GEAR. VISUALS
Display technology comes in many types, shapes and sizes. Phil Rhodes takes a look at what’s out there and what might come next THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY
WORDS. Phil Rhodes IMAGES. Various
O ver the last decade or two, display technology and the pictures we create have arguably changed more than in the entire previous history of electronic imaging. That impacts the whole industry, with users facing several display technologies and signal formats, on devices from phones to cinema screens. For most of the last century, there was exactly one technology for displaying video, with a handful of colour and brightness standards for signals. Historic standards often described what the technology was capable of achieving, but were not designed to handle what the world actually looked like. In the last decade or two, display technologies have changed beyond all recognition. Plasma has come and gone, while liquid crystal displays, once consigned to laptops and video games, are now used in serious reference applications. Dual-layer LCDs are the thoroughbred choice when only the best will do, and
roughly what domestic TVs have been doing for a while, but they’re designed to operate in a white- walled lounge with the lights on. The problem with cinematic exhibition is that until recently, it relied on white screens, which means good black levels required suppression of ambient lighting. The earliest tests for modern HDR standards used cinema projectors adapted for very small, desktop- sized screens, to generate very high contrast. Cinema standards have normally required only about 48 nits, and it’s still been tricky to maintain deep blacks. Bearing in mind HDR is about dynamic range, not just brightness, achieving HDR with projection tends to require the
OLED seems perpetually on the cusp of the mainstream. If there’s a technology everyone would like to see, it’s a miniaturisation of the LED arrays seen in video wall panels. That’s often called microLED, and it might have very few compromises. All that development has provoked – or been provoked by – matching changes in picture standards, increasing colour range, brightness and contrast. Given that, the ideal display has become something of a moving target. WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT Creatively, we may hope better display technology would mainly improve the audience experience at home and in the cinema, and that new camera formats and standards might arise from that. It’s only recently that the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) got anywhere near creating new cinema standards to increase brightness beyond 48 nits, perhaps up to 300. Yes, that’s
ONE TO WATCH Display tech develops at a staggering rate, but its uptake into consumer markets is limited by many factors
“Achieving HDR with projection tends to require the room be finished in black – and the audience dressed for a funeral”
62. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
Powered by FlippingBook