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6mm vs. 10mm: pixel pitch, plain English
LED pitch — the distance in millimeters between adjacent pixels. 6mm vs 8mm vs 10mm. It comes up in every fleet conversation. Most agencies overcomplicate it. Here's the operator-level version.
What pitch actually means at street level
The smaller the number, the closer you can stand before pixels become visible. 6mm looks tight from 6+ feet. 10mm needs 10+ feet to look clean.
For a mobile billboard truck rolling at 25 mph on a downtown corridor, viewer distance is rarely under 12 feet. So pixel density matters less than agencies pretend. The tighter pitch costs more, weighs more, and dims faster — without giving you visible quality on a street-rolling truck.
When 6mm is worth it
- Stationary deployments — parked trucks at venue let-outs, drive-thru queues, festival entrances. Audiences stand 6 feet away.
- Heavy text creative — small type breaks down at 8-10mm pitch.
- Premium / luxury brands where the brand position requires zero visible LED grain.
When 8mm or 10mm wins
- Pure brand awareness — big shapes, big color, low text density
- Highway-speed routes — viewer distance is high enough that 10mm is invisible
- Trailer-format units with shorter campaign windows where the unit cost matters
Why we don't run 4mm
4mm panels exist. They cost ~3× the price of 6mm, weigh 2× as much, and dim 30% faster from sunlight UV. A 4mm fleet would price us out of the budgets that actually work.
We may revisit when panel cost drops by ~50%. Probably 2027.
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