How to Choose the Appropriate Pixel Pitch for an LED Screen?

When we talk about LED screens, it is inevitable for us to come across an essential concept “pixel pitch”. Pixel pitch does matter to an LED screen, but how? And how to choose the appropriate pixel pitch for an LED screen? This article will give you some guidelines to make it out.

What is pixel pitch? Why is it important? As we all know, LED displays adopt LEDs (light-emitting diodes) as pixels to play images and videos. Generally speaking one LED light can be defined as one pixel for an LED display. As its name implies, pixel pitch is the center distance between 2 pixels, i.e. the center distance of two LED clusters. Usually, we will abbreviate it into “PH” or “P” to describe the pixel pitch of an LED wall, for example, PH3mm, P4 or sometimes PH5 or P6mm. And the figure behind “PH” or “P” is the value of the pixel spacing in millimeter.

Pixel pitch is the center distance of two LED clusters.
It’s not hard for us to understand that the smaller the pixel pitch is, the narrower the center distance of two pixels is. It indicates that when the display area is certain, a display in smaller pixel pitch can contain more pixels, which allow more content to be presented and clearer images and videos to be demonstrated.

What factor matters to choose pixel pitch? And how?
As a smaller pixel pitch LED screen can present more exquisite content, you may draw the conclusion that the smallest pixel pitch would be the best choice. However, it’s too early to say so. At present, LianTronics finest pitch LED display that puts into mass production is in PH0.7mm. Due to the limitation of LED packaging technology, safety requirements of PCB layout, production craftsmanship, product cost and more, the producible pixel pitch of a display can not be infinitesimal for the time being. In addition, when it comes to practical application, we need to consider another factor— optimal viewing distance.

A large LED wall within the optimal viewing distance can provide more comfortable viewing experience to audiences with content delivery maximization. An authoritative rule of thumb is: the optimal viewing distance range(mm) = PHX(mm)*1,000 ~ PHX(mm)*3,000. Take a PH10mm LED display as an example. The optimal viewing distance is 10mm*1,000 to 10mm*3,000, i.e. 10 to 30 meters.

Choose the appropriate pixel pitch according to the optimal viewing distance of the LED wall.
So a PH10mm LED display looks great from 10 meters to 30 meters away. If audiences stand too close, they can identify individual LEDs which will degrade the viewing enjoyment; if they stand too far away, they may not see clearly what the screen is broadcasting.

From another perspective, if you are looking for an outdoor LED billboard that passers-by will not walk closer within 10 meters, it’s unnecessary to invest a LED display below PH10mm. It looks no significant difference between a PH10mm LED wall and a PH4mm LED wall when viewers stand 10 meters away and finer pixel pitch means higher cost on the other hand.

Of course, to figure out the exact suitable pixel pitch of the LED wall for your project, you need to take comprehensive consideration including installation height, display configuration, project budget and more. If you want further guidelines for the appropriate LED screen, please feel free to contact our sales experts or contact LianTronics by service@liantronics.com.