The domestic epidemic situation is repeated, the international geopolitical situation is becoming more and more uncertain, and the living environment of LED display enterprises is complicated. How to gain insight into the development direction of the industry amid difficulties has become a common problem for the entire industry chain.
Looking at the semi-annual report of LED display companies, one of the "keywords" for the growth of corporate performance - XR virtual shooting.
From bud to rise, XR virtual shooting has become a new growth point in the industry
The rise of XR virtual shooting is in 2020. At that time, the outbreak of the new crown epidemic made it impossible to achieve large-scale gatherings of people, and there were many restrictions on long-distance travel, which caused great obstacles to the framing and shooting of movies, TV, and commercials. Therefore, the XR virtual shooting technology, which can create an immersive shooting scene and perfectly integrate virtual and reality, has gradually become the "new favorite" of content creators. At present, the XR virtual shooting business has become an important driving force for the growth of many LED display companies.
Radiodio, a subsidiary of Unilumin Technology, was established in 2006 and developed the XR virtual shooting business in 2017. At present, Radiodio has a high competitive position in the field of XR virtual shooting, and XR virtual shooting has also become a boost to Unilumin's performance growth. Obviously, Radiodio has grown into an extremely important part of Unilumin's revenue. At present, the XR virtual studio created by Radiodio is all over the world, occupying "half of the country" for virtual shooting. These include the Vancouver studio of PXO & WFW, which set the Guinness World Record, and the StageCraft studio of ILM, which filmed The Mandalorian.
Alto Electronics will achieve operating income of 966 million yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 17.85%. The main reason for the increase in performance is that Alto Electronics has increased its efforts to develop new markets such as film and television, government and enterprises. Among them, the contract value of the film and television market hit a record high. In 2021, the newly signed contracts will be about 200 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 159.9%. In the first half of 2022, Alto Electronics signed a new contract value of more than 60 million yuan in the field of XR virtual shooting, and undertaken a total of 9 XR virtual studio projects. Covering China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, South Korea, India and Turkey and other countries. As of the end of June 2022, Alto Electronics has undertaken a total of 30 XR virtual studio projects worldwide.
Dehuo Technology, a subsidiary of Leyard, proposed the concept of "AR Immersive Studio" in 2017. Subsequently, "MR virtual shooting technology" and "XR immersive simulation system" were successively launched. At the same time, the American Natural Point (NP) company owned by Leyard owns the optical motion capture technology and product - Optitrack. In 2021, Leyard will upgrade the Optitrack product to version 3.0, laying the foundation for Optitrack to further expand its market space.
Two paths to development
During the content creation process, XR virtual shooting can place performers in a virtual world built by LED displays in real time, breaking the boundaries between reality and virtuality. Therefore, XR virtual shooting has the advantages of what you see is what you get, saves costs, improves the realism of performances, and reduces the difficulty of post-production, and has attracted much attention. According to LED inside, an optoelectronic research division of TrendForce, the global market size of LED displays for virtual shooting applications has grown to US$283 million (136% YoY) in 2021.
In the future, there are two main directions for the development of XR virtual shooting. One is to open up the Chinese market.
An interesting phenomenon is that although the companies providing XR virtual shooting services and solutions are mainly concentrated in China, the foreign XR virtual shooting market is more mature. Compared with overseas, domestic XR virtual shooting is still in its infancy, and the market space has not yet been opened. At present, the larger domestic entertainment enterprises and TV stations are all trying to use XR virtual shooting. The application scenarios include large-scale evening parties, live broadcasts, TV drama shootings, etc., and the market space is gradually opening up.
In addition, XR virtual shooting has also received policy assistance. In March this year, six ministries and commissions including the State Film Administration, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the State Administration of Radio and Television issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Film and Television Bases", which clearly stated that It is necessary to vigorously support the promotion and application of new technologies such as virtual digital shooting, cloud computing, cloud storage, artificial intelligence, and 5G collaborative production. The Chinese market has unlimited potential.
The second is to enter the vast sinking market.
XR virtual shooting first emerged in the field of film and television shooting, but a single XR virtual shooting studio has the characteristics of high investment cost, long return period, and high equipment requirements. There are not many units capable of building XR virtual film studios. Therefore, for XR In terms of virtual shooting, the growth rate of the film and television shooting market will not continue to remain at a high level, and it will mainly show a rational growth trend in the future.
With the continuous maturity of XR virtual shooting and the cost reduction again, more small and medium-sized LED shooting projects will also "afford" XR virtual shooting. In the future, XR virtual shooting will be used in variety shows, live broadcasts, studios, TV dramas, commercials It is widely used in other fields, and the market potential is huge.
Post time: Mar-17-2023