pixels can happen, but isn't as common on high quality LED boards. Again, you get what you pay for. A new driver board has to match up with the existing tiles. Companies like Daktronics have software that allows fine tune adjustment to get the color and contrast right.
As far as life span goes, a brand new, high quality LED board should last at least 7 to 10 years. Like any piece of electronics using computer-based components it becomes difficult getting replacement components after that amount of time has passed. Companies making all the individual chips and other parts that go into the unit have long since moved on to making other newer versions of the product.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-31-2017, 11:48 AM:
For the sound problem:
I wonder whether the screen could be set away from the wall by a couple of feet so that the speakers could be placed behind the screen, reflecting off the wall. That's the way my flat screen TV works.
Maybe there could be a ring of smaller speakers around the edges of the screen which are phased like a line array. Done properly, line arrays can outperform horn-loaded systems.
About the question of cost:
Since LED displays don't need projectors, there would be a certain amount of savings that could be used to pay for the screen.
Since there are no projectors, there is no need for expansive (and expensive) projection rooms. The projection room could be reduced to the size of a large janitorial closet. Exhibitors could save a buttload of money, right there.
Screen size:
A 30-foot screen is barely bigger than a postage stamp.
But, if auditoriums were smaller, the tiny screen wouldn't be so much of an issue. For example, instead of having fifteen screens with 200-300 seats in each, there could be thirty screens with only 100-150 seats.
More screens means that exhibitors could stagger showtimes and increase turnover, allowing customers to cycle in and out of the theater on a more continuous basis instead of having big "rushes." That might allow management to get more work out of their employees because there would be less time for ushers to fool around out back, behind the dumpster.
With all of those things, flat screens could end up being a cost savings for theaters.
Yes, this would end up making movie theaters more like "Video Parlors" than "proper" theaters but I think that the exhibition industry needs to realize that the general public has begun to change the way that they consume movies and entertainment.
By this, I don't refer to the technology. I refer to the fundamental way they think about entertainment. Movies are now a "social experience." People don't want to sit in dark, cavernous rooms. They don't want to "shush" and be quiet. They want to talk to their friends about what they are seeing, as they are seeing it.
That's why there are so many people use their iPhones in movie theaters. They want to chatter to their friends about what they are seeing. Theaters that punish customers for using their phones are literally turning away money.
Now that there is a potential to have brighter displays, movie theaters don't need to be so dark. That means that a cell phone won't be as distracting as they would be in near-total darkness.
That means there is money to be made by setting up free Wi-Fi hot spots and ENCOURAGING people to use their phones. There is a lot of valuable data to be mined from customer "chatter" as they watch a movie and "bare their souls" to the internet.
My main concern about LED movie screens is about complexity. With all of these new gizmos... screens, sound systems, internet, connectivity & support systems, the logistics of running a theater would be way beyond the technical capabilities of your average person. We would need to train a whole, new generation of employees to run our theaters, then we would need to groom them to do business in a completely different way.
This could be good news for us Film-Techers. We would probably end up being more like I.T. pros than projectionists but, with proper training, we could end up making a lot more money in the process.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm over fifty years old, now this kind of change might be enough to lure me back to the movie theater business. The problem is that it would take ten to fifteen years for this new paradigm to become common place. By then, it would be time for me to start thinking about retirement.
But, since I'm probably going to end up working until my dying day, this whole think still holds my interest. We'll just have to wait and see.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2017, 12:34 PM:
LED displays are expensive enough in terms of price per pixel that a theater would need a substantial seat count per screen for the display to pay for itself. Smaller LED displays would either have to squeeze LEDs into a tighter space or the resolution of the display would have to be reduced to maintain a certain pitch between pixels. But I agree, a 34' wide screen is not really all that big. A 4K board with a 4mm pixel pitch would be quite a bit larger.
Of course, if cost is no object one could configure a huge LED board with a 2.5mm pitch or even smaller that boasted true 6K or 8K resolution. Projector manufacturers can't seem to get past the 4K limit on their imaging chips.
quote: Randy Stankey
That's why there are so many people use their iPhones in movie theaters. They want to chatter to their friends about what they are seeing. Theaters that punish customers for using their phones are literally turning away money.
Any theater that encourages talking, mobile phone use, etc. while the movie is in progress will not get any of my business. I hate putting up with that crap in a traditional movie theater, especially with what it costs to go to the movies these days. People who can't behave themselves in a theater either need to learn some damned manners or not go to theaters at all. Warren Theaters and Alamo Drafthouse both have strict cell phone use policies and both are very successful despite the policy.
If a theater operator wants to install an environment like that of a sports bar or night club they can set up something like that in the lobby or a specialty party room that doesn't have a bunch of seats pointed only at the screen. But they shouldn't expect me to be willing to pay $12-$20 per ticket to watch a movie in there. The giant screens in places like Buffalo Wild Wings often become a mere background item to people socializing. That's fine in Buffalo Wild Wings. It's lousy in a theater.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-31-2017, 02:11 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
Movies are now a "social experience." People don't want to sit in dark, cavernous rooms. They don't want to "shush" and be quiet. They want to talk to their friends about what they are seeing, as they are seeing it.
Maybe a big complex could have a "quiet" show for people who actually want to watch the movie, and a "talking" show for those people who want to jabber with their friends. I'll bet said "talking" show would be empty the majority of the time, except for teens who aren't really there to see the show anyway. When people are having a "conversation," they only want to hear the people they're talking to -- they don't want to hear other people yakking behind and in front of them. They want to hear the movie at least SOME of the time.
quote: Randy Stankey
That's why there are so many people use their iPhones in movie theaters. They want to chatter to their friends about what they are seeing. Theaters that punish customers for using their phones are literally turning away money.
They're answering texts mostly. I highly doubt most of the texts are critiquing the movie, other than to say it's good or bad. We get a lot of people who come to the lobby to use their phones....when I overhear those conversations, it's never about the movie, it's always about their kids, or their after-the-show plans, or some other stuff. Never the movie.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-01-2017, 02:02 AM:
quote: Jack Ondracek
Our drive-in screens are between 39 and 67 years old, and have outlasted two former owners. Imagine, being told your screen's manufacturer no longer supports your model, or some critical chip is no longer available.
It's bad enough, worrying about that with our new projectors. Already, the company that made our 5-year-old servers has been absorbed by a former competitor.
Like Bobby mentioned, you can probably expect 7 to 10 years on such an installation and that's also the kind of availability of parts and extended service contracts you can expect from a manufacturer. Most professional grade equipment I work with, comes with a maximum of 7 year of support and guarantee for replacement parts. Sometimes you can get more out of it, but it largely depends on where on the product life-cycle you bought it. If you buy it near the end of the life-cycle, those 7 years are usually a hard deadline if you can get such commitments at all.
After those commitments from the manufacturers run out, you're relegated to the refurb/second hand market with no guarantees at all. So, essentially you should expect a total write off and need for a replacement every 7 to 10 years. Given the expected costs of such an installation, especially for drive-in sized screens, it will probably be quite a hard sell.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The "screen door effect" is only noticeable with exposed LED displays if you're close enough to see the pixel grid. This screen Samsung is demo-ing has a very tiny 2.5mm pixel pitch. That's far tighter than the pitch you see on outdoor LED signs (16mm, 20mm, 24mm, 35mm).
That's also, because it is a relatively small screen, compared to the size of the room and to the wall-to-wall and bottom-to-ceiling screen setups which have become a staple in many multiplexes. The pixel pitch will increase rapidly on larger screens I suppose. Which also begs the question of how flexible the screen size is on those things.
In the end, you probably want to end up with a pixel count that conforms a common standard like "4K" because you probably want to avoid scaling the image, but the pixel pitch on those modules isn't endlessly flexible.
Not only the pixel pitch itself is important, the black space between them is probably even more important. And even with a small pixel pitch, you still end up with discernible pixels. With projection, you can give those pixels a smooth edge, so they blend better into their neighbors. If done correctly, it will not even noticeably change the perceived sharpness of the projected image.
I guess some transparent diffuser would probably be an adequate solution. The diffuser solution I've seen did the trick quite effectively. It will add a layer to the screen, which will cause some inefficiencies, but there should be more than enough budget left.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Moire is not a problem with LED displays if you are looking at them with your own eyes. Flicker and moire are both problems when trying to photograph these signs. The pixel grid in the camera's imager is conflicting with the pixel grid of the LED display, if the pixel grid is coarse enough to be visible.
I was only mentioning moire, because it is being caused by the rather large pixel pitch of many of those screens. If this would have been a projection at the same resolution, you would not have seen moire, but more likely a somewhat blurry, colored surface, more like a nice bokeh than a bunch of distracting "animated" patterns. It's obvious your own eyes won't see moire patterns with your own eyes on those screens. If you do, I'd consider seeing a doctor.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Not being able to place speaker directly behind the screen is a big problem. However, stage speakers have been placed above & below movie screens before (many years ago AMC's put solid "Torus" screens in their "HITS" rooms). You cannot put speakers behind these giant sized LED TV sets being sold to consumers. They have to stick speakers or sound bars underneath them and/or flank them with speaker towers.
TVs, even the giant ones, are usually sufficiently small as not to get distracted from the "off placement" of those speakers. I guess you have experienced HITS at least once? I guess you didn't really like it, did you? Also, can you imagine a "PLF-sized screen" with speakers above and below?
quote: Bobby Henderson
Next gen surround formats like Dolby Atmos are really only improving the surrounds. None of those formats are doing anything revolutionary with the stage channel speakers.
That's no excuse to make them sound bad. Also, most of those formats don't entirely ignore the front side of the auditorium. The full-spec Atmos deployment uses 5 stage speakers. The format actually supports height speakers. Auro3D uses height speakers, DTS-X supports height speakers and IMAX also has at least one height front channel in their original sound format and their newest generation also brings this channel back to their digital screens.
quote: Bobby Henderson
LED displays can use the entire RGB color space and have many thousands of levels of adjustment. This is important as the board ages.
While modern LED displays can be literally adjusted on pixel-level, there needs to be a way to automate this calibration in a meaningful way for day-to-day cinema operations. This also is important when you put a brand new module in a screen that has a considerable run-time already. That's why I proposed the idea with the calibrated high res camera. I'm not sure how workable it would be and such a camera will not be free either and would most likely require recalibration itself from time to time.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Individual driver board tiles are going to go bad from time to time. Stuck or dead pixels can happen, but isn't as common on high quality LED boards. Again, you get what you pay for. A new driver board has to match up with the existing tiles.
The problem here is primarily how you're going to replace individual tiles. You will most likely replace individual modules more often than you would replace your projection screen. Since you don't replace your screen that often, it usually is acceptable for the room to be unavailable for multiple shows, but it won't be acceptable for a single module that needs replacement. So for large screens, you probably would need some kind of movable platform that can easily be deployed for maintenance.
quote: Randy Stankey
I wonder whether the screen could be set away from the wall by a couple of feet so that the speakers could be placed behind the screen, reflecting off the wall. That's the way my flat screen TV works.
Maybe I'm missing something here. But... your TV probably doesn't cover almost the entire wall, that's why this still works quite reasonably well. If you put speakers behind the screen and point them at the wall, the sound will primarily bounce back and forth between the backside of the screen and the wall. Since the backside of the screen most likely isn't entirely flat, it will act more as a diffuser. There's also a big chance of some "nice" fat resonance. Some sound will leak along the edges of the screen, but I doubt it will be convincing.
quote:
Maybe there could be a ring of smaller speakers around the edges of the screen which are phased like a line array. Done properly, line arrays can outperform horn-loaded systems.
You could, maybe, build an array of speakers around the edges, where you point different speakers representing different channels at different positions in the auditorium. This way, you could probably achieve a mostly even distribution around the room. If done really right, it could outperform a normal three speaker stage setup. It will require quite some efforts to get it right though and also some dedication to keep it aligned properly.
quote: Bobby Henderson
If a theater operator wants to install an environment like that of a sports bar or night club they can set up something like that in the lobby or a specialty party room that doesn't have a bunch of seats pointed only at the screen. But they shouldn't expect me to be willing to pay $12-$20 per ticket to watch a movie in there. The giant screens in places like Buffalo Wild Wings often become a mere background item to people socializing. That's fine in Buffalo Wild Wings. It's lousy in a theater.
We do already have theaters where they serve full menus, so the next iteration could actually be something like a Cinema Cafe or Cinema Bar. Not that I would be a regular customer though, but maybe there actually is a market for this.
Besides the PLF trend which started a few years back, I now also see a trend of smaller rooms reemerging, just to increase the amount of movies that can be shown at any given time. A trend that I could see emerge is something like your private cinema room, which you can rent with a bunch of friends and have your movie on-demand, a lot like those private karaoke suites which became popular in Japan. There are some initiatives for this already.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-01-2017, 05:16 AM:
How much heat does that put out and what do they do to exhaust it? Don't the LED tiles in these displays usually each have a cooling fan? Is there noise created by those?
Is there some kind of protective layer that can be cleaned? I don't think you want somebody throwing a coke on your LED panels.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-01-2017, 11:30 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Any theater that encourages talking, mobile phone use, etc. while the movie is in progress will not get any of my business.
I honestly believe that is the way things are going. Bobby, you and I are "old" as far as the theater-going population is concerned. Those young, whipper-snappers want to use their phones and they ARE doing it, whether we like it or not.
The only one of us Film-Techers who has been successful at keeping people from using phones, etc., is Frank. The reason it works for him is because he lives in a town with a relatively cohesive population who all hold similar values.
I'm sorry, guys... Phones are the way of the future... like it or not.
I like Mike's "quiet show" idea. Different strokes for different folks.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I highly doubt most of the texts are critiquing the movie, other than to say it's good or bad.
They aren't "critiquing" the movie. They are chattering about it... "OMG! They just blew up the whole PLANET! This is so cool!"
Do you realize how valuable this kind of chatter would be to a movie studio? It would be a gold mine! Real-time chatter while people watch a movie? Somebody WILL figure out a way to tap into that.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you put speakers behind the screen and point them at the wall, the sound will primarily bounce back and forth between the backside of the screen and the wall. Since the backside of the screen most likely isn't entirely flat, it will act more as a diffuser. There's also a big chance of some "nice" fat resonance. Some sound will leak along the edges of the screen, but I doubt it will be convincing.
While I'm not certain that putting speakers behind the screen would work, I brought it up because I have had several instances of unexpected sounds that seem to come from random places in my living room which, after some thinking, I have localized as coming from the TV.
I have a basic flat screen TV. I have no home theater speakers or anything. Just the stock speakers built into the TV. I have been amazed at how sound can seem to float around the room.
I was only thinking along the lines of "If only somebody could figure out a way to do that on purpose." I am sure that, with proper phasing, timing and frequency control, it can be done and, to some extent, it is being done, today.
I've seen (heard) line arrays do some pretty funky things. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm only asking, "What if this could be refined?"
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-01-2017, 01:28 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
I was only thinking along the lines of "If only somebody could figure out a way to do that on purpose." I am sure that, with proper phasing, timing and frequency control, it can be done and, to some extent, it is being done, today.
Didn't Sony or Samsung patent something about using the screen as a transducer? It "might" work if it was just for HF and then the less directional LF could be below the screen.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-01-2017, 02:46 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
After those commitments from the manufacturers run out, you're relegated to the refurb/second hand market with no guarantees at all. So, essentially you should expect a total write off and need for a replacement every 7 to 10 years. Given the expected costs of such an installation, especially for drive-in sized screens, it will probably be quite a hard sell.
These LED walls aren't going to make it for professional movie screen use until the cost per pixel and total cost of ownership can come down to price levels that allow the theater to make a profit. That includes the replacement cost after several years.
Companies like Daktronics try their best to standardize on certain driver board designs and stock pile as many boards as they can afford. A NOS supply (new old stock) can allow a good quality LED board to reach a 10 year life span. At that point even the best quality LEDs are going to have light output noticeably dimmer than something brand new. Anyone installing these displays, be it on a billboard, a concert stage, a sports stadium or even in a huge sports bar, you have to plan on replacing it.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
That's also, because it is a relatively small screen, compared to the size of the room and to the wall-to-wall and bottom-to-ceiling screen setups which have become a staple in many multiplexes. The pixel pitch will increase rapidly on larger screens I suppose. Which also begs the question of how flexible the screen size is on those things.
LED displays offer far more versatility in how they can be configured than any traditional movie projector or TV display. These boards are modular. The tiles can be arranged into any aspect ratio, even extreme ratios like the 58' X 1075' video ring going into the new Atlanta Falcons football stadium. The LEDs on the tiles come in a variety of pixel pitches from extremely fine, like new the Sony CLEDIS product (approx. 1.25mm pitch), to really coarse (35mm or 46mm for basic outdoor use). You could build a true 8K resolution LED board using Sony CLEDIS panels (320 pixels X 360 pixels, 15.875" X 17.875"). But you would need at least 312 panels and 5 controllers to cover the 8192 X 4320 layout. The screen would be 34' 4" wide by 17' 10.5" tall. That's not very big. A 2.5mm 8K board would be quadruple that physical size.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Not only the pixel pitch itself is important, the black space between them is probably even more important. And even with a small pixel pitch, you still end up with discernible pixels. With projection, you can give those pixels a smooth edge, so they blend better into their neighbors. If done correctly, it will not even noticeably change the perceived sharpness of the projected image.
All of these LED boards have plenty of black between the pixels. To me the amazing thing is how they can shrink the size of the actual LEDs down to such small sizes for the high resolution boards yet maintain intense color and brightness.
Most LED boards for outdoor use have plastic louvers that stick out over each RGB LED pixel. That helps block out sunlight. High quality LEDs have brightness levels that can stand up to direct sunlight. Another important detail is keeping these boards clean. If dust is allowed to build up on them it reduces the effect of the black background and can harm perceived contrast levels during day time.
There is no need to install any sort of diffuser in front of these LED boards. The customer has to buy LED boards that are appropriate to the specific viewing distance. For a movie theater screen one would need really high resolution driver boards like what Samsung is demo-ing or the Sony CLEDIS system. For a large screen one could get away with using a 4mm pitch board and still hit 4K native resolution. Many of these boards have ventilation ports on the face as well as on the back. Any sort of diffuser would trap in heat and block air flow.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
TVs, even the giant ones, are usually sufficiently small as not to get distracted from the "off placement" of those speakers. I guess you have experienced HITS at least once? I guess you didn't really like it, did you? Also, can you imagine a "PLF-sized screen" with speakers above and below?
I saw a few movies on AMC HITS screens. The AMC Glen Lakes theater in Dallas had one. The AMC Grand 24 in Dallas had them as well. The main problem I noticed with those theaters (particularly the Grand 24) was echo. Sound reflected noticeably on those Torus screens. An LED board is not a smooth surface. I don't think sound would reflect off it as badly. A LED screen configured in common height rather than taller common width would bring speakers above and below the display closer together.
For giant screen use, driver boards would have to be designed to allow sound to travel through them. Ultimately I think that's what's going to be needed anyway, whether the boards are flat, curved or even made to build up a dome screen.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The problem here is primarily how you're going to replace individual tiles. You will most likely replace individual modules more often than you would replace your projection screen. Since you don't replace your screen that often, it usually is acceptable for the room to be unavailable for multiple shows, but it won't be acceptable for a single module that needs replacement. So for large screens, you probably would need some kind of movable platform that can easily be deployed for maintenance.
It's not difficult at all to remove and replace a driver board that has gone bad. If the board is made by a reputable company it's not difficult or time consuming to adjust the color on the replacement board so it looks consistent with the existing boards. The theater would need something like a scissor lift to access each board.
quote: Lyle Romer
How much heat does that put out and what do they do to exhaust it? Don't the LED tiles in these displays usually each have a cooling fan? Is there noise created by those?
Every driver board has its own cooling fans, ventilation ports, etc. The newest systems don't produce nearly as much heat and noise as LED panels did 10 or so years ago. The computer technology has been getting far more powerful, which cuts down on the number of chips, IC boards, ribbon cables and other stuff going into each tile. In a perfectly quiet room you're going to hear a little bit of fan noise. I think it's along the lines of several personal computers running.
quote: Randy Stankey
I honestly believe that is the way things are going. Bobby, you and I are "old" as far as the theater-going population is concerned. Those young, whipper-snappers want to use their phones and they ARE doing it, whether we like it or not.
I see plenty of young people at theaters that ban cellphone use during the movie. I was pleasantly surprised to not see much, if any, phone use during my last couple trips to the theater (watching Get Out and Logan). Good manners aren't exclusive to middle age and elderly people. Likewise, I've seen plenty of gray haired people doing inconsiderate things with their phones. It's a stereotype that "millennials" and younger people are all ADD-afflicted, compulsive mobile phone users with no manners.
Allowing people to disrupt the movie is a bad idea. Considering the fact some theaters are selling beer and mixed drinks any efforts to enable disruptive behavior in a theater creates a bad combination and potentially violent situations.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-01-2017, 03:29 PM:
quote: Randy Stankey
I'm sorry, guys... Phones are the way of the future... like it or not.
No, sorry, I DON'T like it. Its a degradation of civility -- not an iota of a concern or consideration for anyone else around them other than themselves or perhaps the other inconsiderate dolts they walked in with.
I still say the FCC should get in step with Europe, eskew the pressure of Big Telecom and allow jamming of cell phones within the theatre proper.
Thing is, I guess when Hollywood keeps churning out movies that are just so much mindless action trash, there isn't really any particular motivation to actually pay attention to dialog or story subtleties -- there isn't much there than needs concentration, you get the whole thing just by glancing at the screen every so often...you can easily watch these movies and talk at the same time.
When I saw LIFE recently, and there were just 10 people in the theatre and I thought, GREAT, what are the chances of having inconsiderats with so few people? But much to my amazement, and even though these few were spread about the room, they STILL yammered sporadically.
The chatter finally did quite down about 15min into the movie, but I think that mainly was because the sound was quite a bit hotter than what I thought it should have been and they just couldn't compete with it. I would almost bet this was management's way of dealing with the yammering horde...just turn it up so loud they can't talk to each other and trying to talk on the cell is equally impossible -- using audio to jam cell conversation...awesome. Still, loud audio may just drive them to text, although I bet if you got the DB level high enough, it would short circuit brain synapses so their texting little fingers would get confused and stop working.
quote: Randy Stankey
By this, I don't refer to the technology. I refer to the fundamental way they think about entertainment. Movies are now a "social experience." People don't want to sit in dark, cavernous rooms. They don't want to "shush" and be quiet. They want to talk to their friends about what they are seeing, as they are seeing it.
That's why there are so many people use their iPhones in movie theaters. They want to chatter to their friends about what they are seeing. Theaters that punish customers for using their phones are literally turning away money.
Now that there is a potential to have brighter displays, movie theaters don't need to be so dark. That means that a cell phone won't be as distracting as they would be in near-total darkness.
Randy, I think you are painting a picture here with too much of a generalization.
We have lots of young, college age patrons who give no indication that they want any C change from the way we traditionally expect a movie to be presented...in a darkened room where no one talks while the movie is on and they don't annoy other patrons by using their cell phones. The inconsiderates who do, in our experience, are far and few between...not the norm. BUT they do need to be called out and everyone else knows that kind of boorish behaviour will not be tolerated. I can assure you, ALL our patrons, old and young alike appreciate all efforts to "shush" the aholes.
Yes, there is social interaction; they come with friends and you can hear them talking about the film afterwards in the lobby (at the last show, we would offer free coffee for anyone wishing to linger and discuss the film). As far as I can see, they don't seem like they are looking to change the movie-going experience that us older folk expect when we walk into a theatre. Their expectations are the same as ours.
At one of our screenings one of our apprentice projectionists neglected to change the house lights from attraction reel level to feature level. The attraction reel level is really only enough that would allow late comers to get to their seats easily. Two young, college age patrons came out and asked why the lights didn't go out. Mind you, that level doesn't degrade the screen image, so it wasn't because the image was impacted; it was just that they wanted the room dark, obscuring the surroundings so the only focus is on that window in front of them.
They certainly don't come to watch a movie for social interaction DURING the film nor to ingest a full blown meal either -- while I understand popcorn and a drink on occasion along with a movie, I never quite understood this compulsive need to strap on an effin feed bag in order to enjoy watching a movie...but I digress. I DON'T think the majority of patrons want to chatter throughout a movie and I see evidence that they can get just as irate as we oldths (that's the opposite of youths) when someone starts in with their cell or with disturbing chit-chat.
Is there a place for socialized film watching? Possibly, but let the marketplace determine that. I don't think most in exhibition are about to turn away from the primary goal of presentation -- that of doing justice to the filmmaker's work -- just to accommodate a passing or even a lucrative trend. If that were the case, then most exhibitors would just stop showing movies altogether and turn their theatres into fast food franchises....oh wait...
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-01-2017, 10:43 PM:
Did they leave this display installed after the demos?
Has anybody here seen it? I've seen 16' wide LED board TVs at the Sportsbook in the Aria Casino in Vegas. Those use BARCO NX4 LED tiles with 4.66mm pitch.
By the best I can estimate, they must be 720p displays. The color, contrast and brightness are very impressive. The problem is that unless you are really far away, it is very easy to see the pixel grid.
I remember a discussion long ago with that somebody was joking with John Pytlak (RIP), that Kodak should print giant OLED screens. I wonder if that will be feasible and somewhat affordable in the near future. OLED could be flexible and possibly allow for the surface to be perforated.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-02-2017, 12:14 AM:
The problem with OLED is cost. That type of display technology is affordable at small size levels, like that of mobile phones. When it scales to the size of current big screen TV sets the price gets very harshly high. Scaling the technology to the size of a commercial theater screen would be absolutely cost prohibitive. On top of that other issues would be present, like the solid screen blocking sound from speakers behind the screen or trying to build a tile-based system that appeared seamless.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-02-2017, 03:38 AM:
quote: Randy Stankey
I'm only asking, "What if this could be refined?"
I think that's exactly what this topic is for.
quote: Randy Stankey
I was only thinking along the lines of "If only somebody could figure out a way to do that on purpose." I am sure that, with proper phasing, timing and frequency control, it can be done and, to some extent, it is being done, today.
I'm using dipole speakers to create a similar, but more controllable effect. But in a next-gen cinema using next-gen audio tracks, you want to control exactly where the sound should be coming from, whether it is directed, "broad" or "all around you" should be "programmable".
There are a few cinema setups using line arrays already, but they're usually behind-the-screen setups. In a room with very limited reflections, you can use a line array like speaker setup to focus certain channels at certain parts of the auditorium. It should be achievable to put those speakers alongside the screen. If it sounds realistic, remains to be seen though.
quote: Lyle Romer
Didn't Sony or Samsung patent something about using the screen as a transducer? It "might" work if it was just for HF and then the less directional LF could be below the screen.
Making it work in combination with the LED infrastructure needed will be a major challenge. This is not just a foil, but multiple layers of plastics or glass and electronics. Getting them to vibrate in a meaningful way is rather challenging.
quote: Bobby Henderson
These LED walls aren't going to make it for professional movie screen use until the cost per pixel and total cost of ownership can come down to price levels that allow the theater to make a profit. That includes the replacement cost after several years.
The market is huge, so there is quite some competition. One big problem though, is not just the cost for the technology, it's material cost too. Quite a lot of expensive material goes into a large LED screen, that's why this technology will probably never get real cheap.
quote: Bobby Henderson
LED displays offer far more versatility in how they can be configured than any traditional movie projector or TV display. These boards are modular. The tiles can be arranged into any aspect ratio, even extreme ratios like the 58' X 1075' video ring going into the new Atlanta Falcons football stadium.
For DCI content, you really want a screen that has a native resolution that matches 2K or 4K. As most content you show is provided by you and practically immutable, it will be best to show it with a minimum of scaling and if so, only by factors of two. Even with considerable amount of pixel pitches to choose from, it will not be as flexible as a conventional projection screen where you zoom the image to fit to your needs.
quote: Bobby Henderson
It's not difficult at all to remove and replace a driver board that has gone bad. If the board is made by a reputable company it's not difficult or time consuming to adjust the color on the replacement board so it looks consistent with the existing boards. The theater would need something like a scissor lift to access each board.
The scissor lift thing is the thing I'm refering too. Some auditoria are already built for easy access and if you design a new auditorium you can account for it. But many rooms lack proper, easy access. That's why I only see limited use as a retrofit in existing builds or smaller screens where a ladder is sufficient.
quote: Bobby Henderson
All of these LED boards have plenty of black between the pixels. To me the amazing thing is how they can shrink the size of the actual LEDs down to such small sizes for the high resolution boards yet maintain intense color and brightness.
I don't think it is realistic to expect those customers to buy a screen in a resolution that eliminates the visible black space between the pixels. In most DCI theaters, you can easily spot pixels in content with hard edges, some claim it should be invisible for 4K screens, but on many of those oversized PLF screens, even that's not true.
Luckily, you almost never see the grid itself, so you can see the hard edges but not te space between the pixels. If this would be a LED screen with tiny pixels and lots of black space in between, you would see the pixel grid itself, especially in darker scenes. That's why I think it is important to install some kind of "diffuser" in front of those pixels, in order to spread the light in such way, that the dark space between the pixels will be minimized. The front rows will still be able to see pixels in certain content, but at least they won't be bothered by the screen door effect.
quote: Bobby Henderson
An LED board is not a smooth surface. I don't think sound would reflect off it as badly. A LED screen configured in common height rather than taller common width would bring speakers above and below the display closer together.
Getting back to the light diffuser idea, you might even use this as a sound diffuser. Just like many of those sound diffusers using "random" lengths of rods, sometimes with randomly angled edges, you could do the same by varying the thickness of the "diffuser" in front of each pixel. The downside is that you would create a surface that's particularly hard to clean though.
quote: Bobby Henderson
For giant screen use, driver boards would have to be designed to allow sound to travel through them. Ultimately I think that's what's going to be needed anyway, whether the boards are flat, curved or even made to build up a dome screen.
It's just something that comes to mind, without spending too much thought on the actual implementation, but maybe you could make the speakers part of the design of the panels themselves. This way, you would have one big LED and speaker wall.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Every driver board has its own cooling fans, ventilation ports, etc. The newest systems don't produce nearly as much heat and noise as LED panels did 10 or so years ago.
I've never seen it being employed for a LED screen and it will probably also increase costs quite significantly, but you could possibly avoid fans in the screen itself entirely by using some liquid cooling solution, which could be connected to a bus system, that would reduce noise to an absolute minimum. The heat collected is probably not sufficient to use in any meaningful way but if it is, you could potentially hook it up to an heat exchanger and use it to heat the room itself for example.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Allowing people to disrupt the movie is a bad idea. Considering the fact some theaters are selling beer and mixed drinks any efforts to enable disruptive behavior in a theater creates a bad combination and potentially violent situations.
We're getting way off-topic here, but I don't think that any theater sells alcohol with the intention to enable bad behavior. Beer and other alcoholic beverages are an interesting revenue stream, since you can sell them with even more margin than the average soft drink.
The problem here is oversight, which might be a general problem but can be aggravated by selling alcohol.
quote: Frank Angel
I still say the FCC should get in step with Europe, eskew the pressure of Big Telecom and allow jamming of cell phones within the theatre proper.
While I hate people using their phone inside a theater for random texting, facebooking and what not as much as you do, I'm no friend of jamming cellphones. The reason is that you might also block legitimate calls, like calls to emergency services or very important calls or texts for people on an organ donor list, etc. Furthermore, it is very hard to jam just the thing you want to jam and you could also be inadvertently jamming your neighbors.
Also, it will be increasingly hard to do so, since modern 4G cell phones already operate on a large array of frequencies.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The problem with OLED is cost. That type of display technology is affordable at small size levels, like that of mobile phones. When it scales to the size of current big screen TV sets the price gets very harshly high. Scaling the technology to the size of a commercial theater screen would be absolutely cost prohibitive. On top of that other issues would be present, like the solid screen blocking sound from speakers behind the screen or trying to build a tile-based system that appeared seamless.
About a year or 12 ago, I first spoke to some guys told me they had invented "printable electronics", using essentially something like a modified commercial inkjet printer. They didn't really have anything to show yet, but they claimed to be on track to print OLEDs too. I guess they underestimated the precision needed for high density electronics like OLED screens, especially since you would need to print multiple layers.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-02-2017, 04:07 AM:
It looks as if this is not for demonstration only. Samsung actually applied for CTP/DCI compliance I heard.
- Carsten
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-02-2017, 11:33 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
About a year or 12 ago, I first spoke to some guys told me they had invented "printable electronics", using essentially something like a modified commercial inkjet printer. They didn't really have anything to show yet, but they claimed to be on track to print OLEDs too. I guess they underestimated the precision needed for high density electronics like OLED screens, especially since you would need to print multiple layers.
Also veering OT, and with apologies, but I've often wondered if and when someone will come up with a way to inkjet-print dye transfer film prints. You'd start with clear, processed 5302 or 2302 print stock, just like the original dye transfer process did, and instead of putting the dyes into the absorbent gelatin layer using the matrix and screen printing approach, you'd simply squirt them on with an inkjet.
I'm guessing that it would probably be theoretically possible now, but that the printing time would make it totally uneconomic, like the 1990s 4K film scanners (e.g. Cineon) that took around a week to scan a 2,000 foot reel.
As for rowdy behavior by film audiences - nothing new. I've read accounts of drunkenness, fighting, you name it, by theater audiences going back to the 19-teens. One of my favorites is a report of a 1917 screening in a theater in The Bronx of a WWI propaganda movie charmingly titled The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin, in which a gun battle between German and Russian immigrants broke out (all of whom had reportedly been drinking heavily), and eventually resulted in the theater being burnt down.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-02-2017, 11:46 AM:
and maybe use a 3d printer to make the stock
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-02-2017, 02:45 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The market is huge, so there is quite some competition. One big problem though, is not just the cost for the technology, it's material cost too. Quite a lot of expensive material goes into a large LED screen, that's why this technology will probably never get real cheap.
Raw materials, like plastics, aren't very cheap. Every LED tile has a bunch of computer-based components in it. This kind of thing won't get to levels affordable to home theater enthusiasts. What I'm hoping will happen is continued breakthroughs on driver board design and capability. More powerful chips can reduce the amount of components going into each tile, simplifying the design and hopefully reducing cost. The better boards will eliminate less capable product lines. Right now a LED display company like Daktronics has many different product lines, all costing quite a lot of money to maintain. If the higher resolution systems can eliminate the more coarse product lines it might allow further price reductions due to increased scale of sales.
There's lots of different markets where these LED displays can be used. They're popular for signs and billboards in areas where they're allowed (quite a few affluent big city suburbs have very restrictive sign ordinance, even banning street signs completely). They're great for stadiums, busy shopping/tourism districts, airports, train stations, concert stages, large sports bars and overhead highway signs. Right now so many of these different markets use different kinds of LED boards.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
For DCI content, you really want a screen that has a native resolution that matches 2K or 4K. As most content you show is provided by you and practically immutable, it will be best to show it with a minimum of scaling and if so, only by factors of two. Even with considerable amount of pixel pitches to choose from, it will not be as flexible as a conventional projection screen where you zoom the image to fit to your needs.
Matching native resolution of 2K or 4K is not a problem for LED displays. There's already a lot of products available that can match 2048x1080 or 4096x2160 exactly. There's no need for scaling or zooming the image at all with these boards, as long as the customer installs a display that matches those pixel layouts. Repeating what I said earlier, focus is perfect with these displays, unlike that of many projection setups.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I don't think it is realistic to expect those customers to buy a screen in a resolution that eliminates the visible black space between the pixels. In most DCI theaters, you can easily spot pixels in content with hard edges, some claim it should be invisible for 4K screens, but on many of those oversized PLF screens, even that's not true.
I've seen a lot more in the way of projection drifted just out of focus. You're not going to see any visible pixel grid very easily. But you're also not going to see any benefit of 4K versus 2K projection either.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-02-2017, 05:47 PM:
quote: Carsten Kurz
It looks as if this is not for demonstration only. Samsung actually applied for CTP/DCI compliance I heard.
Wouldn't they need it anyway, even for a broader demo with actual content? Their content selection would be rather limited, without DCI compliance. I doubt studios are forthcoming in giving a lot of unencrypted premium/first run content away, even if it's just for demo purposes.
quote: Leo Enticknap
Also veering OT, and with apologies, but I've often wondered if and when someone will come up with a way to inkjet-print dye transfer film prints. You'd start with clear, processed 5302 or 2302 print stock, just like the original dye transfer process did, and instead of putting the dyes into the absorbent gelatin layer using the matrix and screen printing approach, you'd simply squirt them on with an inkjet.
Sorry for my broken English back there, it was a long night.
I think the challenge would be creating a printing head with the resolution required. I've been following some 3D printing start-ups lately and some of them are trying to use inkjet-based technologies. It seems to be rather challenging to get right and we're not talking about any resolution near that required for printing 35mm film.
Thinking about it, if it would be possible to couple toner to film stock in any meaningful way, it would probably be a more promising approach to a "fast universal film printer", than an inkjet based solution.
The reason is that there has been an awful lot of research and investment into extreme-precision and super-fast laser scanning techniques for stuff like LIDAR (think self-driving cars). Also, modulating a laser at multi-GHz frequencies is both cheap and reliable, thanks to years of intensive research into fiber-optic transmission. You can get a multi-GHz laser modulator in the form of a switch and an SFP+ fiber optics module for a few bucks nowadays.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Right now a LED display company like Daktronics has many different product lines, all costing quite a lot of money to maintain. If the higher resolution systems can eliminate the more coarse product lines it might allow further price reductions due to increased scale of sales.
Cinema will always be a niche market. Although the technology being used is often nothing more than a derivative of a mainstream solution, the adaptations needed will almost always make it pretty expensive. I'm pretty sure that a DCI compliant LED screen will be more expensive than any other LED screen with the same specifications.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Matching native resolution of 2K or 4K is not a problem for LED displays. There's already a lot of products available that can match 2048x1080 or 4096x2160 exactly. There's no need for scaling or zooming the image at all with these boards, as long as the customer installs a display that matches those pixel layouts. Repeating what I said earlier, focus is perfect with these displays, unlike that of many projection setups.
For now, it's only Samsung that is planning to offer DCI certified LED walls. Just like you cannot just choose whatever digital projector you please, you cannot just choose Daktronics as your supplier, if they do not offer a DCI compliant solution.
So, if Samsung offers, for example, just two pixel pitches, there are just two different sizes of screens that offer the exact 4K resolution. As you certainly know, there are cinema auditoria in all sizes.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I've seen a lot more in the way of projection drifted just out of focus. You're not going to see any visible pixel grid very easily. But you're also not going to see any benefit of 4K versus 2K projection either.
There's a way to cheap out on anything and technology is seemingly not going to fix it. When we switched from good ol' 35mm to DCI we said... well, all in all it might be a step down, a lot of us are going to loose their job, but at least, movies will not end up looking like shit after only a few shows.
And for a time, when everybody got their new projectors and took some time to readjust things, the projection standard might have been higher on average than ever before.
But then they "forgot" that even those digital systems need some TLC. Focus will drift, convergence will drift, stuff will get dirty, audio systems will slowly drift. Only now they fired the one guy that actually still cared, or somewhat cared.
If this technology ever becomes one of importance, the same thing will happen to this. LED walls also need maintenance. What good is an in-focus picture when you have one of the modules freaking out?
"Oh, it's just in the lower right corner... you can still watch the movie, right?" That's what the popcorn guy said to you after you tried and failed to locate the manager.
So, there will always be slackers, no matter how good the technology may be.
Posted by Pietro Clarici (Member # 4937) on 04-02-2017, 06:25 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
So, if Samsung offers, for example, just two pixel pitches, there are just two different sizes of screens that offer the exact 4K resolution. As you certainly know, there are cinema auditoria in all sizes.
If these things ever take off, I'm expecting DCI specs to include variable, higher-than-4K screen resolutions.
At this point there is no reason to be stuck with pixel quadrupling anymore, especially when it comes to LED panels: I personally think that having perfect focus can easily compensate for every detail lost with nonlinear scaling, if any.
I know we're on a completely different scale, but 1080p content on a 1440p screen is just fine.
That would also - finally - allow us to install true native >5K Scope projectors or displays.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-03-2017, 08:03 AM:
Did anyone actually see this? If so, how did it look?
Also, I may have missed it in this thread, but this is an LED panel of the type used in sports facilities or on digital billboards, correct? As opposed to a "video wall" of LED-illuminated LCD panels.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-03-2017, 01:49 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Cinema will always be a niche market. Although the technology being used is often nothing more than a derivative of a mainstream solution, the adaptations needed will almost always make it pretty expensive. I'm pretty sure that a DCI compliant LED screen will be more expensive than any other LED screen with the same specifications.
There is nothing fundamentally different from the prototype Samsung showed versus that of other LED boards. These controllers for these boards can be made to accept a wide variety of video and image sources. Modifying a LED board controller to be DCI compliant -which in this case primarily means keeping the video source secure is a very minor part of the cost equation. Overwhelmingly the main cost driver is the LED tiles themselves, how many tiles and how many pixels per tile are needed. The other stuff, proportionately speaking, is pretty minor.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
For now, it's only Samsung that is planning to offer DCI certified LED walls. Just like you cannot just choose whatever digital projector you please, you cannot just choose Daktronics as your supplier, if they do not offer a DCI compliant solution.
Considering the kinds of massive custom projects Daktronics has engineered and the wide range of product lines they develop, believe me they would have zero problem bringing a DCI-compliant 4K LED screen to market if the commercial movie theater market wanted it. Making LED boards that are better and have longer life spans is the bigger challenge.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If this technology ever becomes one of importance, the same thing will happen to this. LED walls also need maintenance. What good is an in-focus picture when you have one of the modules freaking out?
Driver boards are fairly easy to replace and color calibrate, especially the ones from better companies like Daktronics. If these kinds of displays were to be used in a movie theater environment spare driver boards would need to be on hand there at the site or in the hands of a service person tasked with swapping the parts ASAP.
quote: Pietro Clarici
If these things ever take off, I'm expecting DCI specs to include variable, higher-than-4K screen resolutions.
At this point there is no reason to be stuck with pixel quadrupling anymore, especially when it comes to LED panels: I personally think that having perfect focus can easily compensate for every detail lost with nonlinear scaling, if any.
In a perfect world all the content being played would match the pixel layout of the display. Many of the controllers for these LED displays can already resample/scale content up or down in size. If someone wanted to spend the fortune it would cost he could build a 8K or even higher resolution LED display now. There is very little native 8K content, so just about everything played on the board would have to be scaled to fill the display and synchronized across multiple controllers. DCI specs would need to specify the kinds of resampling used to blow up content (like resampling 2K to 4K).
quote: Scott Norwood
Also, I may have missed it in this thread, but this is an LED panel of the type used in sports facilities or on digital billboards, correct? As opposed to a "video wall" of LED-illuminated LCD panels.
It's exposed, direct emitting LED like the jumbotrons in stadiums or digital billboards. The difference is the LED clusters are spaced in far tighter pitches between pixels than you see on things like outdoor billboards.
I wish I was going to the International Sign Association world expo in Las Vegas this month. I'm sure various LED display vendors will be showing lots of new LED video boards.
Posted by Leslie Hartmier (Member # 7053) on 04-03-2017, 02:41 PM:
One of the things that they said at their 'display' of the Samsung panel (GDC, who was 'promoting' it, not Samsung, who had the installation in Orleans) was that replacement of the panels are an insignificant task, and that calibration of them after to match the rest was equally simple.
I will confess, it all sounded interesting, I guess. The thing was, the GDC room was pretty sparse, had some repeating content on the one screen that was running, which might have been one or four panels (I'll give them that - if it was multiple panels, I couldn't tell), at least one panel sitting opposite the operating one, and no audio.
Additionally, they were very circumspect about price, availability, and just generally, we left the room not much more knowledgeable about the product than before we went in.
It was interesting, and no mistake. It was just that I imagine that there are logistical issues that need to be surmounted, and I think that perhaps the unveiling of it at CinemaCon was a bit early for them.
Had we had more time, I would have liked to take a look at the Orleans installation, but that was something that fell by the wayside, much like checking out a demonstration of the laser retrofit for existing machines that a company had going on (it concentrated the laser power modules in a single rack, and ran fiber optic to the machines, and was connected straight onto the integrator rod. If one power module failed, the others would take over, meaning that all the screens dimmed a bit, but none of them went dark. Seemed neat. Sad not to see it.)
Anyway, my main concern about the LED cinema screen is the customers, who can be prone to throwing things. Gummie bears are for eating, people. Also, putting the speakers above the LED screen seems weird to me (that is what they explained was done at Orleans, and would be done with any installation. Sound everywhere but at the screen kinda makes DTS-X, etc a bit problematic, I think.
That's my thoughts on it, anyway.
Leslie
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-03-2017, 06:06 PM:
quote: Pietro Clarici
That would also - finally - allow us to install true native >5K Scope projectors or displays.
The problem here is the compatibility with existing equipment. A lot of equipment which is currently perfectly DCI complaint will simply not handle anything above 4K. It won't be able to rescale it, because either software and/or hardware limitations.
Once DCI goes beyond the current specs, there will be an instantaneous demand for dual inventory distributions.
quote: Bobby Henderson
There is nothing fundamentally different from the prototype Samsung showed versus that of other LED boards. These controllers for these boards can be made to accept a wide variety of video and image sources. Modifying a LED board controller to be DCI compliant -which in this case primarily means keeping the video source secure is a very minor part of the cost equation. Overwhelmingly the main cost driver is the LED tiles themselves, how many tiles and how many pixels per tile are needed. The other stuff, proportionately speaking, is pretty minor.
It's the major Hollywood Studios that control the DCI specs, so it depends on what they put into the specs how difficult it will be to create a product that conforms to those specifications.
Let's not forget that the primary intention of those specifications is content security, then comes a whole lot of nothing and finally everything else...
So, we don't know how medieval they will get on Samsung's *ss and other manufacturers with similar products in the pipeline. They might as well demand encryption up to the LED drivers themselves, which will certainly add up to the costs.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Considering the kinds of massive custom projects Daktronics has engineered and the wide range of product lines they develop, believe me they would have zero problem bringing a DCI-compliant 4K LED screen to market if the commercial movie theater market wanted it. Making LED boards that are better and have longer life spans is the bigger challenge.
I have no doubts a company like Daktronics would be up to the challenge, especially compared to other manufacturers that haven't been in this market for that long. But there's more to it than just building a LED wall. Like I mentioned before, the DCI security thing could be a major speed bump, depending on what kind of security implementation the studios will demand.
Posted by Jason Metcalfe (Member # 5739) on 04-04-2017, 02:35 PM:
One benefit here that I don't think anyone has mentioned is refresh rate, Sony had a clip from Billy Lynn at 120 and I have to think that's the way that feature was meant to be seen. Of the two technologies I really though Sony had a much better product.
What I'm wondering is if/how this will be a complement or detriment to the RGB laser generation
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-04-2017, 05:57 PM:
quote: Jason Metcalfe
One benefit here that I don't think anyone has mentioned is refresh rate, Sony had a clip from Billy Lynn at 120 and I have to think that's the way that feature was meant to be seen. Of the two technologies I really though Sony had a much better product.
I guess nobody mentioned it because none of the two currently used imaging technologies have refresh rate issues. Refresh rates are primarily limited by bandwidth limitations, but the latest generation of projectors can do 60 fps at 4K.
While DLP uses oscillating mirrors and does have something like a "refresh rate per pixel", it's sufficiently high not to cause any real limitations even for high frame rates.
When it comes to "flicker fusion", then the oscillation frequency of the DLP pixels is way beyond what human vision can "resolve" and SXRD doesn't "oscillate" pixels at all.
So, I'm not sure what this technology will bring to the table that cannot be achieved with DLP or LCoS/SXRD regarding refresh rates.
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