Samsung Electronics supplied its new Onyx LED product (model ICD) to the premium theater Trilith Cinemas in Fayetteville, Georgia. By creating a case of first applying its second-generation product in the U.S. market eight years after the launch of the Onyx brand, the company strengthened its business portfolio.
On the 20th, according to the industry, Samsung Electronics' U.S. subsidiary partnered with multiplex operator Georgia Theatre Company (GTC) and digital cinema solution corporations GDC Technology America to install the new Onyx Cinema LED screen at the Trilith auditorium.
Onyx is a brand Samsung Electronics established when it released a theater-dedicated light-emitting diode (LED) screen in 2017. It is a business-to-business (B2B) product that allows audiences to watch films on a high-definition display instead of a projector. With no edge distortion or resolution loss, it delivers the same brightness and color from any seat and offers high color reproduction.
In Apr. last year, Samsung Electronics unveiled the second-generation Onyx product at CinemaCon 2025, the world's largest film industry trade show, eight years after the brand's debut. It became the world's first non-projector movie screen to receive certification from the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). This means it meets the digital cinema standards established by DCI for picture quality, sound quality and content security.
It supports 4K (4096 x 2160) resolution and up to a 120 Hz refresh rate. The display can fully cover the Digital Cinema standard color gamut (DCI-P3). With HDR (High Dynamic Range) support, it delivers brightness six times higher than conventional projectors (up to 300 nits). Because the screen remains clear even in high ambient light, auditoriums can be used as venues for various events such as concerts and sports.
Standard widths are configured as ▲5 m (1.25 mm pixel pitch; pixel pitch is the distance between pixels) ▲10 m (2.5 mm pixel pitch) ▲14 m (3.3 mm pixel pitch) ▲20 m (5.0 mm pixel pitch), with options to install differently depending on the auditorium.
Trilith Cinemas, which opened in Dec. last year, consists of nine auditoriums in total. The new Onyx product was installed in five of them. Screen sizes vary, including 5 m, 6.4 m and 14 m. GTC said the reason for adopting the new Onyx product was "because it is suitable for creating an environment that screens films as the creator intended." GTC operates multiple theaters mainly in the southeastern United States. It is a top-20 multiplex operator in the U.S., with about 25 locations and roughly 250 screens across Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia.
The price of the new product is $3,330 per cabinet (panel unit) (about 4.8 million won, based on the U.S. website). Each cabinet measures 63.5 cm wide, 89.9 cm high and 12.7 cm thick. A 10 m (32.8 feet) screen requires 96 cabinets.
In Korea, the new Onyx product was first installed at 11 m in the Lotte Cinema Sillim "Gwang-eum LED" auditorium in Oct. last year. The previous model began at Lotte Cinema World Tower in 2017 and was installed at six locations including Busan and Suwon. The Culver Theater in downtown Culver City, California, and Pathé Palace in Paris, France, also use Onyx screens. Samsung Electronics has been carrying out various activities to raise awareness of the Onyx brand, including serving as an official sponsor of the 11th Asian World Film Festival held at the Culver Theater in Nov. last year.