One of the perks of working in Las Vegas is the number of conferences and trade shows. However, you have to exercise restraint or you’ll spend your entire life attending these events. One of the largest and most impressive annual events is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It is impossible to see all the products stuffed into over 2.9 million square feet of exhibition space, but there are always a few items each year that are given poll position and are difficult to miss. Last year one of those items was the Konka Smart Wall TV, measuring over 236 inches (20 feet) from corner to corner. It was designed to compete with the “The Wall” produced by Samsung. Both are modular systems that snap together like Legos allowing you to customize the size and resolution.
Standing a few feet from the screen you are unable to detect the seams or any pixelization. The Konka is slightly smaller but boasts better resolution and a sharper 8K image. These video walls utilize the new MicroLED technology, which employs individual LEDs to create the picture, as
opposed to using them to light up a film of liquid crystals that regulate the light—an LCD layer. This allows the MicroLEDs to turn off individually, creating true black—enhancing the screen’s ability to render contrast. The screens are rated for 100,000 hours, which translates into over 11 years of uninterrupted continuous usage. Unfortunately the current $1.2 million price tag puts it out of reach for most people.
Regardless, the experience this screen provides is extraordinary and opens the door for creating dramatic, immersive digital environments without the use of those goofy headsets that tend to generate anti-social experiences. An experience on a large screen can be shared. I don’t think this technology would be needed for watching television or a movie, but it would transform an object or space with a digitally recorded landscape, work of art or virtual interactive environment. Once the screen becomes that clear, and larger than a human body, the game changes. It is a similar sensation to standing in front of an enormous Rothko and being enveloped in its fields of color.