Megapixel Brings Hollywood Tech to Architectural Applications With Launch of Ventana MicroLED Displays

With Hollywood’s rapid adoption of virtual production studios, you’ll find Megapixel whose core technology (with more than 200 patents) for LED displays and video processing helped transform the way Hollywood produces its visual effects.

Megapixel’s Emmy- and Oscar-winning technologies have become the de facto processing platform used behind-the-scenes in Hollywood’s virtual productions that use large-scale LED display walls as digital backdrops to replace green-screen compositing in favor of shooting everything “in camera”.

The early success of productions such as “First Man” and Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian” encouraged film and broadcast studios, starting a global race to build virtual production studios using LED displays of all scales and formats.

Now Megapixel applies its technologies from these studios to its newest creation: the Ventana microLED display system for luxury architectural applications.

Ventana is an architectural tile that’s 15 millimeters thin. With a glossy liquid-black surface and vividly bright LEDs at a nearly invisible 0.8mm pixel-pitch, the tiles produce high-quality images (at 72 bits per pixel). The tiles also handle inputs up to 8192 x 4320 resolution. And behind that super-thin surface is the Hollywood-grade image-processing tech that manages the division of the signal, color processing, calibration and other key aspects of making such hyper-realistic architectural digital displays.

The Ventana system lets designers and partners add vibrant digital architectural surfaces in whatever shape or proportions they desire across the scale of entire walls, rooms or buildings.

For one example, Savant partners with Megapixel to provide integrators with four pre-configured Ventana packages, ranging in size from 106-inch to 212-inch, as well as infinitely customizable configurations. (Meanwhile Megapixel partners with Savant to offer the simple yet elegant interface to control and view multiple sources simultaneously on an Ventana display.)

Brad Koerner, who recently joined Megapixel as the senior product marketing manager for Ventana, says, “We are at the precipice where architects and interior designers will stop thinking of digital displays as discrete TVs hanging on the wall and instead conceive of the entire wall as a portal to the virtual world, driving unprecedented creativity in physical placemaking.”

He adds: “Large format digital architectural walls will become our interface to the digital world, not ridiculous VR goggles. The technologies embodied by Ventana are now ready for widespread adoption and there is so much creative potential when the walls that surround us go digital — as demonstrated by the impressive creative content coming from virtual production studios. From gorgeous photorealistic portals of exotic locales to living 3D wallpaper to fantasy interiors – there is suddenly no limit to how we adorn our architectural spaces. But first we have to help architects and interior designers learn how to conceive, design and execute these immersive digital experiences.”

Originally trained as an architect, Koerner spent 20+ years in architectural and theatrical lighting, exploring the application of advanced lighting technologies and digital media systems in a variety of cutting-edge innovation projects. An American now based in Amsterdam, Koerner understands the challenges architectural designers face with the rapid adoption of architectural-scale digital walls.

“Architects are accustomed to a common design language with terms like threshold or progression; they use tools like material sample boards and mood boards for presenting to clients; and they know how to sketch and model to communicate their intent. But do they know how to develop a digital content strategy as part of their pitch? How to develop a storyboard? Or what that interface between their physical placemaking and the digital content will feel like at such a large scale? We have to help them understand how to develop a digital strategy for their spaces that complement and reinforce their design vision for the project. Megapixel is giving our customers the absolutely best possible digital display surface – Ventana is so stunningly beautiful it feels like it is from the future – but designers need help figuring out how to create compelling content to build whatever residential, retail or hospitality concepts they are trying to achieve.”

Koerner concludes: “I specifically joined the Megapixel team because Ventana just feels like the future. There is a level of quality and a common-sense form factor that I believe will become the standard in large format architectural displays.”