A Brighter Future for Classroom and Campus Displays

As colleges and K–12 school districts face rising costs in healthcare, labor, construction and facilities maintenance, leaders can be thankful that at least one important line item is getting more attainable over time: Direct View LED and specialty digital display solutions.

Direct View LED displays are entering the field of view for most educational institutions. This is the technology that powers the scoreboards in school stadiums and digital billboards on the roadside. Recently, DVLED costs have come in line with school budgets enough to make it a frequent choice for educational institutions that are building out new facilities or refreshing their existing general spaces and collaboration and instructional environments.

Compared with traditional LED or LCD displays, DVLEDs provide several advantages. Most important, the displays offer better brightness and contrast, which improves visibility and legibility. The technology uses a surface array of LEDs as its display pixels, resulting in more vibrant colors. The screens are also lighter than LCD displays, emit less heat and can be made in virtually any shape or size, or even in a transparent film — making them a perfect fit for indoor and outdoor spaces. 

DVLEDs provide a modular maintenance solution, often with front access to important components. This helps drive down the cost for replacement parts and avoids cumbersome servicing.

In traditional video walls, multiple screens are pieced together. This limits the size and shape of the larger display because the configuration must conform to the dimensions of the smaller screens — a constraint not shared by DVLEDs. Traditional video walls also show distracting bezel lines, while DVLED displays offer a seamless, immersive viewing experience.

DVLED displays are appropriate anywhere schools are already using — or want to use — projectors or digital displays. But they are especially valuable in areas where school leaders want to create a purpose-built experience. These may include scoreboards or replay screens at arenas and stadiums, welcome boards that provide important messages at campus entrances or on stage at performing arts centers and production studios.

In lecture halls and other classroom spaces, DVLED displays contribute to a captivating learning environment that enables instructors to deliver detailed content without worrying whether students will be able to decipher on-screen text and images. DVLED all-in-one displays of 136 inches or larger are replacing traditional projector setups. This complete audiovisual solution simplifies installation while delivering superior presentation quality and providing a lifelike medium for video collaboration, which creates the professional meeting environment that participants might expect in a corporate boardroom. Wider 21:9 aspect ratio displays give users the full picture when using collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom, without losing space to sidebars.

Touch-screen, high-brightness and stretched-format LED/LCD digital displays are transforming campus wayfinding and communications. When integrated with content management systems, these displays can provide real-time updates on events, emergency notifications and directions for visitors or students. The superior brightness and contrast make the screens easy to read even in sunlit atriums or outdoor spaces. Unique form factors such as the LG Ultra Stretch display allow for placement in areas that may not fit a traditional 16:9 format.

Digital displays can create a positive, lasting impression for students, parents and visitors. As universities and K–12 schools plan new construction projects and renovate existing spaces, they have an opportunity to make strategic, long-term investments in purpose-designed digital display solutions to create more engaging education environments.

Schools no longer need to settle for “good enough” when it comes to the visual aspect of their digital experience. With DVLED technology and specialty display solutions, institutions can shoot for best-in-class.