Samsung’s DCI-Certified Onyx Cinema LED Screens Are Now Available In The US And Europe
Samsung has today announced that the latest range of its innovative Onyx LED megascreens for commercial movie theaters is now available for installation in cinemas in both Europe and the U.S., bringing their unique mixture of true black levels, high dynamic range-friendly brightness and native 4K resolutions to a whole new global audience.
Samsung’s announcement that its latest Onyx screens are now coming to Europe accompanies Onyx’s first appearance at the current CineEurope 2025 convention – which comes hot on the heels of the technology also making its debut appearance in the U.S. at CinemaCon 2025 in April.
Samsung’s Onyx Cinema LED screens could be heading to a cinema near you soon – and Pixar’s Elio is … More
The Onyx screens are the world’s first cinema LED displays to be certified by the commercial theater world’s Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) consortium – a group of major motion picture studios formed to establish specifications for a common architecture for digital cinema systems. While Onyx screens have been installed in a small number of theaters in Samsung’s native South Korea for years now, though, the brand has seemingly struggled to move the technology to a position where it can be shipped, installed and supported on a much wider scale. Now, though, it looks like Onyx is finally ready to make its bid for world domination.
The latest DCI-certified Onyx screens are available with eye-catching 10 year warranties in standard five, 10, 14 and 20 metre sizes, but with other “flexible scaling options” also possible. They feature native 4K resolutions, and are capable of playing films at frame rates up to 120Hz, raising the potential for more filmmakers to start working with higher frame rates again following the pioneering work of Peter Jackson, Ang Lee and, most recently, James Cameron, who used shifting frame rates in Avatar: The Way Of Water.
Since Onyx screens use self-emissive panels, they can deliver pretty much perfect black levels in a way that no traditional projector-based theatrical system can, as well as richer colours and higher brightness peaks (up to 300 nits) than regular theatrical projectors can accomplish. This all opens the door to wider use of high dynamic range mastering for theatrical releases, too.
Bring on the content
Having watched It: Chapter One on one of the earliest Samsung LED cinemas during a visit to South Korea a few years back, I’d say this issue of Onyx really needing theatrical content to be specifically mastered to make the most of its unique capabilities really is an important factor in the format potentially taking off in the global cinema market. So it’s promising to learn that no less a Hollywood giant than Pixar Animation Studios appears increasingly committed to delivering its theatrical releases in a 4K HDR format compatible with Samsung Onyx.
Pixar’s new animated film Elio, which is set to make its global theatrical premiere from tomorrow (June 18), is going to be available in the Onyx-supported 4K DCI HDR format, in fact, and the studio has even stated that it aims to install one of the new Onyx displays at is Emeryville campus in California that it will use during production to evaluate HDR color and brightness and conduct theatrical content quality tests, as well as, most importantly for Onyx’s long-term future, using it to host demonstration screenings for filmmakers.
“Samsung’s Onyx screens allow our Pixar artists to present their stories exactly as they envisioned them – vivid, dynamic, and true to life,” says Jessie Schroeder, VP Post Production at Pixar Animation Studios. “By mastering our films in HDR with Onyx, we continue to unlock a new level of visual storytelling for filmmakers and deliver the next generation of cinematic experiences for our audiences.”
The new Onyx screen will be in residence at Samsung’s booth at the CineEurope 2025 event in Barcelona from now through to June 19 – or if you happen to be in the vicinity of the Culver City Theater in Los Angeles, an Onyx screen has actually been installed there since 2024.
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