# Ultra-thin bezel LCD displays



## doctorhandshake (Nov 3, 2011)

Hi folks-

Anybody got a recommendation on a line of ultra-thin bezel LCDs?

I'm doing a spec for a year-long installation in some office building lobbies, etc. and don't have a lot of familiarity with the offerings in that segment.

Looking for 1080p, probably 50" or so, 16:9, good reliability, minimal front profile. I know most brands have a division that makes this stuff and I know my way around the consumer TV market but this is terra incognita for me. 

Thanks!


----------



## metti (Nov 3, 2011)

Are you open to plasmas? A lot of the thinnest bezel displays aren't LCD.


----------



## doctorhandshake (Nov 3, 2011)

metti said:


> Are you open to plasmas? A lot of the thinnest bezel displays aren't LCD.


 
Welp... hrm. Thank you for that - I wasn't aware of that. I know plasmas kick ass in the blacks department, so I'm not mad at that. Not thrilled about the power consumption but I understand the burn-in issue has largely been mitigated by pixel-oscillation stuff....

Got a particular model in mind? I've seen LCDs with pretty thin bezels that looked great. To be clear - the application doesn't demand the Thinnest Bezel Of All, it's just that they look cleaner and so that's the category we're shopping in, nahmean? 

Best-looking (frame- and image-wise), most reliable display will win out.

Thanks!


----------



## 65535 (Nov 3, 2011)

UD55A 55

I would stick with Samsung Commercial LED displays.


----------



## doctorhandshake (Nov 3, 2011)

65535 said:


> UD55A 55
> 
> I would stick with Samsung Commercial LED displays.


 
Great link - thanks, boss!


----------



## 65535 (Nov 3, 2011)

The one I linked is quite expensive but other models bring the cost down substantially. I found a 55" model around 1/3rd of that units price.


----------



## museav (Nov 3, 2011)

I'll second the Samsung commercial displays and you might also want to look at LG Commercial (M5520CCBA 55" class (54.6" measured diagonally) LCD Widescreen Full HD Capable Monitor - Large Screen Monitors - LCD Monitors, Systems & Solutions - Products - LG Solutions) and some of NEC products like P551, 55 Professional-Grade Large-Screen Display - Highlights & Specifications | NEC Display Solutions and especially X551UN, 55 Ultra-Narrow Professional-Grade Large-Screen Display - Highlights & Specifications | NEC Display Solutions. I've worked on corporate lobby and digital signage type applications that used all three brands and never experienced problems with any of them (YMMV).

One thing to consider with commercial LCD displays is that some of the manufacturers have fairly stringent requirements for dealers and if you 'second source' or 'two step' them you may not be able to pass the warranty through to your client. So that's something you may want to consider when making a choice.

The first 10 project pictures shown here, InteriorDesign, are various Aflac projects I worked on and include some good examples of corporate public area display applications. The 10th picture shows the lobby of the building that houses their IT staff. On the far wall is a 2x2 tiled array of NEC LCD displays using their internal tiling functionality. The large wide display with no image on it is 10 NEC LCD displays in portrait orientation driven by a Dataton WATCHOUT system. The dining area, conference room with the funky yellow wall and corridor with the frosted glass to the conference rooms shown in the other pictures are all part of that same building and all the related electronics for the Lobby AV as well as the headend for the digital signage throughout the building are housed in a central AV equipment room. Here's more pictures that also show some of the display usage in that building, Alexander Electric Company | AFLAC IT Building, and a video of the Grand Opening that shows the Lobby display in use (http://videos.ledger-enquirer.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=3793346&item_index=1&all=1&sort=NULL). I'm somewhere in the crowd scenes of the video but managed to stay well hidden.

The nicely finished, dual rear screen room in the first set of pictures is Aflac's corporate videoconference room in the Main Tower. That room was completed around 10 years ago and the plain old TV in the center was so that their executives and marketing staff could view proposed commercials on a display similar to those many people had at home.


----------



## BillESC (Nov 3, 2011)

Samsung - Yes. But think LED.


----------



## BillESC (Nov 3, 2011)

LED 6420 Series Smart TV


----------



## metti (Nov 3, 2011)

doctorhandshake said:


> Welp... hrm. Thank you for that - I wasn't aware of that. I know plasmas kick ass in the blacks department, so I'm not mad at that. Not thrilled about the power consumption but I understand the burn-in issue has largely been mitigated by pixel-oscillation stuff....
> 
> Got a particular model in mind? I've seen LCDs with pretty thin bezels that looked great. To be clear - the application doesn't demand the Thinnest Bezel Of All, it's just that they look cleaner and so that's the category we're shopping in, nahmean?
> 
> ...


 
I think I was imagining a thinner bezel than it sounds like you need. There are lots of great thin-bezel LCDs and others have provided good recommendations. When I read ultra-thin I was thinking you wanted something more along the lines of this: http://www.dailydooh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/arsenal-5.jpg


----------



## museav (Nov 4, 2011)

BillESC said:


> LED 6420 Series Smart TV


The warranty for the Samsung LED 6420 is "...to the original consumer purchaser..." and states that it applies to "...defects in materials and workmanship encountered in normal, and except to the extent otherwise expressly provided for in this statement, noncommercial use of this product..." That suggests that model is intended solely for residential/consumer use and seems to exclude any warranty coverage for commercial use. For commercial installations a warranty that both covers commercial use and is transferable to the client is usually desired.

Here are Samsung's commercial displays, Professional & Commercial Displays | SAMSUNG Large Format Plasma & LCD Displays, and their "LED" (actually LED backlit LCD) versions of those, LED | Samsung.

It was also mentioned this being a year long project. If you mean the installation may occur in steps or phases over a longer period of time then you may want to consider that products like flat panel displays, and especially consumer models, tend to have limited life for specific models. If you want all the displays to be the same you may want to consider purchasing all of them, and maybe even spares, at once. However, this is another area where commercial products and dealer relationships may matter as every consumer product warranty I've encountered would start when the products are initially received while some commercial product warranties may be able to have the warranty start when they are delivered to the site or essentially when they are put into service rather than when you, as a dealer, received them.

Metti, the NEC X551UN I noted, there is also a 46" version, is also an ultra-thin bezel display like the one you linked. Samsung's version of that seems to be UE55A 55, again also available in a 46" version. There are fewer and generally more expensive options for products like these but if you really want as small a bezel as possible that may be the type of product you'll want to consider.


----------



## ruinexplorer (Nov 4, 2011)

For a great resource in researching your digital display devices, you can check on InfoComm's site here. I also like the NEC products and have been happy with Sanyo models as well.


----------



## BillESC (Nov 5, 2011)

My intent was to show the size of the bezel Samsung offers in it's LED offerings. I grabbed the first picture showing the feature. I was not recommending the specific model shown.


----------



## doctorhandshake (Nov 7, 2011)

This is a great wealth of information, so thanks to everyone, especially for the forewarnings about warranty considerations. The actual procurement will be done by the end owner and client so that shouldn't be an issue but I'm glad that was brought to my attention. I made a preliminary recommendation of the LED-backlit Samsung commercial displays but the client will, in the end, be making the final decision.

On a non-thread-related note, museav - you mentioned you've deployed a WATCHOUT system into a permanent installation - how is that going? I do a good bit of Max/MSP/Jitter dev stuff but have never had the confidence to deploy into an unsupervised / permanent setting. Is WATCHOUT really up to the task?


----------



## museav (Nov 7, 2011)

doctorhandshake said:


> On a non-thread-related note, museav - you mentioned you've deployed a WATCHOUT system into a permanent installation - how is that going? I do a good bit of Max/MSP/Jitter dev stuff but have never had the confidence to deploy into an unsupervised / permanent setting. Is WATCHOUT really up to the task?


It was definitely a learning experience for them to use it effectively but for what they wanted to do with it, which is more of a marketing or branding application than an information application, it has seemed to worked well.

That is actually something I have encountered with corporate applications, people want lobby signage and digital signage throughout their facilities but when you start asking about the content you often get blank stares. They seem to neglect to consider that the content does not create, manage, update, etc. itself and that someone has to take responsibility for those efforts.


----------



## doctorhandshake (Nov 7, 2011)

TRUTH! I see this for DVD and interactive across the board.

Client: 'We want you to make us a DVD/installation.'
Us: 'Great what's your content?'
Client: 'Content? Isn't that the DVD?'

Really though, my question was about the stability of your WATCHOUT deployment. Is it stable enough for long-term unsupervised use? Did you use specialized hardware or just a few PCs with tripleheads?


----------

