Obviously the resolution vs. diagonal. If half of the AT commenter population is to be believed (they'll swear by it) 16K on anything larger than 7" and closer than 30ft away and you can clearly see pixels, clear as daylight. Or something like that.
Hm, hard decision. 25yrs of quite luxury vacations... or screen that will likely die either by failure or by being technologically obsolete in 10yrs. There might be use cases where it is worth but it's definitely not consumer space.
Obviously this is too rich for my blood, but been looking into large OLED TVs, but lately my son has been throwing his yoyo around the house and spinning anything he can find into a weapon.
Hate to have fragile glass electronics that can get cracked by a 3 yr old in the room....especially something that costs more than a car
...as long as it doesn't get filled with dust, overheat, randomly turn off or the colour wheel (if it uses one) goes nuts and everything looks like a rave. I LOVE projectors... but they come with future issues.
Yep... so, consumer is what, P99.9 income person? If the article was talking about customers, it would be a different playfield, but consumer seems... quite a bit off.
I'd love to see a teardown of one of these modules, and see whether these 'microLEDs' are on a monolithic substrate, CoB like you get in high density illumination modules, or discrete but tiny SMD LEDs using some crazy 00301 RGB package.
Even if they weren't so expensive, there are a lot of other issues with these including electricity requirements, heat generated, maintenance, etc... Here is a good article:
That's not exactly coming from a disinterested 3rd party:)
Things to note: 1 - for a given luminance, projectors are less efficient 2 - projectors are not as bright (when including the screen) 3 - projection's contrast is not as good
I'm not claiming there are no downsides, but if (probably when since they have so many benefits and flexibility) the costs of microled modules come down, cinema projectors will be relegated to a similar, not identical, status to current day film.
Assuming that 3μm² is the size of a single color emitter, the emitters are square, and they can be perfectly packed together, the width x height of a 1080 screen would be ~10mm x 5.6mm. That suggests this offer has a packing fraction of ~.00168%. So, the size of the leds themselves don't seem to be the reason behind the low ppi.
Also the color space coverage is disappointing. Something north of 80% rec.2020 coverage would be closer to expectations, IMHO.
"So, the size of the leds themselves don't seem to be the reason behind the low ppi."
If I understood correctly the 3μm² number refers to the entire microLED, not its three subpixels. Sony in their website are referring to the size of the "chip" while showing a full microLED, making no comment about its three components.
The very low PPI is because Sony for some inexplicable reason decided to surround each microLED with 99% of black space, apparently "for deeper blacks and to increase contrast ratio". You heard that right, each microLED is inside a comparatively huge square that takes 99% of the space of each module / screen, leaving only 1% for the microLEDs.
As a result both brightness and resolution were axed by ~99%. Contrast ratio increased from the black end, but it apparently also decreased from the bright end (assuming Sony could retain roughly the same black levels if they raised the brightness). Despite all that Sony reports an outstanding 1000 nits of peak brightness, so these microLEDs must be literally blinding bright!
I wasn't able to find that info about cledis, so I just assumed the least dense configuration. Since my assumption was wrong, things are worse. Now you get to tack on another order of magnitude, roughly, to that packing fraction. The 99% figure I had seen before but wasn't sure what to make of it (cooling I'd imagine, since these should have a real quick rise to fall time thus ∞ contrast => no need for 99%). Including the 99% figure and updated pixel size, the packing fraction becomes ~ .017%. That's a lot of interstices!
I'll definitely put a couple of those in my next superyacht. The one I plan to order after I somehow join the 0.001%. Yes, "available to consumers", but not "consumers".
Consumers as in not commercial use. Nothing wrong with their wording. Just like most people can't afford a cirrus SR22 but that doesn't mean it's not available for them to buy at 600k+...
Insane prices for a very low pixel density. Apparently each microLED in those modules is placed at the center of a black square for deeper blacks and higher contrast ratio. So each module or combination of modules has 99% of black space and 1% of microLEDs. This enhances the contrast ratio (only from its "black side") but it dramatically lowers brightness (by exactly 99%) and pixel density (also by 99%).
This is the reason they have a mere 1080p resolution at 110 inches despite using microLEDs with such a tiny pixel pitch. Amazingly despite all that black space they still are at 1000 nits peak brightness, so imagine how bright these microLEDs are and how much more bright their modules / screens would be if they removed half of that black space and replaced it with the equivalent number of microLEDs (of the same size).
I am not sure I understand why Sony chose to do that. They already have mastered microLED tech, making them incredibly tiny, so why not use more of them to increase the brightness and resolution further? Is it a cost / mass manufacturing issue or are they are just unable to reach a high enough contrast ratio if they increase the brightness and resolution by at least ~4 times (a quadruple resolution should be the absolute minimum, so that they provide a resolution of 4K at 110", 8K at 220" etc etc).
These modules were apparently first used in "commercial" places. That mostly means "outside or bright areas" and you can never have enough brightness outside, because the ambient brightness overwhelms that of the monitor, particularly at high noon on a sunny day. At the brightest places 5,000 nits, even 10,000 nits if possible, would be highly desirable.
Extrapolating from the brightness per mm^2 of these microLEDs (after removing the black space) it should be possible to reach such levels of brightness. Unless ... the true limiting factor is heat. I noticed that each module has a rather heavy-duty cooling kit on its back : there are two pretty large fans which probably blow hot air away from a large and heavy passive cooler, judging from how thick the back of the module is.
The black space obviously draws no power so most of that heat comes from the microLEDs (the rest from the electronics that drive them). The microLED density is quite low and yet they appear to dissipate quite a lot of heat. If Sony increased their number by 4 times they would probably require a 3 to 4 times more powerful cooling solution, while the power draw would also rise significantly.
And that might have been out of the question. Beside the much higher heat dissipation and power draw the module would need to be much thicker and it's already *quite* thick. It appears that the very high luminosity of the microLEDs has high heat and power as a trade-off. Thermodynamics can be a bitch sometimes..
10'000 nits is fresh snow in direct sunlight level of brightness. I personally don't find advertisements with that kind of brightness to be "highly desirable".
How about 1+ million nits? Yeap, much denser microLEDs (5000 PPI) from this company can do that : https://youtu.be/N8QZVkRe9vQ Of course, as they say, these prototype mini screens are just a demonstration of what microLEDs can do, they don't actually plan to sell panels 1 million nits bright (except perhaps for AR use?).
By the way, for a panel under direct sunlight a brightness of 8 - 12,000 nits *is* highly desirable. Only at that time though. When she sun does not shine on it it should automatically get dimmer. That can easily be done via sensors.
Well.. Guess put me down for two of them. I'll take the 4k for my theater room, and the Full HD for my other theater room. I'd go for the 8k, but my wall just isn't quite big enough. And no. I don't think it's silly to buy TVs for three times the worth of my house. (Also, I don't have any theater rooms, but I'd thank you to please keep your reality away from my fantasy.)
Probably multiple reasons for the space round each micro-LED 1) having a gap allows factory rework if a LED is faulty rather than junking an entire module 2) heat dissipation - if the micro-LEDs were closer together it might be difficult to keep them cool without a noisy cooling system 3) the people likely to buy these systems for home use are the sort who want their toys to be large and impressive
Most likely it's #2. If you go to Sony's page about this tech (via the link early in the article) you'll see that these modules appear to be very thick and probably quite heavy. The cooling solution has two large fans which I'm sure are blowing hot air away from a heavy copper cooler inside. If they increased the microLED density by 4 or 8 times the heat and power draw would blow up and they would probably need to attach a freezer on the back of each module.
If they could just make those LEDs smaller. I wouldn't mind having a 16ft x 9ft screen at 16K with the ability to draw out an area anywhere on it to display simultaneous signals from third party sources.
That's a good question. I wonder if it could be related to the refresh rate. Maybe they are measuring the maximum "cool down" brightness at a certain frame rate or something.
Apart from price I couldn't afford...pixel density on these micro-leds is way to low. I have big rooms, but the biggest one that would actually fit is the 4k one. 9ft high and 16ft wide...even if I had the dough...such a size would have to be 8k/16k....
Find the 132 incher from TCL much more appealing in that regard.
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TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Umm...... That's a pass for me.Nozuka - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Can't imagine why...nathanddrews - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Clearly it's the high power draw.close - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Obviously the resolution vs. diagonal. If half of the AT commenter population is to be believed (they'll swear by it) 16K on anything larger than 7" and closer than 30ft away and you can clearly see pixels, clear as daylight. Or something like that.DanNeely - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
I'm wondering if the 16k column was correctly listed on Sony's page, or if it should be 1152 modules (4x 8k) not 576?s10e - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
The 16K version has a different aspect ratio, which is 32:9 comparing to 16:9 on other versions.Death666Angel - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Which is why the diagonal is not 440"x2=880" but rather 790". :)HollyDOL - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Hm, hard decision. 25yrs of quite luxury vacations... or screen that will likely die either by failure or by being technologically obsolete in 10yrs. There might be use cases where it is worth but it's definitely not consumer space.webdoctors - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Obviously this is too rich for my blood, but been looking into large OLED TVs, but lately my son has been throwing his yoyo around the house and spinning anything he can find into a weapon.Hate to have fragile glass electronics that can get cracked by a 3 yr old in the room....especially something that costs more than a car
JeffFlanagan - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
A $1,500 4K HDR projector offers an excellent home theater experience, and with a ceiling mount, it's safe from your 3-year-old.QinX - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Bold words!damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
...as long as it doesn't get filled with dust, overheat, randomly turn off or the colour wheel (if it uses one) goes nuts and everything looks like a rave. I LOVE projectors... but they come with future issues.DigitalFreak - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
You could sell the kid and buy the OLED TV with the money. Both problems solved.surt - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
This is not for consumers who have to make this or that kinds of choices, but rather 'what next' kind of choices.Shlong - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
A person buying this can easily afford 25 years of luxury vacations along with the TV, where $5 million isn't that big of a deal. Billionaires.HollyDOL - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
Yep... so, consumer is what, P99.9 income person? If the article was talking about customers, it would be a different playfield, but consumer seems... quite a bit off.edzieba - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
I'd love to see a teardown of one of these modules, and see whether these 'microLEDs' are on a monolithic substrate, CoB like you get in high density illumination modules, or discrete but tiny SMD LEDs using some crazy 00301 RGB package.ballsystemlord - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Cool, but way to expensive. Even a high end TR (inc. peripherals), system would cost less then the Full HD display.Hello5667 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Even if they weren't so expensive, there are a lot of other issues with these including electricity requirements, heat generated, maintenance, etc... Here is a good article:https://www.projectorcentral.com/the-projectionist...
tuxRoller - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
That's not exactly coming from a disinterested 3rd party:)Things to note:
1 - for a given luminance, projectors are less efficient
2 - projectors are not as bright (when including the screen)
3 - projection's contrast is not as good
I'm not claiming there are no downsides, but if (probably when since they have so many benefits and flexibility) the costs of microled modules come down, cinema projectors will be relegated to a similar, not identical, status to current day film.
tuxRoller - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Assuming that 3μm² is the size of a single color emitter, the emitters are square, and they can be perfectly packed together, the width x height of a 1080 screen would be ~10mm x 5.6mm. That suggests this offer has a packing fraction of ~.00168%.So, the size of the leds themselves don't seem to be the reason behind the low ppi.
Also the color space coverage is disappointing. Something north of 80% rec.2020 coverage would be closer to expectations, IMHO.
Santoval - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
"So, the size of the leds themselves don't seem to be the reason behind the low ppi."If I understood correctly the 3μm² number refers to the entire microLED, not its three subpixels. Sony in their website are referring to the size of the "chip" while showing a full microLED, making no comment about its three components.
The very low PPI is because Sony for some inexplicable reason decided to surround each microLED with 99% of black space, apparently "for deeper blacks and to increase contrast ratio". You heard that right, each microLED is inside a comparatively huge square that takes 99% of the space of each module / screen, leaving only 1% for the microLEDs.
As a result both brightness and resolution were axed by ~99%. Contrast ratio increased from the black end, but it apparently also decreased from the bright end (assuming Sony could retain roughly the same black levels if they raised the brightness). Despite all that Sony reports an outstanding 1000 nits of peak brightness, so these microLEDs must be literally blinding bright!
tuxRoller - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
I wasn't able to find that info about cledis, so I just assumed the least dense configuration. Since my assumption was wrong, things are worse. Now you get to tack on another order of magnitude, roughly, to that packing fraction.The 99% figure I had seen before but wasn't sure what to make of it (cooling I'd imagine, since these should have a real quick rise to fall time thus ∞ contrast => no need for 99%).
Including the 99% figure and updated pixel size, the packing fraction becomes ~ .017%.
That's a lot of interstices!
eastcoast_pete - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
I'll definitely put a couple of those in my next superyacht. The one I plan to order after I somehow join the 0.001%. Yes, "available to consumers", but not "consumers".chrnochime - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Consumers as in not commercial use. Nothing wrong with their wording. Just like most people can't afford a cirrus SR22 but that doesn't mean it's not available for them to buy at 600k+...twtech - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
You could buy almost 10 of those planes for the cost of the 16k model.bug77 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Aw shoot, I'm fresh out of change...Santoval - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Insane prices for a very low pixel density. Apparently each microLED in those modules is placed at the center of a black square for deeper blacks and higher contrast ratio. So each module or combination of modules has 99% of black space and 1% of microLEDs. This enhances the contrast ratio (only from its "black side") but it dramatically lowers brightness (by exactly 99%) and pixel density (also by 99%).This is the reason they have a mere 1080p resolution at 110 inches despite using microLEDs with such a tiny pixel pitch. Amazingly despite all that black space they still are at 1000 nits peak brightness, so imagine how bright these microLEDs are and how much more bright their modules / screens would be if they removed half of that black space and replaced it with the equivalent number of microLEDs (of the same size).
I am not sure I understand why Sony chose to do that. They already have mastered microLED tech, making them incredibly tiny, so why not use more of them to increase the brightness and resolution further? Is it a cost / mass manufacturing issue or are they are just unable to reach a high enough contrast ratio if they increase the brightness and resolution by at least ~4 times (a quadruple resolution should be the absolute minimum, so that they provide a resolution of 4K at 110", 8K at 220" etc etc).
RBFL - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
To stop sunburn in the audience during a scene like the explosion of the Death Star?Santoval - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
These modules were apparently first used in "commercial" places. That mostly means "outside or bright areas" and you can never have enough brightness outside, because the ambient brightness overwhelms that of the monitor, particularly at high noon on a sunny day. At the brightest places 5,000 nits, even 10,000 nits if possible, would be highly desirable.Extrapolating from the brightness per mm^2 of these microLEDs (after removing the black space) it should be possible to reach such levels of brightness. Unless ... the true limiting factor is heat. I noticed that each module has a rather heavy-duty cooling kit on its back : there are two pretty large fans which probably blow hot air away from a large and heavy passive cooler, judging from how thick the back of the module is.
The black space obviously draws no power so most of that heat comes from the microLEDs (the rest from the electronics that drive them). The microLED density is quite low and yet they appear to dissipate quite a lot of heat. If Sony increased their number by 4 times they would probably require a 3 to 4 times more powerful cooling solution, while the power draw would also rise significantly.
And that might have been out of the question. Beside the much higher heat dissipation and power draw the module would need to be much thicker and it's already *quite* thick. It appears that the very high luminosity of the microLEDs has high heat and power as a trade-off. Thermodynamics can be a bitch sometimes..
stepz - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
10'000 nits is fresh snow in direct sunlight level of brightness. I personally don't find advertisements with that kind of brightness to be "highly desirable".Santoval - Monday, September 23, 2019 - link
How about 1+ million nits? Yeap, much denser microLEDs (5000 PPI) from this company can do that : https://youtu.be/N8QZVkRe9vQOf course, as they say, these prototype mini screens are just a demonstration of what microLEDs can do, they don't actually plan to sell panels 1 million nits bright (except perhaps for AR use?).
By the way, for a panel under direct sunlight a brightness of 8 - 12,000 nits *is* highly desirable. Only at that time though. When she sun does not shine on it it should automatically get dimmer. That can easily be done via sensors.
s.yu - Sunday, September 22, 2019 - link
...Indeed.reckless76 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Well.. Guess put me down for two of them. I'll take the 4k for my theater room, and the Full HD for my other theater room. I'd go for the 8k, but my wall just isn't quite big enough. And no. I don't think it's silly to buy TVs for three times the worth of my house. (Also, I don't have any theater rooms, but I'd thank you to please keep your reality away from my fantasy.)chrnochime - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
An HD and a 4K Sony LED TV can't get a house here in SV so yeah these are actually cheaper than a house for us LOLeek2121 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
I might be able to finance the cheaper one over 15 years, but yeah...with how quickly technology pricing drops? No thanks.Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Probably multiple reasons for the space round each micro-LED1) having a gap allows factory rework if a LED is faulty rather than junking an entire module
2) heat dissipation - if the micro-LEDs were closer together it might be difficult to keep them cool without a noisy cooling system
3) the people likely to buy these systems for home use are the sort who want their toys to be large and impressive
Santoval - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Most likely it's #2. If you go to Sony's page about this tech (via the link early in the article) you'll see that these modules appear to be very thick and probably quite heavy. The cooling solution has two large fans which I'm sure are blowing hot air away from a heavy copper cooler inside. If they increased the microLED density by 4 or 8 times the heat and power draw would blow up and they would probably need to attach a freezer on the back of each module.twtech - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Now if they could figure out a way to sell them for, say, 1000x less - even 250x less - they could probably sell a lot of them.SanX - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Why hurry? In 10 years all these 3 zeroes at the end will disappear by themselves.SanX - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Depreciation rate is factor of 2 in a yearpixelstuff - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
If they could just make those LEDs smaller. I wouldn't mind having a 16ft x 9ft screen at 16K with the ability to draw out an area anywhere on it to display simultaneous signals from third party sources.rpg1966 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - link
Why is the contrast anything other than infinity? As LEDs, isn't the minimum brightnes zero?pixelstuff - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
That's a good question. I wonder if it could be related to the refresh rate. Maybe they are measuring the maximum "cool down" brightness at a certain frame rate or something.remosito - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
Apart from price I couldn't afford...pixel density on these micro-leds is way to low. I have big rooms, but the biggest one that would actually fit is the 4k one. 9ft high and 16ft wide...even if I had the dough...such a size would have to be 8k/16k....Find the 132 incher from TCL much more appealing in that regard.
s.yu - Sunday, September 22, 2019 - link
WTF! This is about a magnitude more expensive than I anticipated.