The Olympics is one of the biggest sporting events in the world. Therefore, it should not be surprising to encounter a screen worthy of the Olympics’ reputation. The world’s largest LED display, measuring 10,552 square meters and using 40,000 LED modules, was used at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to the Global Times.
The screen in question was used as the main stage of the opening ceremony and was produced by China Academy of Launch Vehicle (CALT), China’s largest carrier rocket developer and manufacturer. The display offers “a better visual feast than even 8K resolution” and is the largest of its kind ever made, the company says.
However, the world’s largest LED screen comes with a small note, because this screen is not actually a single LED screen; It consists of many interconnected screens.
The reason for choosing LED displays over OLED is because they are reliable and cost-effective. OLED is more expensive to manufacture on a large scale and not as reliable in such massive setups. In addition, the fact that LED screens are brighter than OLED is another advantage when considering the enormous illumination of the area.
Commercial LED displays, such as those used at the Olympic Opening Ceremony, have a brightness of between 4,000 and 10,000 nits. Considering that even the brightest consumer QLED TVs only reach 2,000 to 3,000 nits, we can safely say that these commercial displays are significantly brighter than what is seen in home televisions.
However, each ‘piece’ on this screen has a length of only 30-60cm, which means that tens of thousands of screens must be used together, marking another engineering achievement.