Commercial Integrator February 2023 - 22

COVER STORY Display Resolutions
ertheless less bandied about is its relative
complexity to convey. " Each manufacturer
has their own marketing names for it, " he
says, " and, again, it's hard to explain the
importance and what color gamut, local
dimming, nits, et al., actually mean. "
But even if those other specs require a
With regard to digital signage, it's very typical to find 4K signage displays in lobbies
and other public environments these days. The real question in those use cases is how to
get 4K content onto those screens.
don't need anything greater than 1080p, "
DeWitt opines. " Coming out of the pandemic,
we still have a lot of Zoom being
used in classes, at which point you're
usually dealing with 720p anyway. "
Creel offers a different view, pointing to
digital signage and a relative abundance of
in-house-built ultra-HD content populating
those displays. " A lot of our clients
do that, and their digital signage is 4K
native throughout, " he explains. Peterson
builds on that point, explaining that most
of Mechdyne's clients generate their own
content. Using common tools including
Unreal Engine and Unity, these clients are
creating their own environments and content
at ultra-HD resolutions. This approach
entails a considerable cost, however. As
Creel observes, it's not sufficient just to
make that custom content once when the
project is built and brought online. " How
about in six months, or a year, or three
years down the road? " he asks. " People
don't want to be watching the same content
from before. "
Taub broadly echoes Creel and Peterson,
citing falling price points for 4K cameras,
which is making them more widely available
to casual users. " In fact, " she says, " many
people carry a 4K camera in their pocket
in the form of their mobile phone. " Taub
adds that most streaming services offer 4K
options, with quality automatically adjusting
based on available bandwidth.
22
Over the last several years, those of us
in commercial AV have had a collective
consciousness raising as regards the
primacy of experiences over speeds and
feeds. Against the backdrop of that mental
reset, 4K and 8K fever sticks out even more.
Turning, then, to the topic of specs, our
experts argue that resolution is just one
of a constellation of display characteristics
worth considering. In particular, they
highlight HDR as hugely impactful. As Creel
puts it, " You take an SDR solution, and you
compare that to an HDR solution, and it's
- woah! - it looks totally different. " In fact,
he says, many clients opine that a full-HD
system with HDR looks better than does a
4K system with SDR.
Mechdyne's Peterson underlines that
point, citing, in particular, prominent brands
whose iconography is legendary. " Color
reproduction is huge for a lot of companies
in the commercial world, " he states,
citing the John Deere brand's immediately
recognizable green as just one example. " If
that iconic green is not generated properly,
it's not the same color, " he declares, driving
home how big a problem it would be if onsite
corporate displays could not reproduce
John Deere's logo and branding faithfully.
Offering another example - Coca-Cola red
- Peterson says that, for a lot of companies,
color reproduction outstrips resolution,
refresh rate or any other variable. DeWitt
hypothesizes that one reason HDR is nevCommercial
Integrator FEBRUARY 2023
bit more explanation or elaboration, they're
hugely consequential to integrators' ability
to deliver outstanding outcomes. Creel says
that's particularly true with regard to brightness.
He laments that, frequently, clients
will call out a need for ultra HD while, at the
same time, not having a clear idea of how
bright their display should be. " [Brightness]
is key, " Creel states, " and [it's] huge to the
end-user experience. If you can't actually
see the TV because it's not bright enough,
your experience is poor. "
Takeaways for Integrators
What takeaways can integrators draw from
the preceding discussion? That's where
we turn next.
Iowa State's Pedersen views it as a
clarion call for integrators and end users
alike to better understand the scope and
requirements of the content intended to
be displayed. " If the proposed content
(e.g., PowerPoint) would not benefit from
improved specifications, keep it simple, " he
advises. " If the content might benefit from
4K/8K, or something like 10-bit color, then
evaluate the viewing environment. " In the
latter cases, Pedersen says integrators must
focus on working closely with clients to ensure
the viewing environment is suitable for
the technology being proposed, evaluating
factors such as image size, viewing distance
and ambient lighting. For his part, DeWitt
laments that solutions providers too often
overlook environmental factors that affect
the user's viewing experience. " For example, "
he adds, " I've seen people unplug
displays because they were too bright in a
dim room, [and I've seen] cheaper displays
that serve no purpose because they're too
dim in a room that gets direct sunlight. "
One part of it is for technology partners
to be confident enough to push back on a
client whose ideas might be mistaken. As
Mechdyne's Peterson puts it, " When our
clients come to us saying, 'Hey, I want a 4K
image' - just because that's the buzzword
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Commercial Integrator February 2023

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