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PCM2Updated 20/12/2019
Whilst we like to reserve the main news section of the website for complete products, there are sometimes developments behind the scenes (including in the monitor panel world) that deserve some coverage. With a trio of 31.5″ 3840 x 2160 ‘4K’ UHD panels in the works with 144Hz refresh rates and various other features, Innolux has certainly been busy. This piece is based on information from TFT Central, plus additions from their updated news piece.
The most interesting of these upcoming panels is likely going to be the M315DCM-E70, which forms what Innolux are dubbing a “Megazone” display. Key to this, aside from 3840 x 2160 @ 144Hz, is the use of an FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) backlight with over 2 million dimming zones spread across the 31.5″ diagonal screen. Whilst that isn’t one for each of the 8.3 million pixels on the display, it’s certainly a massive step up even from the impressive 1152 dimming zone Mini LED solutions used in the likes of the ASUS PA32UCX and PA32UCG. Additional aspects include support for VESA DisplayHDR 1000 (1000 cd/m² specified) and DisplayHDR True Black, 10-bit colour support (8-bit + FRC dithering) and 94% DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage. The panel type is AAS (Azimuthal Anchoring Switch), specifically an IPS-type iteration of the technology.
The second panel is the M315DCB-K80. This is similar in many respects, but offers a 10,000 zone FALD backlight (still very impressive) with a mighty 95% BT 2020 (Rec 2020) colour gamut. The third and final panel is the M315DCA-K7B, which is a more of a basic (if there is such a thing) 31.5″ 3840 x 2160 @ 144Hz IPS-type panel. It doesn’t boast any particular HDR support or local dimming, with a 300 cd/m² typical maximum luminance specified. This will clearly be a significantly more affordable entry into the world of 31.5″ 144Hz ‘4K’ than the other two panels with far more complex backlight solutions. A 90% DCI-P3 colour gamut is specified for this more basic third panel, alongside 10-bit colour reproduction (8-bit + FRC).
The E70 variant (>2m dimming zones) is due for mass production in Q2 2020, whilst the K80 variant (10K dimming zones) is due to enter mass production in Q3 2020. The more basic K7B is due to enter mass production June 2020. Note that these are preliminary dates and subject to change, but products using these very interesting panels aren’t as far off as you might think!
themselves are not expected to make it into any products until well into 2020, with the “Megazone” variant more likely to be found in products later than that.
sunnymowonderful specification, but when will the product come to the audience. I’m a console gamer, the pg27uq or x27 is too expensive to afford, and 144Hz is also waste for a console, i’d rather pick up a masterpiece TV at the same price from LG, SONY, SAMSUNG. There is no FALD backlight monitor out of gsync module, is this the reason why they are expensive? Why there is no freesync based FALD monitor? I do think the tech in monitor has fallen much behind the TV.
PCM2As noted the panels themselves aren’t expected to be released until 2020 and beyond, so it goes without saying a product using them is some way off. It’s not correct that there are no FALD solutions on PC monitors without G-SYNC modules. The ASUS PA32UC and Dell UP2718Q offer FALD solutions and lack G-SYNC modules. So do the upcoming ASUS PA27UCX (576 dimming zones) and PA32UCX (1152 dimming zones) with Mini LED arrays, supporting Adaptive-Sync and lacking G-SYNC modules.
Even ‘miniaturising’ the technology enough to have several hundred dimming zones for a monitor is very different to a much larger TV with a much less dense FALD solution. That’s part of your cost premium right there. If you then add G-SYNC it does add a bit to the cost of the product, especially for the ‘G-SYNC Ultimate Displays’ – the FALD solution is extremely tightly engineered and designed with much stricter latency tolerances than anything you’d find in a TV. Those modules are not cheap and will add several hundred dollars to the product cost. Whilst I expect these Innolux solutions to support Adaptive-Sync, the addition of a G-SYNC module is up to the monitor manufacturers – it may naturally happen. But even the more ‘basic’ form without this are not going to come cheap.
Monitors using the ‘Mini LED’ arrays I’ve discussed above are going to cost several thousand dollars and they have 1152 dimming zones at best. Here you’re talking about 10,000 dimming zones or over 1 million dimming zones. So you need to be realistic about the price point to expect and it’s clear why they’re making a ‘naked’ version without a complex FALD backlight as well.
sunnymoDespite those FALD monitors, why there is still few OLED monitor on the market? OLED is born with local dimming ability. if OLED monitor comes out, will the price be cut down a lot compared with current FALD solution?
PCM2Yes, manufacturers are taking their sweet time getting OLED and similar backlightless technologies (pure QLED) into useful monitor panel sizes. It is frustrating and it would indeed offer an excellent contrast experience given that you’d have as many dimming zones as you have pixels. I wouldn’t expect anything “affordable” in that respect until mass production of the panels is achieved and probably a few generations of panel after that – it’s still quite some way off. And this is probably why manufacturers are happy to go ahead developing more advanced LCD-based FALD solutions in the meantime.
PCM2Just for reference, our news piece on the ASUS PA32UCX is now live given that the specs have been finalised. It includes a 1152 zone Mini LED backlight, so not as impressive as the upcoming panels from Innolux in that respect. But it’s still a very interesting development and supports some pretty nifty features.
PCM2The original post has been updated with new information.
fun145Hi, pcm2, by chance i stumble on article mentioning innolux “MegaZone” technology as a simple dual cell lcd solution (article was about new hisense dual cell tv to be released in 2020, as i read more about oled and Hdr capable displays). If this case is true (and i actually am starting to believe this, as in a lot it makes sense, and moreover, they can use dirty cheap tn cell which is fastest giving it biggest advantage for dimming), and yet they are asking a huge amount of money for the panels (2k+ i consider as a huge amout of money for 15 years old technology – lcd – that is now dirty cheap) i would be heavily dissapionted. Anyway, i wanted to share the information i found so you can look up at that.
Have a nice rest of the weekend.
fun145PCM2That makes complete sense, thanks for sharing. The use of a second LCD matrix with ‘white’ pixels as a backlight zone grid would certainly be a lot more economical than a huge number of individual LEDs in an intricate backlight array. I hope that is the case, it works well and the manufacturers don’t charge ridiculous amounts of money for it. I’m sure they will milk it a bit, at least initially, but hopefully the technology will be adopted more widely and costs can come down.
fun145You are welcome, moreover i found original article released by innolux themself mentioning megazone in their 65″ and 50″ sizes so it strenghten the idea in my opinion.
Best regards,
fun
AnonymousHow much do you reckon a monitor with an Innolux M315DCA-K7B panel will cost roughly?
I’m looking for a relatively affordable ~32-inch 4K IPS monitor to replace my old AOC 2434pw but I don’t want to spend much more than about $1K AUD. I don’t need HDR or adaptive sync.
I was thinking of buying an LG 32UD99 or Dell U3219Q but they’re only 60 Hz so I’m happy to wait for a monitor with an Innolux M315DCA-K7B panel to come out later this year but I’m not keen on paying several thousands for one, I’d rather save the money for a microLED monitor.
PCM2I’d like to think such models would be cost-competitive with the likes of the 32UD99 or U3219Q, but that’s pure speculation.
P.S. You need to pick a username that isn’t “anonymous”, otherwise your user account is forced into a deactivated state. And, ironically, your username is then replaced with “Anonymous”.
FirefoxAlright thanks.
I’d like to ask you a few more questions:
1. Do most monitors which support DisplayPort 1.4+ also support DSC or do a lot of them not support DSC as it’s optional (according to Wikipedia)?
It says on Wikipedia
Under Specifications
Main specifications
Main link
“Compression (optional)”It also says on that page that 4K @ 144 Hz (over DP 1.4) requires DSC:
“It should also be noted that the use of Display Stream Compression (DSC), introduced in DisplayPort 1.4, greatly reduces the bandwidth requirements for the cable. Formats which would normally be beyond the limits of DisplayPort 1.4, such as 4K (3840 × 2160) at 144 Hz 8 bpc RGB/4:4:4 (31.4 Gbit/s data rate when uncompressed), can only be implemented by using DSC. This would reduce the physical bandwidth requirements by 2–3x, placing it well within the capabilities of an HBR2-rated cable.”
My Nvidia GPU has DP 1.4 + HDMI 2.0 and supports up to 8K @ 60 Hz (over DP 1.4) so my GPU supports DSC.
2. As DSC is optional for DP 1.4+ displays then do you think it’s possible the monitor/s with an Innolux M315DCA-K7B panel I’m interested in will be DP 2.0 with no DSC + HDMI 2.1, in which case it won’t work on my PC (at least not at 4K @ 144 Hz)?
3. My other question is about DSC itself. It says DSC is “visually lossless” but are there any downsides to it?
PCM21) No, only a select few monitors support DSC and they make a big thing about it if they do in the marketing material. If DSC isn’t supported on a ‘4K’ monitor then alternative signal compression types (such as reduced chroma) are used at 144Hz. . Example 1 and example 2.
2) Very unlikely. It will take some time for those display standards to properly make their way to GPU port controllers. And there is then a fair lag time before they’d be implemented on monitors.
3) Not as far as I’m aware, which is why I expect it to be more broadly adopted for future models. And in the near to mid term is far more likely than the use of ‘higher’ HDMI or DisplayPort standards in place of it.
FirefoxThank you for the answers, much appreciated.
Do you know if incorporating DSC into a display adds much cost to the manufacturer and the price of the display like G-SYNC Ultimate?
PCM2I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s so much a cost issue that’s a barrier to wider adoption. It’s more about making sure the panels and assistive electronics (scaler etc.) properly support it. So for new panels like the ones discussed in this thread, they should be able to be built with this in mind.
slurmsmckenzieI notice that there is an update about Innolux on TFT Central but at the moment it is only available to supporters, so I’ll have to wait another week or so to see it. Keeping my fingers crossed it has some news about the “megazone” panels.
Having said that though I noticed that there are a couple of sites when doing a search for M315DCM-E70 which imply that the panel won an award in 2020 (Taiwan Excellence site) and is “in stock” (Taiwan Trade site), and also a forum post from August 2020 that implies that it was available to monitor manufacturers back then.
These imply to me that the next news with these panels will be them being adopted by manufacturers rather than news of their existence as they already seem to be available? Of course I’m probably missing something…..
PCM2The M315DCM-E70 has not entered mass production and I’m quite sure has not been available to manufacturers even in small numbers. They most certainly would be interested in using it if it had. The Taiwan Trade site page is simply gathering requests for quotations which doesn’t imply it is in stock,. Their status there is almost always listed as “Stock” just to gather interest from potential buyers, it doesn’t mean it’s actually available. It was last updated back in May 2020 and if you requested more information there they’d likely confirm it is not available. The forum post you were referring to from a similar time period just jumped to the wrong conclusion based on the initial intended Q2 2020 mass production target.
The TFT Central article on Innolux’s plans certainly has some interesting stuff in it and is worth waiting for. But I can confirm (and I’m sure Simon won’t mind saying this) that there is currently no further updated information on the Megazone panels. And they will be explicitly mentioned in the article as TFT Central is just as interested in them as everyone else.
slurmsmckenzieThank you very much for the info, that makes much more sense and certainly clears up my confusion. What a shame these panels are still not available for the manufacturers.
Much appreciated as always, and I’ll still look forward to checking out thw TFT Central article next week as I’m sure it will be interesting.
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