Hot Take on LED Walls
The following is my opinion and only my opinion. Anyone who has a differing opinion and would like to discuss the topic like civilized adults, I am more than happy to listen and potentially learn. That said, again, this is simply my opinion.
I’ve been doing this song and dance for the better part of 18 years now and have seen trends come and go in postproduction, production, and live AV production. I’ve been on the bleeding edge of tech only to watch it blend into obscurity in the face of the latest and greatest. Anyone remember Final Cut Pro 5? I DO!
But as I work more and more in the live AV sector, I’m finding myself on the opposite side opinion-wise on one of this industries biggest trends. LED Walls. I know, they’re amazing and versatile and can do so much more than a traditional projection screen, but for my money, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in spades.
Don’t get me wrong, in person, there’s nothing more breathtaking in terms of visual quality and color representation than a properly maintained LED Wall. My issue is when said LED wall is recorded or streamed. The human eye and a camera lens work in very similar ways, but where our brains can fill in missing details or compensate for visual glitches, a camera lens and processor don’t.
We’re always told in production to watch out for certain patterns, generally in clothing. When there are lines in close proximity, cameras with their rolling shutter can cause what’s known as the moiré effect. If you don’t know what that is, I guarantee you do but you may not know that it has a name. It’s the wavy, sometimes undulating effect we often see in video when patterns are overlayed or are too tight. It’s near impossible to correct in camera, and I’ve seen it more times than not these past few years working with LED walls. It makes sense too because what is an LED wall but rows and rows of individual led lights smushed together to create a panel that can act much like a TV, but blown up to a larger scale. The problem with these panels is that instead of a density akin to a television where the pixels are so small and so tightly packed that you can’t tell there are pixels in the first place, these lights are spaced so far apart that you can identify and remove them one by one with tweezers. In person, the effect is seamless from a distance. On camera, you see EVERYTHING.
Let’s discount the fact that these panels and kits are exorbitantly expensive, require specific training and personnel to build, require a whole separate setup to run, and finally require a dedicated and professionally trained individual to drive the thing separate from any other technical directors…why do I dislike LED walls? It’s because I am often either streaming, broadcasting, or recording these events. That visually stunning quality DOES NOT TRANSLATE! White logos, which conservatively account for 99.9% (estimate of course) of the logos that will be included on these things always look like they’re bleeding into the background. On top of this, any imperfections are not only visible, they’re AMPLIFIED. Did the designer miss a 40 pixel wide by 1 pixel tall line leaving a single small imperfection? Probably not something they’d find on such a large piece of artwork at the end of the day, and with standard projection, no one would see it. But with an LED wall, that single small white line shines brighter than anything else because it’s literally a single bright white line! Curves look terrible too because as much as LED walls want to display curves, rows of lights can’t be packed tight enough to compensate. Curves look like they’re backgrounds in a PlayStation 1 game at best, and like you’re looking at Super Mario Bros. 2 at the worst. Aliasing is so incredibly evident. And did you know that LED walls are built using panels? Bet you did because you’ve seen the physical seam between multiple panels. You’re not supposed to, and again in person, you generally don’t. But cameras aren’t always pointed head on to a screen so often times, you see where each panel sits.
It is infuriating. I genuinely do not know why end clients are OK having their graphics displayed to their larger audience in such a poor manner. I get that it’s a spectacle in the moment, but why pander to the few hundred when your event may be viewed by millions more?
I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand. This is unsettling and disappointing.
