March 21, 2024 - Over the past decade, video walls have become an increasingly popular digital signage choice. That’s because they’re particularly effective at engaging people and delivering messages efficiently. They offer larger, higher resolution images than a single display, and they can be built to almost any configuration to fit a specific space or purpose.
Video walls have found homes in many different types of settings, including corporate offices, retail stores, transportation hubs and sports venues, as well as command and control facilities. When deciding which type of video wall installation is appropriate for your customers’ needs, a basic decision is determining which of the two basic types of technologies — LCD or dvLED — is best for the specific application. LCD and dvLED displays have very different features and benefits. Here's a quick primer on both.
Liquid Crystal Displays
Liquid crystal display (LCD) panels are manufactured by inserting a layer of liquid crystal — a substance that is part solid and part liquid — between two sheets of glass. When electricity is applied to this layer, the crystals shift to create an image. Because the crystals do not produce their own light, some type of backlighting is needed to display the image. Ironically, LEDs are the most popular source of backlighting for LCD panels.
LCD panels are bright and provide high-resolution images at a modest cost. They also have slim depths and are energy efficient. One major disadvantage of an LCD panel, however, is that it requires a bezel. LCDs have been a popular choice for video walls, but when the panels are connected to create a video wall, those bezels are visible and break up the overall image. Although bezel widths continue to narrow, LCD bezels remain a visual distraction for video wall installations.
Direct View LED
A light emitting diode (LED) is a tiny semiconductor that converts electricity into visible light. In an LED panel, each color pixel has one red, one blue and one green LED. The combination of these three colors enables the LED to create trillions of colors. In an LED panel, each LED produces light itself, unlike an LCD panel, in which the backlight passes through the liquid crystal layer. That’s where the name “direct view” LED (dvLED) originates.
LED panels have many advantages, including high brightness, superior contrast and viewing angles, long life, energy efficiency and suitability for both indoor and outdoor applications. LED panels are the ideal solution for video walls because they don’t have bezels. That means there are no seams in the middle of the wall to distract viewers.
Choosing the Right Panel
LCD panels have traditionally been the popular choice for video walls, particularly for indoor applications, and dvLEDs have been the go-to choice for outdoor installations. But due to advances in LED technology, dvLEDs are now challenging the dominance of LCDs for indoor uses.
Selecting the best video wall solution for a specific indoor installation can be challenging. Here are some considerations to keep in mind:
The Big Picture
Because of recent advances in dvLED technologies, customers considering an indoor video wall installation now have options beyond the traditional choice of LCD solutions. To steer them in the right direction, it’s important to decide whether an LCD or dvLED solution is the best choice for their specific needs. That decision depends on a wide range of factors, and by matching client needs with the benefits of the technologies that are available, a cost-effective, long-term signage solution can be discovered.
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