Digital View - About
Over the past nearly 30 years as the major electronics companies evolved the consumer LCD TV market, Digital View has played a key role enabling the commercial and industrial display market with its LCD controllers.
Since 1995
Digital View was founded in March 1995 in England and Hong Kong then California within a year. Over its 24 year history it has tracked the developments in LCD display technology to provide highly reliable electronics enabling LCD monitors and video displays in a very broad range of non-consumer applications. When the company was founded 1024x768 was about the highest resolution available for production LCD panels with 640x480 still being very common, the panel interface was TTL, sizes were less than 20" diagonal and the aspect ratio was 4:3. At this time the input signals were typically Composite Video (PAL, NTSC, SECAM) or ARGB normally known as VGA. For the profesional video market although a digital standard, SDI, had been around since 1990 analog Component was still widely used.
The broadcast market moved up in resolution with HD-SDI in 1998 and then the consumer market got its first digital video interface with DVI in 1999. HDMI based products started appearing in late 2003 and Displayport was first released in 2006. Digital View introduced controllers to match these standards ensuring the conmmercial market cold develop niche market displays using them.
28 years later, in 2023, LCD panel resolution for the non-consumer market extends to 3840x2160 (usually referred to as Ultra-HD or 4K) and higher with the common panel interfaces being LVDS, eDP and V-by-One. Sizes are up to 110" diagonal and the common aspect ratio is 16:9 but with 16:10 and 4:3 still being readily available as well as super wide models. An emerging trend for LCD panels is for other aspect ratios, previously created by cutting a standard panel these "banner" panels are now being made in various native resolutions and sizes. Digital View supports all these.
Products
Tracking the developments in the LCD panel technology and the release of video signal standards Digital View has released an average of 3 new models a year. To provide display system developers with the easiest route to making a finished product we sought to provide flexibility both for the input signals and the output panel support with our multi-panel functionality.
In addition to further enhance the capabilities of finished displays we added RS-232 command support followed by Ethernet connectivity. This was complemented by a range of accessories that included the basics such as the buttons and cables as well as more application specific such as display monitoring for the digital signage market.
For display systems to be used in harsher environments complementary versions were released with higher spec components, physical modification and conformal coatings. A controller product summary is available here and we cover many topical issues on the Digital View Blog here.
