Video Googlefu

Someone the other day asked me how much a 2x2 2mm video led panel was. And I’ve set them up so many times but have never had the price per unit discussion.

They were looking for 8 panels to do 4 w x 2 h.

I figured they can’t be more than 1000 a piece but my Google fu is failing me.

Wouldn’t mind 4mm panel quotes either.

Thanks ahead of time.

Are you looking for cheapest possible or quality engineering? There will be a drastic price difference between them. Also, do you need outdoor capable?

Indoor, Both for comparison for shits and giggles.

Here is a 500x500mm (so roughly 19") by Elation. It's $2960 and a little smaller with also a slightly larger pixel pitch. On the other hand, depending on your order, you could get them (1m square) for as little as $800 per panel direct from China.

Big difference is that when you buy from certain manufacturers, they will purchase about 10% more than what you need, so that they can batch match your parts in the future. You are paying for storage in a sense. I of course am not a dealer. I have talked to many in regards to getting something myself.

ruinexplorer said:

Big difference is that when you buy from certain manufacturers, they will purchase about 10% more than what you need, so that they can batch match your parts in the future. You are paying for storage in a sense. I of course am not a dealer. I have talked to many in regards to getting something myself.

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Wait; that's still a thing? Controllers don't do a camera-look and auto-balance the panels?

I'm sure that most manufacturers will offer some color matching as you describe (unsure of the quality of support that you get buying direct), but this isn't the ideal solution. The more panels that you replace, the smaller and smaller your color gamut will be. The way that color matching takes place is to reduce the color intensity to that of the lowest performer. So if your new panel, since it doesn't have as strong of a green, then you now have to reduce all of the rest of your panels to match. If you now have to replace a different one, but it is a little weaker in red, then again you must reduce all of your panels. It quickly comes to the point where you have to choose between losing the quality of your entire display or having slight variations in your overall image. As you near white, it will be quite apparent. If your replacements come from the same manufacturing lot, then you will still have to tweak it to match the others that have aged, but it will be less of a color shift. Does that make sense?

It does, though I hadn't thought of it that way.

I assume that such a controller would *keep track* of which panels it had made allowances for? I can't be the smartest guy in the room, right?

On reading it again, though, what I *actually* meant was "match the new panel down to the current status of the entire array"... and you gotta do that *anyway*, no? It's not the new panel that drags it down; it's going to try to drag it *up*... unsuccessfully.

IIRC, each panel stores its color info, similar to each projector saving its color info when doing a blend. So, it isn't an outside source that is storing the info.

You are correct that you are matching the new panel down to the current status of the rest of the array, which reduces your overall color gamut. It is possible due to different manufacturing lots that the new panel could have a lower color value than an aged panel. That is why you want to try to start with panels that were as closely matched as possible from the get go.

It's possible, sure. But what I would *expect* is that the new panel has the gamut the model shipped with, or very close, and all the *older* panels would have worn down, and need to be compensated for. No?

In an ideal world, yes. That's why we want panels in the same manufacturing lot. That gets you as close as possible.

Well, I know what you're going for, but I still don't actually think that helps as much as you do, I think.

If I put up a wall, and 6 months from now, it loses a panel, any panel I put up is going to have more available luminance in all 3 channels than *every panel in the wall*, right?

So I'm going to have to adjust *down*, *just that one panel*, *in all three channels*.

In short, the wall is never going to have it's overall gamut improve, and any replacement panel will always be yanked down. Or do I vastly overestimate how much the panels degrade in actual use?

If you were doing digital signage, where the panels were running 24/7, then that might be the case. In the amount that most walls get used in entertainment, I don't think that you are going to lose that much output. Again, that will totally depend on the quality of the panels in the first place.

Lol I can finally weigh in on my own thread. These panels would only be used when a pianist or keyboard player so that the audience could see them going to town.

I guess that’s a thing people want to see.

The current setup is the projector screen and a 1990s camera.

PTZ is easy to come by the panels not so much.

So, Imag.

In all honesty, you are getting so few panels, a lot of the color matching might not make a difference since you are less likely going to be replacing one. Is this for an installation or temporary use? If for temporary use, I would also be considering how the panels lock together and the types of connections between panels for the video. If it is for install, I would be looking at how you will access the panels, since getting to the back might be a pain.

Yes temporary, only when someone comes to town and either requests it or accepts the offer when it’s given.

So it would be added to a batten each time and stuck afterwards.

So the panels that lock together and just use powercon passthrough and rj45 for data passthrough.

ruinexplorer said:

If you were doing digital signage, where the panels were running 24/7, then that might be the case. In the amount that most walls get used in entertainment, I don't think that you are going to lose that much output. Again, that will totally depend on the quality of the panels in the first place.

Click to expand...

And, in fact, that was where my head was at: architectural installs with high duty cycle. Clearly, it's going to be less of a factor, verging on no factor, in the OP's target usage. :-}

Funny thing is, I see a lot of digital signage and it seems as if they often don't care as much with color matching. Super apparent in the whites.

Yeah. Luckily, I haven't had to go bigger than single-panel for that.