Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC (DCI) was created in March 2002, and is a joint venture of Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros. Studios. DCI’s primary purpose is to establish and document voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability, and quality control.

By establishing a common set of content requirements, distributors, studios, exhibitors, d-cinema manufacturers and vendors can be assured of interoperability and compatibility. Due to the relationship of DCI to many of Hollywood’s key studios, conformance to DCI’s specifications is considered a requirement by software developers or equipment manufacturers targeting the digital cinema market. (dcimovies.com) However, the difficulty and cost of becoming certified has made many dvLED manufacturers shy away from becoming DCI certified.

How COVID affected the industry

The Covid years sent the theater industry into a spiral with less attendance at theaters, the addition of many streaming services, and consumers adapting their homes with larger home screens and new technology. The entertainment industry needed a solution to draw movie goers back to the theaters. As a solution, movie theaters are installing new DV LED screens and upgrading the movie visuals to entice audiences away from watching content at home and returning to the theaters for higher quality, big-screen visual experiences. Foreseeing the potential of direct-view LED screens in the cinema market, Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC (DCI) included inspection standards, especially HDR standards, for direct-view LED screens in the DCI specifications.  These standards are very high and a challenge for DVLED.

An LED display can create a true black color simply by turning off diodes, producing zero nits; a projector, which must project some light, cannot. Cinema executives are choosing DV LED displays for their theaters to have a seamless canvas, the pixel pitches are now fine enough to use for this application, and LED provides better contrast, brightness, color gamut, and viewing angles This ability to hit brighter and darker signatures expands an DV LED display’s dynamic range to a point where DCI-compliant direct-view LED displays can accommodate HDR video.  DCI compliancy ensures the DV LED screen meets these goals and many more.

Nanolumens and DCI Certification.

Back in November 2022, we announced our DCI certification for the Engage Series. “We are thrilled to receive this certification from the DCI consortium for our 2.5mm Engage series,” Kurt DeYoung, CRO at Nanolumens, said in the release. “For a dvLED product to be certified it must meet the criteria for color space, brightness, security and more. Our research and development team tested all qualifications of our Engage direct view display, which garnered this coveted certification and potential opportunities for Theatre, Screening Rooms and Exhibition projects where consistent and repeatable image quality is required.”

 

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