WHY LED IS IMPORTANT IN A VIRTUAL WORLD

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world, this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Today we have three amazing guests. I have Neil Morrison, who's the executive vice president of LMG Systems Innovation. I have Jason Metcalfe and Jason is the sales support engineer for direct view led products from Sony and including Crystal LED. And I also have David and David is the director of LED for ETP BrainHub. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Les. Guys, today we're going to have a discussion. And it's about why LED is so important in a virtual world. We are using displays in ways we probably never thought we would. If you go back ten years ago in the clock, and I really want to kind of talk about this and get your opinions, and today's podcast is really dedicated to all the different ways we're going to be using LED and and how it connects with this virtual world. So I'm going to throw this immediately right to Neil, and Neil, can you give us maybe your thoughts on how LED is being used in a virtual world in your in your opinion? Yeah, the primary use is upstage walls now and clients looking to have an immersive backdrop, as well as very rapidly changing backdrop for their broadcasts and for different types of, of communication applications for, for corporate as well as entertainment. Some clients are using floors as well, which is kind of fun because then you have a even more deeply immersive environment for, you know, like you said in the car and the AR type of applications, and sometimes really just as a cool backdrop for some visual excitement for customers, you know, that's a really good insight. Maybe, David, you could add to that and the type of events that we're deploying led at. And maybe you could add to that. David. Yeah, we're actually deploying LED at all types of events, whether it be the virtual world where, you know, we're in a bubble at their location. We've done a couple of live events. Live events are starting to pick back up. You know, it's also used as just a display in the beginning when people are walking into an event or even as, you know, signage. So there's there's lots of uses for it, especially when it comes down to, you know, the virtual stuff. You know, we've had some of the LED being used just as signage as people are coming in for, you know, COVID information. Got it, got it. So so Jason from and obviously Sony is a manufacturer and makes all kinds of displays. Maybe you can give us your insight as to how you see display displays being deployed. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks a lot. I you know we're seeing LED especially deployed across almost all the verticals that we work in. You know, from the live event production world that you guys are in to corporate spaces, press briefing rooms, conference centers, all sorts of areas. So, you know, I think that all of our display technologies have unique uses and unique spaces that they fit into. But more and more LED is really growing in the types and and breadth of applications that it can be used for. Well, well, Jason, that takes me to my next question. So it's a good transition. What are the different types of LEDs. And give us your perspective on that. And I'm proud to tell you that we're one of the few in the world, if there are any others that offer the crystal led product, which I think is absolutely amazing. It's the only words I can use are breathtaking. And I we own thousands and thousands of LED tiles, but this product is far unique. But maybe you can give us a perspective on the different types of LED that whether you produce it or others produce it, and the marketplace. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for that. You know, the crystal product or C as we like to call it, is is a fantastic product and we love working with it. I love working with it because of what you just said. When you see it, when anybody sees it, it's really hard to deny the overall quality. For me, there are three primary aspects to what differentiates LED products, right? Number one is the pitch, the physical distance between pixels. So as you get finer pitch, you can get in closer to the display. You can get a higher pixel density and sometimes result in an overall better quality than you have the mounting technique. You can have surface mount device chip on board, Google on board. There's all sorts of different ways to actually mount the diode onto the the substrate. And depending on your application, one of those may be better than the other. And then you get into the actual size of the LED itself, the diode standard sizes out there. But then more and more we're seeing micro LED. And then in between those two sizes, this kind of mini-LED area, we're very much focused on the micro LED space crystal LED current version, along with the upcoming models that we have being released this year, are all standardized on a true micro LED technology, because we really feel like there's a huge benefit there, and it's the future of the space. Wow, that was a I completely geeked out with you on that. That was awesome. Those elements of the pixel size, the pixel density and the mounting, those are all really good things. I'm going to throw the same question to Neil and maybe Neil. You can give it a little slightly different spin on on the different types of LED that that we're deploying and we're maybe we're using for whether it's an installation or doing live events. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think, you know, the vast majority of our inventory and really at this point, from an integration standpoint, the highest percentage of sales that we see are the SMD or the surface mounted diode type LED. And as Jason said, you know, the the those are diodes that are connected via wires to the circuit boards. So they tend to be a little fragile and they tend to to fail more often. And now the newer versions, the the coating on surface, cos cob chip on board, gob glue on board, all sorts of the I call it the battle of the CEOs. So there's just just a vast, vast array of them. And what I'm most excited about though, in this is when you get into the cob and the micro LEDs such as the Sony C LED, the amount of failed pixels is reduced by many times upwards of 90%. So it's a much more robust, much more safe product. And Neil, why is that? Well, why is it because pixel failure is a big deal when when you think about rental. And I'll let David kind of opine on that. But I just want to know how do you protect those pixels. Yeah. So the Cob and the Gobi have have a surface coating over the top, so you don't have direct access to the pixels as you would with the SMD products. So most of these Gobi and clay products, they can actually be cleaned with with water and a rag or even disinfected, which is important today as we look more and more towards health and safety in these environments. It's very interesting. And the one other thing that's really cool about these Cob and GOP products is the viewing angle has increased almost 180 degrees, so you can be very, very far off axis with these products and still see a great picture. That's really, to me the exciting part of that. And and we've seen some samples recently with something called an isotropic surface, which takes the color shift that you'd normally see as you go left to right or up and down on an LED panel. And it really eliminates any of that color shift. It's really cool, cutting edge new stuff. That is awesome. You know, I'm going to throw this to David, and I'm going to ask back on the same question. And because you're the head of the team that leads our rental of all LED products, and I'm sure we deal with a few pixels that that might get damaged. And so, you know, the original question was what are the different types of LED? But, you know, what are the challenges associated with when you're dealing with those rental products? And how do we make sure we we ensure that we are able to use them? Your thoughts? You know, I think the biggest thing is making sure that you have the proper team in place to put this stuff in and make sure that they're keeping track of everything and making sure that they're, you know, paying attention to anybody that might be a subcontracted labor or anything like that. LED inherently is very fragile. The new stuff is just amazing. The see LED is it's one of the most robust products out on the market. Even being as fragile as it is seeming that it's glass, it's still way more robust than, say, some of our other products. The moving forward and seeing what the future holds with some of the stuff that Neil was talking about, it's just the products are just amazing coming out. I mean, you're talking about stuff that's 0.9 that you can stand on and you can hit with a hammer. And that's huge because this stuff gets bumped around. I mean, just in transportation we have breakage, a lot of breakage. Well, you know what? Hopefully we won't take a hammer to an LED wall anytime soon, because I don't think that would do us any justice. But, you know, very interesting concept. So I'm going to throw this to Jason. This question is how do LED processors impact the use of LED. There's lots of different processors. And and what what is the processor ultimately doing with the pixels. And and why is one better than another. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys know I mean we have our own proprietary processor that runs art display, but but in general, you know, the general market, you're looking to a third party processor most of the time to work with your LED. These processors vary in performance in in their target industry. But overall I think, you know, they're going to unlock capabilities of your LED display that aren't necessarily they're out of the box. And I think also it is much easier, as you can imagine, to update a processor software firmware than it is to update your LED hardware. So as new standards come online, as new techniques for driving LED come, come online, those things can be, you know, in your in your processors at a much faster pace than, you know, in a much more economical way than you would have to do, you know, reinvesting in new LED technology. Got it. Neil, we've installed I can't count how many LED walls. Maybe you could give us your thoughts on processors in general. Sure. You know, as Jason said, there's some very basic ones that maybe cost 100 or $200 to very, very high end, complex ones in the thousands and thousands of dollars. You know, the what we look for on an installed product is ones that have a higher frame rate capability. The process that can take a higher resolution color depth is a concern for many, many of our customers. And then also video scaling and processing, you know, algorithms and qualities within the processor really make it, you know, worth the extra money for the install. And you know, the ones that are bespoke that for a particular product like the Sony sealed. And some of our other manufacturers also have their own. It's a really when it's paired with the product, there's I think a lot better results when you have a very, very purpose built processor that's linked to the LED itself. Got it. Okay. I'm throwing it to David and I'm going to put a little spin on this question is is about in these virtual events. Does the processor play a big part. It plays a huge part. Most of the stuff that we use, aside from the Sony is would be the Brompton processing. And in the Brompton processing there is a lot of handles that we use color temperature, which a lot of people wouldn't necessarily think of, is a huge handle that we use inside that we have full color adjustment capability. In the Brompton. There's a 14 way color correction in it. That is a huge, huge, huge thing when it comes to virtual events especially. And even going into the live events, if you have a Ford or somebody that has a specific color on their logo. Now with these new processors, granted they are a lot more expensive than the 100 $200 processors, but now we don't have that color problem. We don't have that issue. If they want to see their Ford Blue, their Ford Blue shows up now. And typically, what percentage of brightness are we running when we're doing a virtual event on the wall, you know, from 0 to 100, you know, what's the typical percentage? Because we don't want to burn people's eyes depending on the product. I mean, we're we're usually running anywhere between 10 to 25%. We're usually not running anything higher than that just because the way that the camera hits it and everything like that is it's a huge you know, that's a huge thing. So the camera as well as ambient light maybe. Exactly. Okay. All right. We're moving on. So Jason, this is a question. And it has to do with LED matching. When we're building a show, we have to make sure all the LED matches and it's sometimes considered done in batches. Maybe you can give us your thoughts on the idea of matching tiles, because there's nothing worse than getting a wall that has like a checkered board effect where things don't match. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, just one of the ways that the crystal LED product is unique is the fact that we are not as beholden to batching as, as almost basically any other LED product of the market, the way that the panels are manufactured and the capabilities of the diodes themselves allow us to take any replacement cell or unit off a manufacturing line at any point and match it to any other system that's that's in the field. So we can we can age that new cell, that replacement cell, so that it matches the light output and then color correct it to make sure that it is matching exactly with the system that's out there. This is unique. You know, no other LED product has this capability. And that's where just one of the benefits we see with with crystal LED. Got it. Yeah. I'll you know, I can tell you we're we're big fans Neil. Same question. And your thoughts on LED matching and and how we deal with that. And both on the rental side on the installation side especially if you're buying maybe you buy spares for your install. And and I know when we do rentals we're bringing extra tiles for just in case. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think we've we've been in the LED business now for more than ten years. I'm guessing 12, 13 years really when we get right down to it. And this was a huge issue when we first started this matching of of batches. And initially it was near impossible. As time has moved on and with better processing pixel by pixel color management, that's available with some of the LED processors and LED tiles. We of course, we're big fans of the Brompton processing system. Brompton now has their Hydra system, which allows you to calibrate a number of different tiles that are all on the Brompton processing system, not dependent on age or batching. You're able to get to a point where you can match them all together. I think one of the fun stories for me about batching less is when we visited the factory for Cloud in Japan, and we asked them about matching, and they all seemed a bit confused as to the question, and they had never considered really that you wouldn't have products that matched one to the next to the next. It was a really quite a foreign thought for them. So it took us a while to explain what we were talking about, and they said, oh no, no, that's not at all. Case would see that. So kind of a fun experience to go through that they just never thought it would be a big deal. But you know, we're getting better and better. The club products that are coming out now are fairly well matched from batch to batch. And like I say, with some of the calibration systems, we're able to do that much better. But a lot of your legacy products that are out there, it's very difficult to match from batch to batch and and for installs, yeah, we typically want to have at least 3 to 5 years worth of spares available to us because we really need to be able to match them right up through their lifespan. Got it. David, when we're going out on show site, how do we make sure the screens match? What's our strategy? Well, we do color calibration on show site pretty much for every single tile that we bring out. We use the Calman software along with the Katana camera system. That's our general system that we use. But going just going back to the client, I can tell you firsthand that, I mean, there's been plenty of times where we've actually either used Sony's product or Sony's used our product, and there's never been any issues. I mean, it's dead on so, so but, but but for all we'll call it all the other LED that we have. Yes. What is our typical strategy. We're just doing color matching on on. Yeah. We're doing the color calibration on it. And the color, you know we've you know, over the years we've you know, we've come to realize through trial and error, of course, that you can't send two batches out. There's just there's just no way. I mean, we have our 3.9 product is the perfect example. We have a rev A and a rev B. Now it's the same exact tile if you look at it. But there's a few minor things. Number one, when they when they manufactured the rev B the chip was moved the opposite way. And the shaders are a different color. So when you put them up they're completely different tiles, even though technically they're at the same time. Got it. Okay. We're moving on. So this next question is to Jason. And this question is when shooting on camera is more an issue in LED and speak toward the issue of Moray and how you all approach it. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as you know, Moray is an interference pattern between the, the, you know, any grid that you're shooting, in this case, a grid of pixels, LED pixels and the capture the, the imager in the camera that you're using. We have found and I think across the industry, as you get to finer pitch led generally Moray becomes less of an issue. Of course there's always a consideration between the distance which you're shooting. I think also that there is an element of the size of the diode as well, that goes into how critical Moray is. We have had great success with, with, you know, eliminating or having very little moray issues. But of course, there's there's many different factors, physical factors that go into into that. Got it. Okay. Neil. Same question. But Neil can you maybe describe Moray. So for anyone in the audience who doesn't know what it is, maybe you could describe it. And then how we approach trying to eliminate it or reduce it. Sure. It's it's really an electronic pattern that kind of shows up on the screen. It's, as Jason said, that sort of grid look, and it's typically shimmery and sometimes it'll move around a little bit depending on where the lens is. If you're zooming in or zooming out, sometimes it gets worse. You know, I think most of us that have been in the production business have dealt with the presenter that showed up with a very fancy shirt or a fancy tie, and you put it on camera and it, it makes the camera go crazy with this, with this moray pattern or this, some people kind of call it like a snake skin or something like that is probably a good, you know, description of it. But, you know, Jason was talking a lot about the, you know, the electronics. But from a production standpoint, what we really try to do is get the maximum distance of the people on stage from the wall. That helps kind of defocus a bit. The the LED wall, we look at lensing for the cameras to, to try to get a lens that's got a short depth of field on the on the presenter processing, as we talked about earlier, the the newer processors are much, much better at processing the video so that you get, you know, less more overall. And then now as we move into Cobb and and other micro and mini LED versus the SMD products, one of the other issues with SMD that's not apparent with the coating on surface or chip on board type things is the physical shaders making, you know, squares. They're actually physical mechanical boxes. And that tends to really exacerbate that issue with Moray. So you know we work on camera adjustments as well to to beat the Moray when it when it comes in. But again the newer generation products are getting much better at managing that. Got it. Okay I'm throwing a different question to David. David how is led used in an environment. And maybe you could speak about that and what experiences we've had. Sure. Well we have number one. We have one stage set up out in Las Vegas. It is a ginormous stage with our CB three product. It's a 50ft wide stage. It's got a floor. The way that we utilize these things is, you know, the presenter is put on to the stage in the environment. We're putting them basically anywhere they want to go and it helps them with, you know, marks and cue points and stuff like that, where they stand to be able to present what they're presented and on that environment. Neil, could you add a little bit to that as far as maybe what makes that working in an hour world and how you use that in a virtual event? Neil, could you maybe add to that? Sure. You know, as David said, the the it's really primarily for the presenter to get their bearings and to feel that immersion of the, of the environment. In bygone days, we would have done that all in green screen as a as a tool to then composite this very cool background around a presenter. But we find that that this mini stage or in the case of our Vegas studio, a maximum stage environment to shoot, really gives you that sense as a presenter that you can, you know, be connected to it. And then, of course, the czar, the extended point, part of it, extended reality is we can go beyond the borders of the LED and and really create an entire world, an entire environment that that the audience sees that, you know, the local audience would not see or even the presenter would not see. So, you know, in a even in a hybrid environment now, I think it's going to be fun moving forward, because if we're looking at some audience in in venue, some audience out of venue, the use of czar for the folks within the environment, they're going to be able to see where the presenter is and how they're working. And then the larger composited thing for the hybrid audience might even have a better experience, because they're seeing lots of other elements that are added to the picture after the shoot or during the shooting process. Well, XOR is fun, cool stuff, and we're having fun doing it. So this next question is to Jason and Jason. How do resolutions impact the viewing distance as far as a presenter and the relationship between the presenter and the LED wall and Neil mentioned something about it, but maybe you could articulate on that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with Rick led of any kind, resolution and pixel pitch are directly linked. So if you have in some applications and some projects that we work on, somebody's trying to meet a specific resolution because they, they want to make sure they're seeing their content in exactly 4K resolution or HD resolution or whatever. So in that sense, their size of their display is going to be fixed. But, you know, with with most in generally resolution for direct LED, you know, does have to do with how far away you're going to be in as you move away from it, as you move your subjects away from the display. A lot of times that resolution is going to be more, more amenable to that, that position. Got it. You know, the we could all geek out about, you know, the LED products and manufacturing and what it takes. I've got one last question and I want to ask this to all three of you. So I'm going to start with David. And I'm going to go to Neil. And then Jason you can bring closure to this David will led continue to improve and replace all other technologies. Will we still use projectors or are we going to live in an LED world? I got to say, I think we're going to live in an LED world. The products are getting better and better. I mean, Sony has just come leaps and bounds. They were leaps and bounds before anybody else. There's other products out there that are, you know, not not coming close because there's really nothing like the see LED. But you know for different usage. It's they're great products. You know the viewing angles are getting better. The prices are coming down on it. So that's that's a huge thing because price was a huge problem you know, years ago. Now the prices are coming down. There's you know there's more competition in the marketplace for that. So I think moving forward you're really going to see the LED stuff really pop up. Plus you know it's it's efficient. It's a very efficient technology to get the brightness that you need, especially for like outdoor use and everything like that. You're going to get a lot more bang for your buck with an LED than you are with the projector. Got it. Okay, so the same question to Neil. And Neil is going to replace all other display technologies, especially with your Cob and your other all the different acronyms that you used will will LED be taking over the world of display or has it already happened? Well, last you know, you're you're the one of the original projectionists in our industry. So I think it's it's a it's a loaded question to me to ask that. But I think projection still will have a place moving forward. When we're talking about doing mapping and warping applications, there's a lot of use for projection as we move forward. And David touched on a couple of things with regards to the, you know, as LED is replacing these technologies. One of the big things with LED has been the weight, and venues that could not support the weight for a very large screen would have to use projection. But you know, with new advances in the technology, things are getting lighter for for LED. And then of course, the cost is come down significantly. The power requirements for LED used to be quite enormous, and they've gotten really a lot more efficient as time has gone on. So, you know, I think that, you know, you will see LED begin to move more and more forward, even with things like OLED monitors and LCD monitors, we're getting 100 inch displays that are very close in cost for LED versus these other technologies and improved performance with either brightness or in some ways, resolution as well. So it is certainly the the leading display technology, as we've said a bunch of times, this this direct view LED and probably a lot of people listening will we'll see the acronym DV LED. And a lot of people wonder what that is. That just means direct view LED, meaning that you're looking right at the LEDs. So yeah, I think it is going to take a much more prominent place moving forward. But projection will always have applications, I believe. Got it. Okay, Jason, the last question bring us home. And I know Sony makes lots of projectors and they make as well. Well what are your thoughts as well LED continue to improve and replace other display technologies. Yeah. No it's a great question. I we are seeing led you know, expand exponentially into all sorts of markets and applications. But I have to agree with Neil that there are definitely spaces where projection will be superior, you know, forever highly irregular shapes and projection mapping, those sorts of things. You know, it just it may not necessarily be the best use of LED. So we're always as a company, Sony is always a proponent of using the right technology for the right space. And I think that LED has fantastic capabilities. But there's great uses for all sorts of display technologies out there. Well, I thank all three of you guys, David, Jason and Neil for joining me today. I know that our virtual events will continue to require LED backdrops and environments, and the world will continue to. With all of the advancements of LED, we will see this grow in the future. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Guys. Thank you again and great job. Thank you, Les. Thanks. Thanks, Les.