Comparisons between LED cinema display and traditional film projector
Famous LED cinema display brand around the world
Eight Chinese LED cinema display brands acquired DCI certification
Some popular LED cinema projects in China
Will LED cinema display completely replace film projector
Kinglight P3 series LEDs for cinema screens
LED cinema display becomes a buzzword in LED industry in recent years. When we google it, it’s easy to get a lot of recommendations over the product, including the 27 inch LED cinema display from Apple at the very first link, Wikipedia’s introduction about Apple cinema displays, Unilumin’s article talking about LED cinema displays, and also the famous LG’s direct view LED extreme home cinema displays.
First VLED LED cinema in Canton, Southern China
And in addition, there are also a lot of famous Chinese LED screen brands have already developed LED cinema displays. So why are LED cinema displays so popular? Here in this article, we’ll focus on the topic and explore the advantages of LED cinema displays when compared with traditional film projectors.
An LED cinema display is a large format and high definition display utilizing light emitting diodes (LED) to create images.
An LED cinema display excels in color accuracy, contrast ratio, and brightness when compared with LCD screens and traditional film projectors.
Meanwhile, an LED cinema display is energy saving and lasts much longer than other types of displays.
All these factors make LED cinema displays the future of movie watching though they cost more than traditional film projectors.
Nowadays, traditional film projectors are still the mainstream in cinemas while LED cinema displays are gradually replacing them especially in some high end cinemas. And in the future, as LED technology continues to evolve, we can expect a lower cost of LED cinema displays and a complete replacement of traditional film projectors.
Both of the two different technologies for playing films have their own pros and cons. Let’s see the detailed comparisons between them.
1-1. Pros
1-2. Cons
2-1. Pros
2-2. Cons
Apple’s 27 inch cinema LED display occupies many links when we google “LED cinema display”.
In fact, it’s a LCD display with LED backlightlighting which is quite different from the LED cinema display we’re talking about here.
And according to the documentation on Apple’s official page, the 27 inch LED cinema display supports three different resolutions, 2560 by 1440 pixels, 1920 by 1080 pixels, and 1280 by 720 pixels. It’s more a desktop PC for watching high quality videos at home than the large format display in a cinema.
Korean tech giant Samsung is also a pioneer in the development of LED cinema displays.
We can see report over Samsung’s cinema LED screen on its official website, saying it’s a next generation theater experience.
The technology was unveiled seven years ago, on July 13th, 2017. With ground breaking self illuminating, the screen itself is a kind of authentic LED display we’re talking about here.
According to Samsung, the screen fosters realistic and engaging visuals projector-free, providing next-generation picture quality to offer moviegoers a much more immersive viewing experience.
Samsung Onyx Cinema LED Screen
As another tech giant in Korea, LG also provides solutions for cinema displays, including the direct view LED for home theaters and the Miraclass series LED cinema displays, providing 2K, 4K, 8K resolutions for end users.
In addition, LG’s Miraclass LED cinema displays meet with DCI-P3 color gamut, which is an important standard for cinema displays recognized by Hollywood.
Some report says the LG’s Miraclass LED cinema display was co-developed with China high-tech enterprise – Leyard.
LG Miraclass LED cinema display
According to report, there are 8 LED cinema display brands in China acquired DCI certification.
Here is the list.
Since November 2019, a number of LG Miraclass cinema displays jointly developed by Leyard and LG Electronics have successively passed the DCI certification; and after it, Leyard obtained DCI certification for LED cinema displays through independent R&D and cooperative development, covering sizes of 3.8m, 10m, 14m, etc., with pixel pitches corresponding to P0.9, P5, and P3.3 respectively.
In May 2021, Unilumin Technology’s UC-A21 LED movie screen obtained DCI certification, breaking the monopoly of foreign companies such as Samsung, Sony, and LG in my country’s 100 billion-level cinema display market.
In November 2021, Unilumin Technology’s UC-A41 product obtained DCI certification; from May to June this year, Unilumin Technology had two more products successively obtain DCI certification; its UCINE LED movie projection system includes LED screens of different sizes and specifications such as 8m, 10m, 14m, and 16m.
At present, Unilumin Technology’s four movie screen products are all large-pitch and large-size products; among them, the UC-A41 4K product (P4, 16.38*8.64m) has been launched in theaters in Beijing, Wuhan and other places.
At present, AET has a 2K and a 4K cinema LED screen that have passed DCI certification, both with a size of 10m.
Among them, the AET P5 2K movie screen (P5, 10*5.4m) has been deployed in theaters in Beijing, Shanghai, Hebei and other places in China.
In 2021 and 2022, Timewaying successively achieved DCI certification for two LED movie screen products, covering sizes of 10m and 20m.
As of July 2023, Timewaying HeyLED has landed 7 projects distributed in Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other places in China, and 1 project in Los Angeles, USA.
Timewaying proposed the concept of pixel uniformity when defining the product from the beginning, using lens group technology and independently developing the unique optical mask technology of HeyLED movie screen to solve the problem of dazzling light from LED movie screen points.
In August 2022, Nanjing Lopu 4K movie screen passed DCI’s technical indicators, production and manufacturing, quality control and other tests, successfully obtained DCI certification, and obtained an entry ticket to the LED movie market.
At present, Lopu LP-CINEMA-100 (P2.5, 10.24*5.4m) have been launched in theaters in Nanjing, China and India.
In February 2022, MG Displays announced that its GS01 LED cinema screen had passed the test of the US DCI testing agency and officially obtained the Hollywood DCI certification, becoming a cinema equipment R&D company that has obtained dual DCI certification for projection servers and movie LED screens.
At present, MG Displays is actively promoting LED movie screens through cooperation with LED display companies, and related certified products have been launched in some cities in China.
In June 2023, QS Tech announced that its 4K LED cinema display (10.56m*5.4m) has officially obtained DCI certification.
According to reports, QS Tech’s 4K LED movie screen had been installed in a cinema in Guangzhou.
In August 2023, China Film Group officially released the China Film CINITY LED display projection system at China Film International Cinema (Party History Museum Store). It is reported that this 16-meter-4K LED display was jointly built by China Film Technology and AOTO Electronics.
CFG Barco and AOTO Electronics signed the “China Film CINITY LED Cinema Display Bulk Order Agreement” in September, marking that the LED cinema display jointly built by AOTO Electronics and China Film Group will gradually be put on the market.
As the largest market of LEDs, China has a lot of popular LED cinema projects across the country. Here we will also list some of them for your reference.
The Perfect World Cinema, Beijing Winter Olympic Village branch was opened in July 2023, and is the first VLED cinema hall in Beijing, which is provided by CINEAPPO.
The cinema was opened in 2018 with the world’s first LED cinema display featuring a 14 meters wide Onyx display provided by Samsung.
The cinema was opened in July 2023, featuring the first HeyLED cinema display provided by Timewaying in Southern China.
The LED cinema display in the cinema was launched during the Spring Festival in 2023. It’s provide by Unilumin and is the first giant LED cinema in the Central China region.
The cinema upgraded with LED cinema display in February 2024, and becomes the first cinema owns China’s first CINITY curved LED display, which was provided by AOTO.
As mentioned in the previous section, an LED cinema display excels in many aspects when compared with traditional film projectors, including more precise color reproduction, higher brightness, contrast ratio, energy saving.
And meanwhile, LED cinema display produces brighter and sharper images than film projectors. This benefits for the displaying of 3D movies. We can easy achieve naked eye 3D visuals on an LED cinema display, rather than wearing a 3D glass while watching a movie on a projection screen.
The only issue can be the cost of LED cinema displays. And we believe as LED technology continues to evolve, more cost effective LED cinema display can emerge. And at that time, there is no doubt that LED cinema display will eventually replace the traditional film projectors.
As a leading enterprise in LED package, Kinglight provides various LEDs, including the MC0606-P3, TOP1010-P3, 1415-P3, and 2020-P3 LED, which meet DCI-P3 color gamut standard.
If use our LEDs for makingLED cinema displays, no doubt you’ll get high accurate color reproduction screens for cinemas and movie theaters.
Kinglight P3 Color Gamut Series LEDs for cinema screens
If you have any requirement or question over our products, feel free to write to sales@kinglight.com.
