Article

Ultra-thin bezel screens answer demand for sleeker video walls

Two new models from Samsung and NEC are allowing users to create ‘virtually-seamless' LCD matrices.  

March 29, 2009

Two commercial-grade panels for digital signage being released this spring are changing the look of video walls. The Samsung460UT and the NECMultiSync X461UN garnered much attention at the recent Digital Signage Expo because of their ultra-thin bezels, which enhance video wall configurations by reducing the seams between the panels for a more continuous picture.   The 460UT and MultiSync X461UN are actually very similar, due to the fact that NEC procured the panel technology from Samsung, who did the original research and development. Though several features differentiate the two, both models have a 7.3mm screen-to-screen bezel size when placed in a video wall.

A flight information display using Samsung's 460UT and the Samsung ID video wall system.

Read also:Video walls: The changing face of oversized displays 

"Places like hotels and casinos are especially looking for high-impact signage," he said. "So tiling a bunch of 46-inch screens, especially now when you can get a near-seamless arrangement, is going to have more impact than stand-alone screens, no matter the size."

Outside of LCD video walls, digital signage users have had a limited number of options for these high-impact displays, each of which has several downfalls when compared to thin-bezel video walls.

With only 7.3mm bewteen screens, thin-bezel screens are a more attractive alternative than traditional displays.

Customers have traditionally used:

Huge large-format displays, such as the Panasonic 103-inch plasma and the 108-inch Sharp LCD. "One of the biggest advantages of using thin-bezel displays for video walls as opposed to large displays is being able move them," McLaughlin said. "I know it may sound like a minor thing, but there is a challenge of shipping the screen, receiving the screen and just getting it into the building."

LED-based video boxes, similar to those used in jumbotrons and outdoor spectaculars. "These are great for long distances and low resolutions, but obviously you cannot use that for video wall at close proximity, because the pixelization is really bad," said R.A.Atanus, VP of product marketing for Samsung. "They also draw an incredible amount of power, are costly and can have depth of up to 18 inches."

Lightboxes, like those once manufactured by Clarity and later bought by Planar. Each ligthbox features a rear-screen projector with DLP technology.

"People don't realize that the lamp life for these is only 1,500-2,000 hours," Atanus said. "Also, it's almost impossible to match the color and brightness of all of the panels. Once you replace one lamp, you basically have to replace all of the adjacent ones at the same time to maintain consistency. And projector lamps have the ‘toner mentality' — where profit is made on the costly lamp replacement."

Though the 460UT and MultiSync X461UN can create video walls that have a leg up on existing technologies, there are still some important things to keep in mind when considering this application.

Mounting

Thicker-bezel screens have some margin of error built in when it comes to keeping the seams close in a video wall, but with almost no bezel it's easier to detect a shoddy mounting job.

"The seaming of the walls has to be extremely tight," McLaughlin said. "If you have thicker bezel this may not be as important, but now that you have taken a lot of that bezel away, you have to make sure that there are no gaps."

Temperature

It's not an issue for single-screen deployments, but when screens are five rows deep in a video wall, heat becomes an issue. 

"With large video walls, the bottom row of screens and each succeeding row are generating heat toward the screens above them, with the top screens most susceptible to damage," McLaughlin said. "You have to make sure you are utilizing cooling options to deflect heat from rising as you build bigger video walls. Some of those cooling options can be built into the screen, other times they are part of the mounting options."

Fragility

The screens also tend to be more fragile than their thicker-bezel counterparts and require more care when shipping and mounting.

"In most cases, the bezel tends to be a structural element to the product," McLaughlin said. "So as you move away from normal bezels to ultra-thin bezels, you have to be much more careful as they go down the manufacturing line and how they are supported. So you lose some of the structural element, but you get a much more impactful visual element."

Also, the price for the UT and MultiSync X461UN screens are around 50 percent and 75 percent more, respectively, than the equivalent-size models with normal-sized bezels.

Regardless, these screens represent a significant step forward for display technology and since the show have gained much popularity among digital signage deployers.

Schroll said that even though the UT series is rolling out at the end of April, the number of pre-orders is enough that they can't keep any sample screens in stock.

"As bezels are starting to become thinner in the large format space, I think customers are starting to realize the value and appeal of thin-bezel screens, even for stand alone deployments," Schroll said. "And once it becomes mainstream, it's going to be expected."