Recently, the Metaverse has been frequently screened. The so-called metaverse is a virtual world parallel to the real world. However, for industrialists, the Metaverse is also a collection of cutting-edge technologies. High-tech such as 5G, the Internet of Things, and virtual engines can all be brought together into the Metaverse. The Metaverse can accommodate all things, and LED displays play an important role in it.
The display screen can be both an input channel and an output medium. Under the digital and intelligent era, LED display screens have also ushered in new changes. Whether it is a wearable device such as VR/AR, or a large LED display screen, new increments can be obtained under market changes.
The direction of the large-screen market under the “Metaverse”
Different from wearable devices, the immersive large screen enables VR to jump out of the rut of glasses and bring a three-dimensional sense intuitively. At present, immersive large screens mostly exist in commercial applications.
This year, the main battlefield is the naked-eye 3D and XR shooting technology. At the same time, in the immersive experience market, scenes constructed with LED display are also gradually developing. Compared with traditional large-screen displays, “immersion” and “interaction” are two key points that must be possessed by large-screen displays in the Metaverse.
naked eye 3D
In the first three quarters of this year, outdoor digital media has grown significantly. With the empowerment of technologies such as naked-eye 3D LED display, the marketing value and commercial value of outdoor media large screens have been released in the market.
In October 2020, the naked-eye 3D screen built by a Shenzhen LED manufacturer for the Yingjia Building in Taikoo Li, Chengdu, the content of the spaceship giant screen was spread on the Internet, with a total hit of 320 million, and was reported by many official media. Glasses-free 3D has become popular in the application market.
This year, new naked-eye 3D large screens have been built in various places, and they have also been widely used in major celebrations. With the continuous development of naked-eye 3D, it has become the norm to add “interactivity” to the large screen, which further stimulates consumer demand while enhancing the diversity of marketing activities of business district operators.
According to the “2021 Micro-pitch Display White Paper”, naked-eye 3D will install the two-sided LED display with a 90° right-angle arc in the production form to achieve a non-two-dimensional display surface.
The PCB substrate, module and box of the arc part need to be customized and developed. It is understood that in order to present the naked-eye 3D display effect, the hardware of the display screen needs to achieve better contrast ratio and HDR high dynamic range. There are higher requirements for smooth transition and the production level of video material.
XR virtual shooting
XR creates an immersive filming scene where actors can interact directly with the virtual set, making it more actor-friendly than a traditional green screen stage. Relevant data shows that the global XR film and television shooting related market size in 2021 will be 3.2 billion US dollars, and my country is in the exploration period of this market.
It is reported that LED manufacturers in Shenzhen have long provided technology and products for Disney, AED Display and other Fortune 500 film and television entertainment manufacturers, and created a large number of representative virtual production cases such as “The Mandalorian” and “Westworld”.
xR Solutions for LED Displays
In terms of composition, the XR virtual studio is mainly composed of LED sky screen, LED wall screen and ground reality, plus the addition of camera tracking, media server, and rendering software, the final picture can be generated.
So far, XR virtual shooting is not only used in movies. XR virtual shooting can be used in the shooting of variety shows, live broadcasts, studios, TV dramas, etc. In addition to further reducing the cost and difficulty of shooting live scenes, LED displays can also create A sci-fi feeling that is difficult to express in real scenes.
Immersive experience
In recent years, the rapid rise of my country’s immersive experience market is mainly driven by factors such as technology, policy, consumption upgrading, and industrial upgrading and development.
From the perspective of consumers, the proportion of purely purchasing items is far lower than the proportion of entertainment and leisure items. Experience consumption is popular, and immersion is a major attraction of entertainment items. The use of LED large screen or projection technology can bring a more technologically immersive experience in the new era.
Nowadays, museums, theme parks, art exhibition halls, transportation hubs, cultural tourism towns, and even restaurants can see creative products that use LED display or projection technology to bring immersion.
However, in the current immersive experience market, there are still some in the form of projection and laser to create a sense of immersion. In comparison, the LED display has higher brightness, does not limit the brightness of the scene, and can avoid the shadow of the characters. , is the best choice for an immersive experience.
The main challenges in the current market still come from distance and cost, because the viewing distance of the display screen is closer than that of the traditional large screen, which brings new requirements on the resolution.
According to the research of “Expert Talk Research”, many manufacturers said that to achieve a viewing distance of nearly one meter, the distance between the display screens is preferably around P0.4 to P0.6. Under the current technology, the cost is relatively high.
Display manufacturers under “Metaverse”
Compared with wearable devices such as VR/AR, immersive large screens are currently progressing significantly faster. Under the new demands of immersion and interaction, LED displays are also constantly evolving. Represented by LED display companies Unilumin Technology, JYLED, Xida Electronics, AET Altai, and Lanpu Video.
The future revealed under the “metaverse”
With the development of 5G+8K and various rendering software and controller products, the boundary between the real world and the virtual world is gradually blurred. In the future, Micro LED direct display, as the best technology, has the opportunity to become the main hardware carrier of virtual interaction. Can the arrival of the “metaverse” further promote the miniaturization of display industry spacing? In response to this, Unilumin Technology, Xida Electronics, AET Altai, and Lanpu Video put forward their views.
Unilumin Technology: LED screens have great potential. With the in-depth penetration of Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other technologies, the traditional service field will develop in the direction of digitization, intelligence, and even virtualization. As the core carrier of human-computer interaction, LED display screens cannot be used. be lacked.
With outstanding advantages in brightness, viewing angle, contrast, etc., in recent years, LED displays with fine pitch have carried out many active explorations and attempts in the fields of AR, VR, and xR.
JYLED: Metaverse is a grand concept. The development of technology, cost reduction, the determination of profit models, and the determination of the code of conduct in the virtual world all have great uncertainty, which also adds risks to the application of LED displays. with difficulty.
Xida Electronics: “Metaverse” has two important features, namely “interactivity” and “immersion”. With the rapid development of information technologies such as 5G, big data, and the Internet of Things, the display terminal that runs through the Internet of Everything will become an information interaction Core.
It is worth mentioning that, as an important visual carrier in the Metaverse, the LED display has high resolution, high contrast, and high color consistency, which can meet the needs of “immersive interaction” in large scenes. The continuous improvement of “Metaverse” depends on starting from application scenarios and developing together with big data, AI and other industries. Display technology is the key to ensuring VR/AR/MR high-definition content. In the future, it will break through key technologies such as light field display and Micro LED display, develop towards highly integrated semiconductor information display, and serve VR/AR/MR and other application scenarios.
AET Altai: When the micro LED dot pitch is made smaller, the immersive experience of VR glasses can be realized, and the LED display can also better interpret the real interactive experience, such as the AR interaction in the museum scene. Due to the wide expansion of the area, the customizable shape, and the diversified environmental layout space, the sense of presence is more shocking than DLP.
Micro LED direct display can break through the bottleneck of realization and popularization in terms of size and display effect. The small-pitch LED technology route is evolving in the direction of Micro LED, which means that in the era of the Metaverse, LED screen companies seem to have seized the opportunity on the application side. However, in the face of the “Metaverse” market scale, the LED display industry must strive to develop its own technology and craftsmanship, and actively promote the maturity and application of Micro LED technology.
Lanpu Video: With the iteration and progress of VR/AR/MR to xR technology, the boundary between the real world and the virtual world is blurred step by step. When the interactive hardware transmits virtual world information to people in the real world, the biggest bottleneck is Immersion.
For the display industry, higher density pixels and smaller dot pitch can effectively improve the quality and immersion of virtual content display. In the future, Micro LED direct display has the opportunity to become the main hardware carrier of virtual interaction, but it still faces the limitation of high cost and immature technology, making it difficult to mass-produce.
Summarize:
The Metaverse is a new scene of large-screen display, which will undoubtedly bring new increments to the small-pitch market. In recent years, the LED industry has also been upgrading the technology for Micro LED. According to IDC’s forecast, China’s commercial large-screen display market shipments will reach 9.53 million units in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 11.4%, of which digitization, scene-based, live broadcast, interaction and other content will further promote the development of the large-screen display market.
On the other hand, before the market of the Metaverse landed, LED displays may be able to further help the construction of the Metaverse with rapid technological development.
