Sharp uses mirrored bezels to "hide" video wall seams

February 28, 2011 by Dave Haynes

One of the things that caught my eye when running around at DSE was the big three-by-three video wall Sharp had at the front of its booth, and particularly some interesting trickery the manufacturer came up with to somewhat hide the seams between the display panels.

This may be an old trick for all I know, but I thought it was clever.

The seams are only 6.5 MM anyway, but Sharp got a metal fabricator to form and polish up inserts that fit between the panels, that have an arrow-head point and mirror finish. The result is the inserts pick up and reflect the video content, so instead of clearly seeing a black border, you see the reds, greens and blues of the video material. It doesn’t really work up close, but stepping back 20 feet and more, it does indeed make the seams start to diminish in impact.

It doesn’t make the display wall seamless by any measure, but the hideous seams that ruin many such walls are pretty much a non-issue.

This video from Sixteen:Nine content partner rAVe [Publications] explains the thinking and results.