Flat-panel display and projection manufacturers are all vying to stake claim to the prized wall spaces in your customers’ homes. It’s become even more competitive as technologies create more opportunities for much larger displays in the past to occupy real estate beyond a traditional home theater room.

Samsung is among the companies at the forefront of this trend, implementing stylish products that can serve up sizable images without complaints from design-minded homeowners.

Samsung made a big splash with The Frame TV that looks like artwork when not in use, and more recently launched the The Wall Luxury with its microLED technology for integrators to place huge screens in any room without some of the compromises that might otherwise come from a two-piece projection installation. And digital artwork can be shown anytime, in any room’s lighting condition.

The company highlighted how dealers can work with Samsung – which is handling the actual installations, for now – on selling and spec’ing The Wall for elite clientele in the “Luxury Living: How Samsung Display Technology Delivers on Design” TechTalk presented during the CEDIA Expo 2019.

Brightness, Contrast, Flexibility Key Attributes

Among the benefits of the technology is that the microLEDs make The Wall self-illuminating with backlight and filters able to shine light at the viewers, according to panelist John Shim, senior engineering manager, North America Display Office, Samsung. This helps to generate high contrast, bright colors and deep blacks; The Wall delivers peak brightness of 2,000 nits.

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Additionally, because of the modular makeup of The Wall, integrators can create a range of sizes – Samsung was showing a 146-inch display comprising 16 modules in its CEDIA Expo booth, but Shim says it can go up to 292 inches from 64 modules up to 8K resolution.

“You can put them into different arrays and sizes. So you have flexibility in terms of sizes, as well as resolution,” he says. Plus modules are front serviceable so customers don’t have to worry about accessing the space behind The Wall for an individual one to be repaired or replaced.

One of the keys to enabling viewers to enjoy the large-scale imagery and experience today’s content at the higher resolution is Samsung’s upscaling capabilities.

“Specific to The Wall Luxury is it has an 8K AI scaler built into it, so it provides you the ultimate in picture quality with both the display technology as well as the processing capabilities,” Shim says.

Meanwhile, viewers can use a remote controller to tap into all the functionalities and apps of The Wall Luxury, plus it supports Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay 2.

Advantages Over Projection Systems

“Clients are moving their displays outside of the dedicated theater environments, so we’re seeing them in media rooms and getting a lot of high ambient light environments,” Shim notes. “With those scenarios, it’s hard to have bright enough projection, or [you] have a very washed-out look. But the LEDs you have high brightness and high contrast coming with it and everyone can enjoy it without having blinds closed up or concerns about the lighting inside a room.”

Other benefits compared to projection, Shim says, is that the self-illuminating nature and ability to turn off individual pixels creates deep black levels, and because the LEDs are a fan-less technology there’s no worry about having noise distraction.

And how can integrators demo the unique product to customers, or learn more about it? Samsung has executive briefing centers around the country (D.C., New Jersey, Dallas and California) showcasing the technology.

“The one in Irvine, California, specifically, if you ever have a chance to come down to that facility, it actually shows like an art gallery,” says panelist Michael Bennett, senior business development manager at Samsung.

“You will have several different examples of our LED technology … we can sit down and illustrate the different viewing distances and different brightness levels so you can really see it first-hand.”

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