A few years ago LED walls were confined to large spaces, usually outdoors, because you had to be a good distance away to see the image without noticing the “pixels” or LED dots that make up the image. Now technology within these screens is getting far more advanced and you can safely use one in a conference room.
Projection or LED Wall? There are pros and cons to each which I’ll touch on later but LED is fast becoming the standard technology for both lighting and video because of its versatility and relative low power consumption.
Here’s a video clip featuring such a screen, in this case 5 metres wide and 3 metres high, in a conference room where 200 delegates were seated “cabaret style”. It shows how it looks from the back of the room right up to the front of the stage. Judge for yourself!
Let’s get a bit technical:
The “pitch” of the screen (wall) is the distance between each LED “dot” that makes up the picture. It’s a bit like DPI (dots per inch) in the printing world. The smaller the pitch the better the picture will look from closer range. For example a 15mm pich may be great for a stadium screen since you’re viewing from at least 20 metres away from it but in a small conference room you’d struggle to make out text.
The wall, once built to the size you want, will run in High Definition and depending on the aspect ratio (ie width x height) you may well need some video processing equipment to ensure your picture fits on the screen. Typical aspect ratios that most people use in presentations are 16:9 and 4:3 but your video wall may be 7:3 due to room restrictions or design – this will need “scaling” by a video technician.
That’s probably enough geek lingo for now!
IMPORTANT: You must communicate with your screen provider about what you intend to display!
Pros:
Very bright,/high impact, you won’t find a projector brighter!
You only need about a metre gap behind the screen surface
Make it any shape or size
Cons:
Still relatively expensive to hire compared to projection but prices are starting to fall
The smaller the pitch the more costly the wall is
Most require three phase power supply to run (check with your venue)