This is the real debut of OPPO's "perspective panoramic screen" technology, and it is also the first batch of off-screen camera technology in the industry that can really be used on mobile phones and work normally.
Of course, what many people may not have thought of is that OPPO has not been satisfied since its stunning appearance at 20 19. After more than two years of continuous research and improvement, in August 20021year, it released their next-generation off-screen camera technology again. This time, we have the capital to stand out from the industry again, both in the underlying principle and the actual imaging effect.
How difficult is it to take pictures on the screen? The technical peak formed by the convergence of four major difficulties
As we all know, for today's smart phones, the design of the front camera can be mainly divided into two types, one is the exposed design such as bangs, water drops and holes, but its biggest disadvantage is that it will obviously occupy the screen area and affect the front view of the fuselage. The other is to hide the front camera inside the fuselage through the lifting module. The disadvantage is that the weight, thickness, noise and life of the lifting module are not optimistic, which has a great negative impact on the actual experience.
For this reason, as early as 20 18, OPPO took the lead in launching the research and development of off-screen camera technology. As the most advanced mobile phone active layout, the off-screen camera can not only avoid occupying the screen display area, but also realize "100% screen ratio", and at the same time, it will not occupy too much internal space of the fuselage, which can ensure a still thin and light design. However, as a brand-new design, the off-screen camera itself has four core difficulties.
First of all, the traditional mobile phone screen is divided into LCD (liquid crystal) and organic light emitting diode (organic light emitting diode). Among them, liquid crystal materials are completely opaque and cannot be used in off-screen cameras, while the transmittance of organic light-emitting diodes itself is actually seriously insufficient. Therefore, if it is to be used in off-screen cameras, the pixel design of OLED screen must be reformed. Moreover, in addition to the pixels themselves, the metal lines between the pixels of the traditional organic light-emitting diode screen will also block the light, so it is also necessary to carry out substantial technical and material innovation.
Secondly, in the process of "improving the light transmittance" of organic light-emitting diode screens, some manufacturers adopt reducing luminous pixels or using non-luminous transparent pixels, but this can solve the problem of light entering, but it will also greatly reduce the screen display fineness and brightness. Once these problems are not well solved, the screen in the off-screen camera area will have serious color difference, brightness difference and resolution difference with other parts, which will make the screen look like "patching" and the significance of off-screen camera will naturally disappear.
Not only that, even if the light transmittance of the OLED screen is successfully increased through various transformations, the screen is not as transparent as glass. For the camera below it, how to ensure the imaging quality will become a big problem when the light input is limited, especially in the dark environment.
Finally, for all OLED screens, displaying fixed the picture for a long time may lead to the phenomenon of "burn-in" aging, and the OLED screen in the camera area below the screen is no exception. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers not only need to design a special pixel arrangement mechanism to improve the screen transmittance and calibrate the display effect of the camera area under the screen, but also need to design the working mechanism of the burn-proof screen.
It is precisely because there are at least the above four technical difficulties in the off-screen photography technology that on the one hand, it is difficult to achieve good mass production products, but it also makes off-screen photography a technical peak in the mobile phone industry today, attracting a large number of manufacturers to invest in research and development.
Under the escort of a variety of leading technologies, OPPO's next-generation screen camera once again stands out.
As one of the first manufacturers to start the research and development of off-screen camera technology, OPPO naturally knows the difficulty of taking off-screen photos. Therefore, in the next generation of off-screen camera technology announced this time, we can already see many targeted innovations and leading details.
For example, in the pixel design of the camera area below the screen, OPPO chose to increase the light transmittance by reducing the pixel area without reducing the pixels or changing the pixel arrangement. This means that the camera area of OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera technology is not only as high as 400PPI per inch, but also the pixel arrangement is the same as the rest of the screen.
Secondly, OPPO has also developed an industry-leading transparent routing technology. By using the transparent wiring which is half narrower than the conventional wiring, the two functions of improving the screen transmittance and the screen fineness are realized.
Not only that, but different from the common design that one circuit drives two pixels, OPPO has customized the design that each circuit only drives one pixel, relying on the brand-new transparent routing technology. In this way, OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera solution can accurately control the brightness and color of each pixel, which not only makes the pixels in the off-screen camera area more closely connected with other parts, but also achieves a full-screen brightness difference of less than 2%. The color difference is less than 0.8JNCD, which realizes the compatibility of "off-screen shooting" and "professional texture and color display".
OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera technology can perfectly display fine text.
In addition, the design of invisible wiring and single-pixel single circuit also enables OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera technology to make fine single-pixel compensation for all pixels, including off-screen areas. Through the joint optimization algorithm with De-Burn in, the screen life of OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera solution can be extended by up to 50%, making the screen more durable.
2021August Next Generation Off-screen Camera Effect
Compared with the anti-glare effect, the next generation off-screen camera prototype is on the left, and the first generation off-screen camera prototype is on the right.
Of course, in addition to solving the problems of light transmittance, display fineness, color accuracy, brightness uniformity and life span of the camera screen through a series of innovations in the underlying hardware structure, OPPO's AI image algorithm set accumulated for many years has also played a crucial role. When developing the next generation of off-screen camera technology, OPPO has used tens of thousands of photos to continuously train the Ed diffraction algorithm model. Finally, a series of AI algorithms, including de-diffraction, automatic white balance and high dynamic range, were successfully applied to the off-screen camera technology, which effectively solved a series of common problems in the off-screen camera technology, such as blur, glare, out-of-focus and color cast, and greatly improved the imaging experience of the off-screen camera, especially when taking selfies in front of the screen, reaching the level of commercialization.
OPPO not only took the lead in R&D iteration, but also became the leader of the standard for off-screen cameras.
It is not difficult to see that OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera technology is not limited to "leaving the camera off the screen", but through a series of low-level software and hardware technology innovations, it has achieved an uncompromising flagship display effect, equipment life and a clear photo experience.
OPPO's next-generation off-screen camera prototype was unveiled together with the first-generation off-screen camera prototype.
But in this process, what many friends may not know is that OPPO not only started the research and development of off-screen camera technology as early as 20 18, but also took the lead in announcing the first generation of working prototypes in June of 20 19. More importantly, in February of 20 19, February of 19, the first half of 2020 and the second half of 2020, OPPO successively completed and released the first improved version, the second generation scheme and the early design of the next generation of off-screen camera technology. In this process, OPPO not only accumulated more than 200 patents related to off-screen photography, but also experienced many major changes in the underlying design. In order to achieve better results, we have repeatedly "started from scratch".
But even so, OPPO did not choose to "hide private". Because in February, 2020, OPPO voluntarily submitted the standard proposal of the off-screen camera to the Electronic Display Technical Committee (IEC) of the International Electrotechnical Commission, which included suggestions on seven key technical indicators such as transmittance, reflectivity, uniformity, gamma correction, color shift and brightness attenuation. Through this proposal, OPPO not only shared its own experience with the whole industry, but also pointed out the feasible key research and development direction for off-screen camera products in various fields.