[Interview] Neo QLED 8K Engineers Discuss Packing the TVs’ Ultra-Slim Frames With Powerful Sound Technologies
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By STF News
These days, the ways people are enjoying their favorite media are becoming ever more diverse due to a wide range of different lifestyles and preferences. With the launch of their home cinema projector The Premiere, Samsung Electronics has freed users from the limitations of their domestic spaces: wherever they choose to enjoy their content, The Premiere is capable of acting as a large-screen portal to a new, fully immersive world.
The Premiere was created based on research into and an understanding of real users’ environments and spaces. Its appearance, as well as its functionality, was refined with precision so that the projector fits comfortably into a user’s space as opposed to being a cumbersome device that can only be taken out and used every now and then. In order to learn more about the innovative concept behind The Premiere, Samsung Newsroom sat down with its designers to hear about the journey they went on when creating this unique screen.
A Design That Blends In, Inspired by Users’ Environments
Sungil Bang, Designer at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business
The Premiere’s designers first started by delving into and analyzing the projector market in order to be able to develop a differentiated product. “There are already so many projectors in the market, from affordable ones to high-end ones, all with different specifications,” noted Sungil Bang. “We knew we needed to take a new approach right from the planning stages in order to come up with a product that goes beyond simply being a projector.”
The designers honed in on the idea of the actual space where a projector is to be placed. They focused on the lifestyle and environment trends followed by real users in order to establish their direction for creating a product that provides genuinely enriching experiences. “We worked hard to design a product that presents new experiences thanks to its innovative technologies, while at the same time blending seamlessly in with the user’s furniture and other décor items,” added Bang. “We obtained a lot of inspiration from the space usages, furniture choices and trending objet d’arts we came across during this initial design process.”
(From left) Jigwang Kim, Sungil Bang and Junpyo Kim, the designers at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business
What might be a user’s biggest reason for purchasing a projector? Perhaps so that they can enjoy media more vibrantly on a larger screen, or to add a subtle piece of interior décor flair to a space they otherwise don’t want to place a large TV in. The Premiere’s design team paid close attention to such thinking when developing The Premiere, ensuring that its exterior wouldn’t overwhelm the space it is placed in wherever that may be. “The simplistic design of The Premiere doesn’t stand out too much as an interior décor piece since it naturally blends into the space,” explained Jigwang Kim. “Users can enjoy unparalleled immersive experiences when enjoying content displayed on an entire wall.”
The designers worked diligently on The Premiere’s silhouette to ensure that the projector is able to blend harmoniously into its surroundings as opposed to standing out. The no-frills elements it is composed of, including its round outline and slim lines, complete its overall sleek and soft design. “The projector is able to match other components a user might have nearby, such as a table or a vase, so it’s perfect for those who enjoy minimalistic interior décor,” suggested Jigwang Kim.
Innovative Features Designed for User Comfort
Product design choices are always ultimately made for the user so that they can enjoy their product anytime, anywhere. Due to the common perception that typical projectors can require laborious installation as a certain amount of distance is required between the wall and the projector, as well as the space limitations this can cause, Samsung implemented ultra-short focal point triple laser beam technology. This technology allows The Premiere’s users to enjoy a 4K video up to 330.2cm in size even when the projector is placed as close as 23.8cm to the wall.
Jigwang Kim, Designer at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business
As the world’s first HDR10+ projector, The Premiere offers a maximum brightness of 2,800 ANSI lumens. The Premiere also delivers a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that the projector is able to express all the subtle contrasts and detailing in darker images. Furthermore, “the projector comes with Acoustic Beam speakers that provide deep, 3-dimensional, room-filling sound without the need for any separate speakers,” added Jigwang Kim.
Another leading feature of The Premiere is its smart hub, which allows users to watch all kinds of content and media – requiring only an Internet connection. “The Premiere allows the user to enjoy what they want hassle-free, as there’s no need to connect separate devices to it. It is also connected to SmartThings, so users can monitor and operate their smart home appliances directly from their projector.”
A Stand-Out Design That Blends Seamlessly Thanks to Sophisticated Materials
As opposed to being a hard, cold-looking home appliance, The Premiere has been designed to provide warmth so as to seamlessly blend in to any domestic space. A stand-out feature of its design is the material choice – the design team opted to cover the product with a premium fabric in order to give the projector its warmth and sophistication. “This fabric encompasses a subtle abundance of colors and sophisticated weaving – it is in fact often used for premium brands’ sofas, chairs and other fabric items,” noted Junpyo Kim. “The projector achieves congruity with the space in which it is placed because it has been carefully designed to go well with furniture items.”
However, it wasn’t as simple as it might appear for the design team to be able to fit The Premiere with this premium fabric finish. Since such materials are traditionally used for furniture, the fabric had been designed for a different purpose. “The fabric’s weave structure is denser than other fabrics, meaning that it would affect the sound quality if it were to cover the projector’s speakers,” noted Junpyo Kim. “While this brought about challenges during the design stage, we didn’t want to give up on the uniquely warm and sturdy appearance this fabric provided. Therefore, we increased the aperture ratio of the woven fabric in order to maintain its characteristics while also maintaining optimum sound quality.”
Junpyo Kim, Designer at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business
If you are thinking of transforming your space into a movie theater with truly immersive experiences, or a concert hall full of music – or even a stadium during a sports match, why not try out The Premiere, a projector capable of completely transforming the ambience of the room where it’s placed with ease.
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By STF News
The way people consume content is becoming more and more diversified as we find ourselves spending more of our leisure time in the comfort of our own homes. Even the way we enjoy movies is changing – increasingly, people are choosing to enjoy the latest releases via streaming or Over the Top (OTT) platforms instead of in a theater.
But this change in viewing trends doesn’t mean that you should have to miss out on the immersive, cinematic experiences that movie theaters are able to provide. In order to help provide you with the tools to enjoy cinema-esque picture and sound quality when watching a movie at home, Samsung Newsroom has done a deep dive into the Samsung Neo QLED 8K and the latest premium soundbar.
1. Catch All the Fine Texturing and Details On-Screen Thanks to Quantum Mini LEDs
Even for fast-paced action films, your display should be able to keep up without you missing a single moment of the movie. In order to achieve this, the control your TV has over its LED lights is important for delivering details – which is why the 2021 Neo QLED 8K comes equipped with Quantum Mini LED1 for more precise control of thousands of tightly-packed LEDs.
Samsung Electronics’ proprietary micro-layer technology expresses images more vividly and accurately. Micro layers inside each LED eliminate unnatural noise among thousands of LED elements – the secret behind how these TVs can express all the fine details on-screen, including a character’s skin tone and even their drops of sweat.
2. Never Miss a Moment of the Action, Even in Darkness, With Quantum Matrix Technology
Detailed blacks and high contrast are key to delivering realistic fight scenes that take place in darkness in action movies. Quantum Matrix Technology, Samsung’s proprietary local dimming technology, allows for clear contrast between dark and light areas on-screen.
Quantum Matrix Technology enhances the LED brightness level from 10-bit to 12-bit, which means that the TV can control its lighting up to 4,096 levels – four times2 more than conventional displays. The TV’s local brightness booster efficiently distributes power and improves peak brightness by harnessing unused electrical power from darker areas to brighter ones.
3. Enjoy the Classics Upscaled to High Resolution With the Neo Quantum Processor
When watching classic movies, you may often find that the picture quality is poorer compared to the movies produced today, and may also have found yourself wishing that the picture and resolution were better. The Samsung Neo QLED 8K is capable of upscaling the picture quality of a movie, even older ones, to a higher resolution thanks to its Quantum Mini LEDs, Quantum Matrix Technology and its Neo Quantum Processor, which is armed with powerful AI upscaling technologies.
Based on an artificial neural network, the Neo Quantum Processor’s deep learning imitates the learning mechanism of humans to train its AI. The Neo QLED 8K’s Neo Quantum Processor now uses 16 multi-neural networks, whereas conventional technologies only use a single neural network. Each of the 16 networks divides up the content based on the input resolution and picture quality and then accurately analyzes all kinds of factors including edge handling, details and noise level. This then allows the processor to enhance a movie’s picture clarity without stalling, even for movies made in lower resolutions.
4. Immerse Yourself in Ultimate Sound With the World’s First 11.1.4-Channel Dolby Atmos Soundbar
A truly cinematic viewing experience isn’t complete without a sound system capable of creating truly immersive and realistic audio experiences. Given the growing number of users who enjoy watching movies at home, the need for premium sound experiences capable of delivering you that realistic rain downpour or airplane departure is also growing.
The immersive sound in a movie theater comes from high-performance speakers that fill both the walls and the ceiling; Dolby Atmos movie theaters use up to 400 speakers to create that audio experience. But now, with the Samsung HW-Q950A soundbar, you, too can enjoy a theater-like three-dimensional experience at home without the need to install any extra speakers thanks to its 11.1.4 channel speakers and Dolby Atmos technology.
5. A TV and a Soundbar That Operate in Perfect Harmony Thanks to Q-Symphony
When connecting your soundbar to the TV to watch movie at home, your TV’s built-in speakers are automatically disabled to allow the soundbar to emit sound due to technological limitations regarding compatibility between different devices and content. Samsung has been working to overcome this issue with its industry-leading TV and audio technology.
With the newly-introduced Q-Symphony, Samsung TVs and soundbars work together to produce the most room-filling surround sound experiences. While the soundbar itself is capable of providing rich and deep audio on its own, Q-Symphony lets you enjoy another level of cinematic experience at home as both the TV and the soundbar work together.
Samsung Audio Lab is behind the success of this technology. Samsung Electronics established the Samsung Audio Lab in California, United States in order to gather top-level sound experts and engineers to continue developing audio technologies and provide the best possible sound experiences to users.
1 Compared to the LED module height featured in the 2020 Samsung UHD TV, each 2021 Neo QLED 8K’s Quantum Mini LED is 1/40 the size.
2 10-bit: 210 = 1,024 levels of control; 12-bit: 212 = 4,096 levels.
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By STF News
Samsung Electronics today announced a new partnership with YellowKorner, a world-renowned art photography collective, to provide consumers with an extensive collection of photographs from world-class and emerging artists on The Frame, its lifestyle TV, and making art photography more accessible through the Art Store.
Founded in 2006, YellowKorner is a leading art photography maison headquartered in France, operating a network of more than 130 galleries worldwide across 25 countries globally. It offers more than 3,000 limited-edition and certified prints in collaboration with some of the world’s leading artists of this generation.
Through the partnership, The Frame will offer an extensive collection of photographs curated by YellowKorner, allowing viewers to discover and experience the magic of photography in a way that has never been possible before. The Frame will also be displayed in some YellowKorner’s art galleries in France, where customers will be able to discover The Frame and get the possibility, through a QR code, to have information about The Frame.
Additionally, Samsung and YellowKorner will partner with renowned and emerging artists to hold exhibitions in Paris with the goal of democratizing art photography. Both websites, Samsung and YellowKorner will indicate details, where visitors will be able to deep dive into the partnership, the iconic Lifestyle TV and its leading art platform, the Art Store, where some YellowKorner artists present.
The Art Store currently has over 1,500 works of art from more than 600 artists in 42 different countries that consumers can enjoy in 4K picture quality from museums and galleries around the world, including the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Hermitage State Museum in Saint Petersburg, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and LUMAS.
“The partnership with YellowKorner signifies the increasing presence of The Frame’s Art Store as one of the leading art platforms around the world,” said Jongsuk Chu, Executive Vice President and Head of Europe Office at Samsung Electronics. “We hope that this partnership will continue to provide our consumers an easy and accessible point of entry to experience their favorite artwork.”
The Frame is Samsung’s award-winning lifestyle TV, which transforms the everyday living space into an art gallery with stunning works of art from the Art Store. The 2021 version builds on The Frame’s iconic design, offering an even slimmer bezel of 24.9mm, mirroring the depth of a traditional picture frame and allowing the viewers to focus on the artwork itself.
The Frame portfolio is available in seven screen sizes, ranging from 32” to large 85” models. Taking advantage of industry-leading QLED 4K picture quality, The Frame also uses a Brightness Sensor to detect the surrounding light conditions and automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness and color tone to provide astonishingly vibrant pictures while displaying the artwork as it was intended to be seen.
For more information on Samsung’s lifestyle TV portfolio, please visit www.samsung.com.
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By STF News
Samsung Electronics in collaboration with The Belvedere, announced the release of 17 artworks on The Frame, available exclusively through The Frame Art Store. True to the motto “art is for everyone,” the Austrian Gallery Belvedere is making a selection of its most famous artworks available in the Samsung Art Store. Some of the highlights of this collection are “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt, “Windows” by Egon Schiele, “Early Spring in the Wienerwald” by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and “Blooming Poppies” by Olga Wisinger-Florian.
The Belvedere’s art collection includes works ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. In the Baroque ambience of Belvedere Palace, the museum presents the world’s largest collection of Gustav Klimt paintings as well as prominent works from the periods of Viennese Biedermeier, Austrian Baroque, Vienna around 1900, and French Impressionism. Samsung’s The Frame is bringing a selection of 17 artworks by nine artists—the highlights from the collection—for viewing in the comfort of the home.
“Art needs strong partners. This project shows how fruitful it can be for all parties to have a cooperation between technology on the one hand and art and museums on the other. Together with Samsung, we are making it possible to make art more accessible to an international audience – and in doing so cementing our conviction that art is for everyone,” said Wolfgang Bergmann, CFO at Belvedere. “The trend towards digitalization and the possibilities that Samsung offers are of great benefit to us in this regard. Of course, there is no replacement for seeing the original. And the Samsung’s The Frame Art Store inspires people to do just that.”
“We are excited to provide globally renowned works of art in The Frame’s Art Store in partnership with the Belvedere,” said Simon Sung, Executive Vice President and Head of the Sales & Marketing Team of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “Since introducing The Frame in 2017, Samsung has curated a diverse catalogue with artworks from all over the world for the Art Store. Through this collaboration with the Belvedere, The Frame users will be able to enjoy a unique experience from their own homes.”
With new artworks from The Belvedere joining the collection, The Frame now boasts a catalogue with over 1,500 works of art from 42 different countries that consumers can enjoy in 4K picture quality from museums and galleries around the world, including the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Tate Modern in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Hermitage State Museum in Saint Petersburg and LUMAS. These partnerships allowed users to experience The Frame not just as a television, but also as a discovery hub to explore the world’s most beautiful art pieces.
▲ (From left) Michael Zoeller, Vice President and Head of CE Samsung Electronics Austria, Taeho Park, President Samsung Electronics Austria and Switzerland, Wolfgang Bergmann, CFO, Belvedere
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By STF News
▲ (From left to right) Ji Man Kim, Jun Hee Woo, Jason Park, and David Jung, engineers at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business behind the development of the EZCal app.
Ever since the beginning of the global pandemic, we have been choosing our living room sofa over our seat at the local movie theater, our QLED TV over a mega screen, and the convenience of enjoying a film at home over the excitement of a screening in a movie theater.
At CES 2021, which was held in January of this year, Samsung Electronics premiered its EZCal app, which enables you to calibrate the picture quality of your TV to a quality comparable to that of a movie theater for those who want to enjoy that true cinema experience at home. Samsung Newsroom sat down with the developers of the EZCal app to hear more about the story behind how this upcoming app, which helps customers quickly and easily enjoy optimal viewing qualities, came to be.
EZCal: For Cinematic Viewing Quality in the Comfort of Your Home
In August 2019, Hollywood film directors including Christopher Nolan and James Cameron emphasized the need for a ‘film maker’ mode on user’s personal TVs, a mode that would portray a film in the quality that the creator had in mind when they originally produced the content. Such a particular picture quality is favored not only by Hollywood filmmakers but also by experts across a range of fields, including professional engineers of picture quality for TVs, experts from institutions concerning international picture quality standards, and developers of picture quality-calibrating solutions. This ‘film maker’ mode is also known in the industry as ‘creator-intended picture quality’ or ‘picture quality in accordance with international broadcasting video standards.’
However, in practice, this ‘film maker’ mode has often not been able to provide all users with the flexibility they require when looking to enjoy cinematic viewing experiences in the comfort of their own homes. In order to find ways to make it easier for users to enjoy cinema-level picture quality at home, Samsung Electronics developed a way to connect TVs and smartphones using compatible apps that then easily calibrates picture quality using the color data exchanged between the two devices: EZCal.
“The fact that this app need be used only by those who want to use it helped ease the burden in terms of research costs,” noted Engineer Ji Man Kim. “What’s more, the app is easy to operate, meaning that users can seamlessly enjoy the picture quality they desire.”
EZCal stands for ‘Easy Calibration,’ and upon its unveiling at CES 2021 this January, the upcoming app quickly garnered attention for its ability to showcase a creator’s intended picture quality through the app format, and even won the Best of CES Award at the AVS Forum, a forum comprised of industry experts.
High-End Picture Quality: From Measurement to Calibration
Prior to the development of the EZCal, calibrating the picture quality of a TV required a light-blocked room as dark as a darkroom along with a suite of high-end devices. The pattern generator and the optical instrument would first have to be connected to a PC equipped with a picture quality software solution, and the optical instrument would then be placed close to the TV screen so that it could recognize the pattern produced by the pattern generator. The picture quality would then be calibrated using the PC – all in all, this process was a cumbersome one and could take up to two hours if carried out manually. This process also required basic knowledge in picture quality, thereby preventing regular users from even attempting calibration.
“We had to grapple with how to move past the existing picture quality-calibrating framework and integrate it into the users’ experience,” said Engineer Jun Hee Woo of overcoming initial concerns that arose during the development process. “The solution was to simplify each step of the picture quality calibration process and to think of ways to replicate the functionality of high-end calibration devices.”
In order to replace the instruments that would measure the optical data of the TV screen, smartphone cameras were harnessed for the EZCal app. But even then, one problem still remained: the picture quality of TVs could not be calibrated under the RGB spectrum, i.e., a color value acquired using smartphones. “Picture quality for TVs should be based on the colors that people perceive with their eyes,” noted Engineer Jason Park. “This is why we needed the XYZ coordination data prescribed by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE). Developing an algorithm that could transform RGB data to XYZ coordination data was key to picture quality calibration.”
The video pattern generator was then changed to incorporate a method of sharing video patterns directly from the TV, and the connection between the picture quality software solution and the PC was replaced by the connectivity of a smartphone to a TV linked via Wi-Fi. “It was through the process of verifying whether the hardware and software of the QLED TV and a Galaxy Smartphone were suitable for the development of EZCal that we became convinced that the complex picture quality-calibration process could be condensed within a single app,” said Engineer Ji Man Kim.
Three Modes for Easy Calibration – to Your Tastes
The greatest advantage offered by EZCal is that you can easily and quickly calibrate the picture quality of your TV to whatever degree you desire. Once you launch the EZCal app on your smartphone, the Tizen app built into your television will begin operating in the background. Then, depending on the detail of calibration you desire, you can select from the following three options: Quick Mode, Basic Mode, and Professional Mode.
As its name indicates, Quick Mode is an option that enables easy calibration within a short period of time. Once you have selected this mode and brought your smartphone to your TV, the camera in your smartphone captures the on-screen video pattern and transforms the acquired RGB spectrum data into XYZ coordination data. “It only takes 15 to 30 seconds to calibrate the picture quality in Quick Mode,” explained Engineer David Jung. “Our focus when developing this mode was on enabling calibration in a quick yet effective manner.”
Basic Mode, a functionality that is one step more advanced than Quick Mode, offers users a wider range of calibrations. While in Quick Mode you can calibrate a content’s white balance within two points, in Basic Mode you can calibrate this aspect within 20 points, and also calibrate the Gamma – which governs the brightness of video signals – and the greyscale linearity – the aspect responsible for the consistency of colors by signal strength – resulting in a more optimized picture quality. Whereas Quick Mode is an option designed to make the movie-watching experience more pleasant for regular users, the Basic Mode has been optimized for movie fans that enjoy being particular about their film’s picture quality,” explained Engineer Jason Park.
Thirdly, Professional Mode is an advanced setup mode tailored for those that enjoy curating sophisticated picture quality experiences. Although Professional Mode requires the longest time for calibration to complete – between 12 and 15 minutes – this longer calibration period allows for color and brightness calibration to be undertaken in even greater detail. “Professional Mode can be used for a variety of situations, whether you are watching movies or playing games,” noted Engineer David Jung. “We recommend that you turn your room’s lights off and use tripods for even greater calibration measurement accuracy.”
Reflecting the TV’s ability to provide the best picture quality possible, Samsung’s QLED TV lineup has consistently received support and praise from its users. Over 20,000 units of the 2021 QLED TV have been sold in Korea in just under two months since its release, a figure that mirrors the efforts of the company to provide users with high-quality viewing experiences at home.
Samsung’s ongoing efforts to provide optimal picture quality experiences to users are what have led to the development of EZCal, which is set to bring about cinema-like picture quality to QLED users that would satisfy even the films’ creators themselves. The team who worked on developing EZCal is proud of the range of calibration options offered by the app; “In the near future, we will see EZCal be used across even more diverse areas,” shared Engineer David Jung. “There is no doubt that its emphasis on genuine media appreciation will expand to serve other purposes, too.”
* Please note that all product and service features, characteristics, uses, benefits, design, price, components, performance, availability, capacity, and other relevant information may be subject to change.
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