Explaining the Pros and Cons of LED Video Walls vs. LCD Video Walls
A video wall is not a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many options to choose from when designing a commercial building video wall display: the size and shape of the digital canvas, what type of content will be displayed and the purpose of the video wall. Operationally, you may focus on desired reliability, maintenance and serviceability of the equipment. Hardware and technology decisions ensure the video wall will deliver both the desired viewing and ownership experience.
One of these choices is deciding between an LCD display or an LED video wall. Continue reading to find out more about the basics, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each solution.
About LCD Digital Screen Displays
Most people are familiar with LCD technology, which stands for Liquid Crystal Display. These types of displays have a massive presence in this world, used in living rooms to watch movies, fast-food restaurants to showcase menus, airports to show flight schedules, and everything in between. LCD technology was developed in the 1960s and has been used worldwide as a standard for roughly 20 years. It is a tried-and-true technology that has stood the test of time and will be around for the foreseeable future.
On an LCD screen, the panel is illuminated by a light source and works through reflection or transmission of light. Overall, LCD displays have better viewing angles and less glare than LED screens. This technology was designed to be energy efficient and tends to be lighter in weight.
How does an LCD screen display work?
In an LCD monitor, there are multiple layers behind the protective glass on the screen that work together to produce an image:
- Thin layer of liquid crystal material placed in between two layers of electrodes and glass
- Color filter to produce colors
- LED backlight behind the glass and color filters to emit light
LCD video wall displays differ from those mentioned in the above use cases in that they are designed and built specifically to serve video walls.
An LCD video wall is made up of multiple LCD panel monitors mounted on a surface to create a digital canvas, which then work together to create a unified experience. They operate 24/7 at a high brightness and have thin bezels that help create a seamless look when the displays are placed next to one another.
What qualities or technical elements should I consider?
Bezel thickness and the brightness rating are among key attributes to consider for an LCD video wall display. Here is what each of these means and why.
- Bezel: Bezel thicknesses for video wall displays are measured in “bezel-to-bezel” thickness. This is the thickness of the bezel when two displays are placed next to one another. Displays can be either large bezel or thin bezel.
- Nits: Brightness is measured in Nits. A higher Nit value means the display will be brighter. A brighter display is necessary in a room that sees plenty of direct sunlight, or if the intent is to draw in visitors from far away. With LCD video walls, the price of the hardware goes up as the display size and brightness increase, and the bezel width decreases.
What content should you show?
The next item to consider is the type of content that will be displayed on your video wall. LCD displays have high resolution screens — modern 4K displays have over 8 million pixels! This means that the content being displayed is highly detailed and crystal-clear. A viewer could stand less than 1 foot away from the screen and be able to see exactly what is being shown on the screen.
Like previously mentioned with LCD video walls, an important consideration in the decision-making process is the type of content that will be displayed on the video wall. LED video walls suffer from image degradation and pixilation from up close, so fine details will be lost, and text will be illegible. If detail from up close is important, LCD displays are much better suited for that situation.
Content examples that are well-suited for an LCD video wall:
- Fine text for directory listings
- Transit schedules
- Announcements
- News, weather, and stock tickers
Wrapping it up
Video walls add exciting drama and premium value to showcase spaces. It is an investment that adds a perfect eye-catching solution for a busy lobby, conference room, or any other space.
Video walls are relatively new. But LCD technology has had decades of mainstream adoption, and with that comes both familiarity and lower costs. If those are important to you, then an LCD video wall is likely the right choice.
An LCD video wall will provide a fantastic experience for the user if:
- The intent is to have more informative and detailed content
- The content must be viewed from a close distance
About LED Digital Screen Displays
LED video walls are similar to LCD video walls, but the digital canvas is built using LED panels. Individual LED panels can be anywhere from 12”x12” to 36”x18”, which is much smaller than LCD displays. LED panels have a larger presence in this world than most might think—they are found indoors and outdoors at stadiums, arenas, concert venues, airports, and in use as large digital advertisements in iconic places such as Times Square.
What’s in an LED display?
LED panels are made up of 2 main components: the cabinet and the module. The cabinet houses internal components such as cabling and circuit boards.
The module is a small rectangular board that contains all the individual LEDs (light-emitting diodes). Unlike LCD, there is no glass or color filter on the LED video wall panels. The individual diodes that are placed on the modules produce both color and light.
One of the most impressive features of LED panels is that they can be combined to create almost any shape, without a bezel interrupting the digital canvas. LED video wall panels can be placed on curved surfaces, 90-degree edges, and other non-standard surfaces. The smaller size of the panels in relation to LCD video wall displays means they can fill more space on a surface—they aren’t limited to standard 46” and 55” sizes as are LCD video wall displays.
LED Video Wall Advantages:
- No bezel:LED panels are combined to create a bezel-less, uninterrupted digital canvas
- High brightness,high contrast ratio, no glare: creates brighter, darker, more vivid colors that can easily be seen in direct light
- Limitless shapes and sizes:the smaller size of LED panels allows them to be combined to create unique canvases, including curved, 90-degree edge, and other combinations not possible with LCD displays
- High refresh rate: ideal for moving content; creates extremely smooth motion on the display with no judder
- Easy maintenance and service; high reliability: LED module replacement takes seconds with little effort; LED panels are rated with a lifetime of 80,000-100,000 hours, depending on the product
- Indoor or outdoor: outdoor LED panels are 100% weatherproof and can withstand extremely high and low temperatures
What is a video wall?
A video wall is a special multi-screens setup that consists of multiple computer monitors or television sets tiled together contiguously in order to form one unified large screen. The TV wall, display wall, data wall and media wall will all be referred to as a Video Wall.
Typically, multiple display devices including LCD panels, LED panels or rear projection cubes (DLP cubes) are tiled together in a matrix to create a single logical screen (the Video Wall), on which any large electronic display of a video image or images can be displayed in a presentation format.
Why is a video wall required?
The video wall has several advantages and attributes, such as high-definition display, consistent brightness, more video image quantities, mixed source resolutions and formats, flexibility of customizing presentations and the centralized displaying/control that single displays cannot achieve otherwise.
Reasons for using a video wall instead of a single large screen can include the ability to customize tile layouts, greater screen area per unit cost, and greater pixel density per unit cost, due to the economics of manufacturing single screens which are unusual in shape, size, or resolution.
Video walls can be found in control rooms, command centers, Network Operations Centers (NOC), Tactical Operations Centers (TOC), data centers, call centers, security and surveillance facilities, stadiums, and other large public venues.
What is a video wall controller?
Simple video walls can be driven from multi-monitor video cards (computer graphic cards), however more complex arrangements may require specialized Video Wall Controllers or Processors, specifically designed to manage and drive large video walls. Software-based video wall technology that uses ordinary PCs, displays and networking equipment can also be used for small video walls (Typically no more than 16 displays, for example 4x4 video walls). To make large scale video walls (Typically up to 144 displays, or more), a Video Wall Controller is necessary.
With specialized Video Wall Controller devices, an image is scaled across the whole video wall or multiple images are spread out across the video wall. This can also be a combination of both in the case of Picture in Picture (PIP).
A video wall controller takes one or several inputs (sources), and split the content for delivery onto multiple displays, and generally enable administrators to manage the configuration or contents of their video wall. There are several main types of video wall controllers: hardware-based, PC-based or software-based, and daisy-chain display based.
A video wall is a multi-monitor large display consisting of multiple displays. Video wall displays are designed to provide high quality, high-resolution picture quality. it can survive harsh external usage conditions and release more light thana commercial-grade digital signature display. Video wall technology is evolving in both developing and developed nations. The integration of advanced technologies with the video wall display extends its functionality, further propelling the market in the coming five years. The capability to enhance customers' visual experience through multimonitor setups is likely to drive significant adoption. Various enterprises, control rooms, public places, and stadiums are heavily adopting video wall displays, contributing to the global market growth. Manufacturers focus on enhancing their display solutions by introducing advent features such as high resolution, high quality, and automatic calibration. Cumulative demand for interactive displays at public transportation places such as railway stations, and airports are likely to accelerate market growth, interactive video wall offers better customer engagement than conventional videowalls which boosts their demand across the retail sector. (Commercial places, including healthcare facilities, retail stores, museums, restaurants, and cafes, increasingly adopt the video wall display, driving substantial market growth. The rising preference for screens with narrow bezels is another significant factor impelling the market growth.
Growing demand for the high-definition digital display with high-impact data visualization, real-time 8k source content-sharing capability, and high-performance multi-touch interactivity would also fuel the advanced video wall display demand. The interactive video wall's ability to offer gesture-controlled engagement and touchscreen engagement will further stimulate market growth. Moreover, the popularity of emerging display trends, including direct view OLEDindoor direct-view LED, and laser phosphor display, has boosted the video wall display market's growth.
KEY PLAYERS COVERED:
Key players in the global video wall display market are primarily focusing on developing new products and enhancing their existing product portfolio to uplift their position in a global marketplace. Vast developments in interactive display solutions provide exclusive business growth opportunities for the key vendors, Some vendors adopt fundamental business expansion strategies such as strategic partnerships, collaborations, mergers, and acquisitions. Several videowall display manufacturers are incorporating advanced technologies into video wals to augment their performance and to increase their consumer-base
Prominent companies included in the global video wall display market are Adfow Networks, AU Optronics (Corp, PhilipsN.V LG Display Co. Ltd, Navori SA, NEC Display Solutions, Omnivex Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, SamsungElectronics Co. Ltd., Sony Corporation., among others.
REGIONAL ANALYSIS:
North America is likely to account for a significant share of the global video wall display market, The dominance can be attributed to the growing adoption of interactive display solutions among North American commercial facilities massive adoption of touch-screen video walls in the United States government, corporate, and retail sector witnesses substantial market growth across the country. North America is showcasing the presence of many interactive display solution providers, which would be further proven to be supportive of the market growth across the region. Similarly, with the growing demand for 3D, portrait, and multitouch video wall display solutions, Europe has also become one of the prime contributors in the global video wall display market, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain are the front runner in the adoption of interactive LED video walls Thus, Europe also contributes significantly to the global market.
The Asia-Pacific is expected to cultivate lucrative opportunities for the market to grow over the forecast period. Therewith is attributed to snowballing investments devoted to digital classrooms. Installation of digital video walls and interactive displays at commercial and public transportation places would be likely to drive the adoption, The rapidly developing corporate sector demands interactive, large video wall solutions, which further support the market growth across the Asia-Pacific.
The government's substantial investments in the development of the public sector would be likely to drive the video wall display market across the Middle East and Africa, The government initiatives for augmenting production quantity would be expected to drive the market growth across the region.
