Samsung Electronics says it’s showcasing the most advanced version of its "Onyx" cinema LED screen at the CineEurope 2025 event taking place in Barcelona, Spain this month.
According to Samsung, Onyx is the world’s first-ever theatre-specific LED screen, developed in 2017 to try and replace traditional projector-based setups.
The upgraded Onyx LED display was launched in April and first seen at CinemaCon 2025 in Las Vegas that same month, featuring superior image quality and screen size expansion options, along with new media server compatibility and a new long-term warranty that assures its quality. It’s said to deliver 4K resolution content with a 120Hz frame rate, covering 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut to ensure highly accurate colour reproduction.
Add to that its deep blacks and extremely high contrast, and the Onyx is uniquely able to capture the hidden details in dark scenes, while perfectly rendering the colours and textures as the movie creator intended, Samsung says.
The display’s brightness maxes out at 300 nits, which may not seem like a lot but is more than enough for darkened cinema rooms – and around six-times brighter than existing projectors. According to Samsung, this allows for the most vivid presentations of content including sports and concerts, as well as traditional cinema, even in well-lit environments.
Samsung also offers plenty of installation flexibility to maximise the available theatre space in any cinema that chooses to install the Onyx, together with a 10-year warranty that guarantees the stable operation of the display.
At CineEurope 2025, attendees will be among the first to see the new Disney-Pixar film “Elio”, which has been especially mastered and optimised in HDR for the Onyx display. Other movies, including “Toy Story 5” and “Hoppers”, are also set to be mastered for the Onyx when they launch next year.
Samsung said the Onyx LED cinema display is also set to be installed at Pixar’s campus in California, where it will serve as the main screen for HDR colour and brightness testing on new productions. It will also be used for HDR mastering, and display premieres for film directors and production staff.
Pixar’s vice president of post-production Jesse Schroeder said the real beauty of Samsung’s Onyx is the way it “vividly, dynamically and realistically implements visuals exactly as intended by filmmakers.
“The 4K HDR-based mastering work utilising Onyx provides creators with new opportunities for visual storytelling and offers audiences a next-generation cinema experience,” he added.
Samsung will be hoping that Onyx's appearance at CineEurope 2025 will help it to get more traction among European cinemas. At present, there are only three Onyx LED cinemas in the whole of Europe, with all of them being in French cinemas. The most recent installation saw six of the displays installed at the historic Pathé Palace Theatre in Paris last October.
Jeong Hoon, who is vice president of Samsung’s Video Display Business, said Onyx is designed to enhance the immersive experience that can only be felt in theatres. "We will provide a differentiated cinema experience through continuous collaboration with global film production studios such as Pixar Animation Studios,” he said.
