Terminology

Pixel
A pixel (short for picture element) is an image component of an LED display's overall resolution. The more pixels used to represent an image, the higher the resolution is to offer greater picture quality. In an LED display, a pixel can consist of 1 or more LED diodes. A monochrome or grayscale LED display pixel has 1 or more LED diodes of the same color. A color LED display pixel either has LED diodes of different colors or 1 single diode which contains semi-conductor chips that emits lights with different colors.

Pitch
Pitch is the distance from the center of a pixel to the center of an adjacent pixel. Pitch is very important because for the same display area, the pitch determines the resolution of the display. For smaller, tighter pitches, you have more pixels per unit area thus a better resolution. Selecting the right pitch when you are purchasing an LED display may save you money as well as getting you the appropriate resolution for your particular application. Please feel free to contact your Optec sales or tech rep to help you select the right pitch for your display!

Matrix Resolution
An LED display's matrix resolution represents how many pixels there is on the display. A display with a matrix resolution of 320 (h) by 480 (w) means it has 480 pixels from side to side and 320 from top to bottom. The higher the matrix resolution is, the better an image is represented on the display. As we discussed earlier, for a fixed display area, selecting a smaller pitch will increase the matrix resolution of the display which means better image quality.


144x720 Matrix

Hybrid Pixel
The Hybrid pixel technology is one of Optec's signature technologies. It was the first hot swappable LED display pixel of any kind in the US market and is still the leading technology of its kind. Unlike most of the other manufactures who just soldered their LED diodes on the surface of their display or modular units and cover them up with epoxy coating, Optec utilizes this more advanced and expensive technology to ensure our product performance is superior. Each Hybrid pixel unit has a mini circuit board inside and individual gold plated pin connecting the unit to the display surface. This makes replacing damaged LED pixels extremely easy. Also, what makes Optec's hybrid pixel unique is not just the hot swappable part, but the surface design of the hybrid unit. Instead of 1 single horizontal glare protection louver over a huge quantify of LED diodes, Optec was the first company to use individual louvers for each LED diodes, creating maximum glare and reflection protection as well as contrast enhancement and light focusing. The uneven display area surface as a result of utilizing the Hybrid pixels further enhances a display's contrast under direct sunlight. For more information, please call your Optec sales or tech rep.

RGB Display
Red, green and blue (RGB) are the 3 basic colors human eyes can perceive. By using an appropriate combination of red, green and blue intensities, many colors can be represented. An RGB display simply means it's a full color display. However, how many colors can be shown on an RGB display depends on many factors. Two of the most important factors are the input data signal quality and the display's color processing ability. For example, if the input video signal only has 8-bit of information per color, no matter how many colors your display controller can process, the display will only show 8 bits of shadings per color. Optec's current full color display controller can process up to 16 bits of information per color, that's total of 281 trillion gamma corrected color levels. However, most of today's video input signals are less than 10 bits per color. Therefore the actual color depth showing on an Optec LED display is only as good as the quality of the input signal.

Degradation
Generally speaking, an LED diode will quickly lose about 20% of its initial brightness after the first 2000 hours of use. After that, the LED diode's brightness only degrades at a very slow and unnoticeable rate, until it dies at the generally estimated lifetime of 100k hours. This unique degradation curve is the result of the nature of semi-conductor chips. When shopping for an LED display, it is important to keep in mind that the manufacturer's claimed display brightness will drop about 20% after 2 to 3 months of operation.

NIT- Unit of Brightness
NIT is the brightness measurement unit the industry usually uses to calculate the brightness of an LED display. It is calculated as the following:

NIT = cd per pixel X pixels per M²

Generally speaking, the average sun light brightness in North America is about 5000NITs. It does not take an Einstein to figure that in order to have a readable display during day time, an outdoor LED display needs to be at least 5000NITs bright after the initial 20% brightness degradation. Therefore when you are purchasing your LED display, it is important to compare the brightness of displays from different manufacturers under sunlight to make sure you are getting your money's worth and your customers will be able to notice your display when driving by.

LED Diode Density
LED diode density is a good indicator for comparing LED display performance, given using similar spec LEDs. Just like your car's engine, more cylinders generally mean more power. More LED diodes per unit area generally means higher brightness thus better performance. Optec's vision has always been helping its customers to build/increase their business. Because of this, Optec has always been sacrificing its profit margin and using more LED diodes from only the best LED manufacturers to ensure our customers have the brightest attention grabbing advertising medium outside their business location. A low brightness, unreadable LED display will not help you increase your sales because it's less likely for your customers to notice and read what you have to say.


3 LED per pixel vs. 5 LED per pixel

Give us a call today, Optec welcomes you to come to our LA business headquarters to see for yourself what kind of materials we use to make our displays. There are so many LED display manufacturers claiming all sorts of things on paper, but we want you to see and experience instead of reading and listening. Seeing is believing.

LED Diode Binning
The brightness rating of an LED diode is usually expressed in a range instead of a certain NIT value. This is because the core of LEDs diodes are made from semi-conductor chips thus even the best LED manufacturers in the world can not control and guarantee that diodes manufactured within the same batch have exactly the same brightness. Therefore LED manufactures have to separate their diodes into bins of similar brightness. When a LED display manufacturer makes an LED display, it is important to use LED diodes from the same bin in order to maintain brightness uniformity. As some of the leading LED display manufacturers in the world, Optec uses LED diodes from the same bins when making a display. We only use top quality/brightness bin LED diodes from top LED manufacturers thus the LED uniformity of an Optec display is always guaranteed among the highest , if not the best in the world. We know when a customer installs an LED display at their business location, it becomes part of their business image. We only want the best for our customers!

The Quality of LED diodes and binning process makes a HUGE difference!

Viewing Angle
Diodes can put out a single, narrow beam of light like a flashlight, or they can output a wide array across a room like a light bulb. Diodes output about the same amount of light no matter what type they are - but the "high-beam" diodes with a narrow angle focus more light into one small spot, whereas the "wide angle" diodes spread their light across the horizon. So, if you were to stand in front of a sign made from "high-beam" sdiodes with narrow viewing angles, you would see an extremely bright sign if you stood directly in front of it, but the minute you walked away from the small spot light of its focus, you would see nothing but black.

With wide viewing angle LEDs, the image is visible in consistent brightness and uniform colors throughout the entire viewing range of the display. Optec media only uses wide angle 1400 LEDs to maximize audience exposure, maintain the highest color accuracy and extend reading times. Maintaining brightness across a wide spectrum also requires greater light output, which is why Optec Media uses a higher LED diode density than any other manufacturer in the industry.