From 2021 to the beginning of 2022, china including Zhouming Technology, Times Huaying, AET Altai, shanghai muge has announced that it has obtained DCI certification, coupled with the previous cooperation between Leyard and LG to launch the DCI certification of LED screens, which has technically proved that "the LED large screen made in China meets the 'specification' of DCI giant screen movies", laying a solid supply-side foundation for the upgrading of movie screen technology.
However, from the perspective of industry insiders, "the market has never been technology, or hard power such as the supply side, unilaterally deciding!" That is, LED movie screens, especially those made in the mainland, are still far from the rise of the "soft power" gap.
The global film screening market is not "open" to free competition
A number of LED brands and enterprises in the mainland have passed the DCI certification of hollywood dominated by the "content supplier" dominated by 7 major film companies, and in combination with the PREVIOUS DCI certification of Samsung and LG products, it is basically enough to show that the LED large-screen movie projection system, in terms of technology, performance and other hard indicators, fully meets the so-called high quality and copyright protection needs of DCI.
However, from the perspective of the global film projection market, Samsung LED screen, as the earliest "brand" to obtain DCI certification, has achieved a small market share in its industry operation in the past three or four years. Basically an "experimental" application. As another Korean company, LG, its LED products have gained a screen market share, which is also relatively limited for the time being.
On the other hand, the traditional European and American DLP projectors and the Japanese Sony's LCOS projectors, as the iconic products of the digital projection era, still occupy the vast majority of the market share of the film screen industry. Even, some industry experts believe that the development of LED movie screens in the past three or four years, the market size of its acquisition is not even "a fraction of the increment of the global movie screen market". That is, the real market for LED movie screens is "only technically recognized, not the application side really began to roll out."
This can be seen from the fact that the DCI certification of the mainland's local LED screen enterprises is concentrated in the last 10 months. The essence of DCI certification is that the film content industry has set a threshold for the "screening circle": a technical threshold to ensure display effects and copyright protection. It is not an industry mandatory standard, nor a national standard or an international standard, but it is a de facto entry threshold that "if you do not meet this standard, you cannot put the blockbusters of Hollywood bigwigs".
That is to say, in a legal sense, the DCI standard is more like a means used by a few strong content providers to cut the "equipment market cake". This is one of the reasons why digital cinema projectors with DLP technology in the United States are "absolutely dominant" in the global market. - The projection technology of the United States and the content manufacturing of the United States constitute a chain of common "interests" under the ties of capital.
This also explains the "difficult problem" of the two LED large-screen DCI certifications: 1. Why is the Korean brand the first to obtain the DCI certification of the LED large-screen? The LED large-screen industry chain of Samsung and LG needs to adopt a large number of products and technologies from the domestic LED industry. Because Korean companies, including Samsung and LG, have closer capital ties with Europe and the United States. 2. Europe, the United States and Japan Sony, NEC and other traditional film projection equipment companies, but also led large-screen display global active brand, or even the background of leading brands, why did these companies not launch LED large-screen movie screen products for the first time? Because, as vested interests in the existing semi-monopoly pattern of the industry, they are more willing to consolidate their old advantages than to embrace new technologies.
Content, core technology, standards and capital camps, there is such a global 'well-distributed' cake system in the film projection equipment market! Industry insiders pointed out that even if the local LED movie screen has obtained DCI certification, it is not easy to break into this interest system. Compared with the breakthrough of technology, the landing of the consumer end of the market will be "more difficult".
If the local LED movie screen wants to rise, it is necessary to prove that it is not only "OK", but also "better"
Why can the domestic LED large screen achieve the results of multiple brands obtaining DCI certification in the short term? Industry experts analyzed that this is of course because the local LED display industry chain has been in a leading position in the world, LED display large screen to effectively meet the needs of film screening, but also the embodiment of the "market-oriented" role.
That is, the domestic film market has continuously become the world's largest independent screening market at the box office, and it is also the world's first in terms of the total number of cinema screens and annual increments. This is enough to attract the attention of the global film industry, including content and equipment manufacturers. As a standard of an "industry alliance", if too many inappropriate obstacles are set up for mainland LED large-screen enterprises, it is obviously not in line with the long-term interests of the international film industry chain to enter the mainland market on a larger scale.
At the same time, as the de facto standard of the global film projection market, DCI organization does see the "potential advantages" that the LED film large-screen system may have: mainly, first, in terms of brightness performance, the LED large-screen and projection projection system are completely different. Projection systems often have a picture quality bottleneck, especially the picture quality bottleneck of 3D projection, which is not bright enough. The advantage of the LED large screen is that the brightness is sufficient, and it is necessary to specially design the "low brightness, black room" mode in the movie screening.
Second, in recent years, the audiovisual industry chain has developed to ultra-high definition, and the 8K standard will sooner or later become one of the pursuits of the film industry. In this regard, the LED large-screen system realizes the 8K of the movie screen screen, or even higher resolution without pressure; on the contrary, the traditional projection system will inevitably face the technical challenges and cost change pressure brought by the larger light valve system in the 8K era.
Of course, as a new projection technology, led large-screen systems also have their own "disadvantages": the first is the solution of pixel graining problems. This requires led large screens to encrypt pixel density to some extent and provide better pixel-on lens and package design. The second is the projection stability problem of the LED large-screen system. The traditional LED outdoor large screen, the "caterpillar" vision, local damage, etc., which are fatal defects for the film projection effect. Entering the screen projection market, LED large screens need better stability and reliability.
Therefore, it can be seen that in terms of technical characteristics, LED large screens and traditional projection film projection equipment are "completely different". This will inevitably lead to the film industry's decision that "eggs cannot be put in one basket". In other words, the technical advantages of the LED movie large-screen system are also one of the reasons that attract the DCI certification system and are "willing to issue certifications". Indoor small-pitch LED large-screen systems that constantly overcome pixel granulation and prove their reliability in high-end command and dispatch centers show higher potential for future technological development – at least as the current evidence suggests.
The above market logic, but also for the LED large-screen system to really land in the film screen industry, put forward a standard direction: that is, DCI certification is just the beginning, LED large-screen film projection system, not only to prove that they can, can do, not worse than the projection projection system; at the same time, to prove that they have unique advantages - people without me, people have my own excellence, in order to truly cut out their own cake from the semi-monopolistic film projection technology market.
Easy to use and economical", LED movie screen needs to make good use of the advantages of the domestic market
In the mainland film projection market, the current core technology mainly comes from the two major projection systems of DLP and LCOS. Core devices are highly externally dependent. Therefore, the call for the establishment of a film projection equipment industry based on local advanced technology has been issued from time to time.
In fact, in the early "film" film era, the mainland once established a complete independent projection system industrial chain. In the era of digital cinema, the projection equipment market has been handed over to people, which is only a matter of nearly seventeen or eight years. This historical fact also shows that the scale of domestic demand in the mainland film projection market is enough to support the establishment of an independent projection technology system.
In particular, based on LED large-screen display technology, the mainland has established an independent film projection equipment system, which has unique advantages: 1. The mainland is in a global leading position in the LED industry chain and technology; 2. The LED large-screen display has the ability to make up for the performance defects of the projection film projection system; 3. The technology of LED film large-screen is much higher than the "commonality" of most indoor conferences, command and dispatch centers, and advertising large-screen technologies that are much higher than that of film projection projectors and ordinary business education and household projectors. This determines that by using the huge industrial chain of LED large screen tradition, LED movie large screen may obtain the dual competitiveness of "performance advantage and cost advantage" in the future.
The above industrial advantages, in combination with the mainland film industry's own scale and rapid development advantages, it can be said that the LED film screen "in the domestic market has both time and place". This is also the reason why in the current global cinema screen market LED screen penetration is weak, domestic companies are still full of enthusiasm for the LED film projection market. At present, about 200,000 to 300,000 square meters of display area of cinema lines are added to China every year, which will also be a huge incremental market space for the LED large-screen industry, and it is also the cornerstone market that can grow up.
In summary, the marketization of LED film projection screens is only the first step. Making full use of the advantages of the LED industry chain, the performance advantages of LED large screens and the demand advantages of the domestic cinema line market, the local LED film large-screen industry is expected to become the global leader of "next-generation film and projection systems".