XR Virtual LED Wall, the New "Password" for LED Display Manufacturer

The domestic epidemic situation is repeated, the international political situation is becoming more and more uncertain, and the living environment of led display manufacturers is complicated. How to gain insight into the development direction of the industry and find new opportunities in an unoptimistic situation has become a common problem for the entire industry chain.

By observing the semi-annual report of the led display company, we found one of the "passwords" for the growth of the company's performance - the XR Virtual LED Wall.

From bud to rise, XR Virtual LED Screen has become a new growth point in the industry

The rise of XR virtual led wall is in 2020. At that time, the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic made it impossible to achieve large-scale gatherings of people, and there were many restrictions on long-distance travel, which caused great obstacles to the framing and shooting of movies, TV, and commercials.

Therefore, the xR virtual production technology, which can create an immersive shooting scene and perfectly integrate virtual and reality, has gradually become the "new favorite" of content creators. At present, the xR virtual led screen has become an important driving force for the growth of many led display companies.

ROE a subsidiary of Unilumin Technology, was established in 2006 and developed the xR virtual led wall business in 2017. At present, ROE has a high competitive position in the field of xR virtual production, and xR virtual led wall has also become the main growth point of Unilumin's performance:

In 2021, ROE's total operating income is RMB 1.362 billion; in the same period, Unilumin's total revenue is RMB 7.2299 billion.

In the first half of 2022, ROE's total operating income was RMB 818 million; in the same period, Unilumin total revenue was RMB 3.165 billion.

Obviously, ROE has grown into an extremely important part of Unilumin's revenue. At present, the xR virtual studio created by ROE is all over the world, occupying "half of the country" for virtual shooting. These include the Vancouver studio of PXO & WFW, which set the Guinness World Record, and the StageCraft studio of ILM, which filmed The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian shooting scene

Absen has laid out XR virtual led display related technologies in 2019, and released a new product PR series specially developed for xr virtual production scenarios in the film and television industry in the fall of 2021.

At present, the virtual shooting full-scene xr led display solution launched by Absen has been successfully applied to virtual studios, studios, XR stages and other fields in major countries such as the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Canada. The classic cases include A large xr virtual studio in Florida, United States, an 8K xr virtual studio for high-end advertising with a dot pitch of 1.5mm in London, United Kingdom, and Thunder Studio in Los Angeles.

Two ways for XR virtual led wall to develop upwards

During the content creation process, XR virtual shooting can place performers in a virtual world built by XR led displays in real time, breaking the boundaries between reality and virtuality. Therefore, xR virtual production has the advantages of what you see is what you get, saves costs, improves the realism of performances, and reduces the difficulty of post-production, and has attracted much attention. According to LEDinside, an optoelectronic research division of TrendForce, the global market size of LED displays for virtual shooting applications has grown to USD 283 million in 2021.

In the future, there are two main directions for the development of XR virtual led wall.

One is to open up the Chinese market.

An interesting phenomenon is that although the companies providing xR virtual production services and solutions are mainly concentrated in China, the foreign xR virtual production market is more mature.

Compared with foreign countries, domestic xR virtual production is still in its infancy, and the market space has not yet been opened. At present, the larger domestic entertainment enterprises and TV stations are all trying to use xR virtual shooting. The application scenarios include large-scale evening parties, live broadcasts, TV drama shootings, etc., and the market space is gradually opening up.

In addition, xR virtual production has also received policy assistance. In March this year, six ministries including the State Film Administration, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the State Administration of Radio and Television issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Film and Television Bases", which clearly stated that It is necessary to vigorously support the promotion and application of new technologies such as virtual digital shooting, cloud computing, cloud storage, artificial intelligence, and 5G collaborative production. The Chinese market has unlimited potential.

The second is to enter the vast sinking market.

xR virtual shooting first emerged in the field of film and television shooting, but a single xR virtual shooting studio has the characteristics of high investment cost, long return period, and high equipment requirements. There are not many units capable of building xR virtual film studios. Therefore, for xR In terms of virtual shooting, the growth rate of the film and television shooting market will not continue to remain at a high level, and it will mainly show a rational growth trend in the future.

With the continuous maturity of xR virtual shooting and the reduction of costs again, more small and medium-sized LED shooting projects will also "afford" xR virtual shooting. In the future, xR virtual shooting will be more widely used in variety shows, live broadcasts, studios, TV dramas, advertisements and other fields, with huge market potential.