Video wall

Last updated
A video wall in television studio Channel 1 Israel DSC0193.jpg
A video wall in television studio

A video wall is a special multi-monitor setup that consists of multiple computer monitors, video projectors, or television sets tiled together contiguously or overlapped in order to form one large screen. Typical display technologies include LCD panels, Direct View LED arrays, blended projection screens, Laser Phosphor Displays, and rear projection cubes. Jumbotron technology was also previously used. Diamond Vision was historically similar to Jumbotron in that they both used cathode-ray tube (CRT) technology, but with slight differences between the two. Early Diamond vision displays used separate flood gun CRTs, one per subpixel. Later Diamond vision displays and all Jumbotrons used field-replaceable modules containing several flood gun CRTs each, one per subpixel, that had common connections shared across all CRTs in a module; the module was connected through a single weather-sealed connector. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Screens specifically designed for use in video walls usually have narrow bezels in order to minimize the gap between active display areas, and are built with long-term serviceability in mind. [9] Such screens often contain the hardware necessary to stack similar screens together, along with connections to daisy chain power, video, and command signals between screens. [10] A command signal may, for example, power all screens in the video wall on or off, or calibrate the brightness of a single screen after bulb replacement (in Projection-based screens).

Reasons for using a video wall instead of a single large screen can include the ability to customize tile layouts, greater screen area per unit cost, and greater pixel density per unit cost, due to the economics of manufacturing single screens which are unusual in shape, size, or resolution.

Video walls are sometimes found in control rooms, stadiums, and other large public venues. Examples include the video wall in Oakland International Airport's baggage claim, [11] where patrons are expected to observe the display at long distances, and the 100 screen video wall at McCarran International Airport, which serves as an advertising platform for the 40 million passengers passing through airport annually. [12] Video walls can also benefit smaller venues when patrons may view the screens both up close and at a distance, respectively necessitating both high pixel density and large size. For example, the 100-inch video wall located in the main lobby of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center has enough size for the distant passerby to view photos while also providing the nearby observer enough resolution to read about upcoming events. [13]

Simple video walls can be driven from multi-monitor video cards, however more complex arrangements may require specialized video processors, specifically designed to manage and drive large video walls. [9] Software-based video wall technology that uses ordinary PCs, displays and networking equipment can also be used for video wall deployments. [14] [15]

The largest video wall as of 2013 was located at the backstretch of the Charlotte Motor Speedway motorsport track. Developed by Panasonic, it measures 200 by 80 feet (61 by 24 m) and uses LED technology. The Texas Motor Speedway installed an even larger screen in 2014, measuring 218 by 125 feet (66 by 38 m). [16]

Video walls are not limited to a single purpose but are now being used in dozens of different applications.

Controllers

Rear projection displays with narrow mullions. LivingMediaWall.jpeg
Rear projection displays with narrow mullions.

A video wall controller (sometimes called “processor”) is a device that splits a single image into parts to be displayed on individual screens. Video wall controllers can be divided into groups:

  1. Hardware-based controllers.
  2. Software-based PC & video-card controllers.

Hardware-based controllers are electronic devices built for specific purpose. They usually are built on array of video processing chipsets and do not have an operating system. The advantage of using a hardware video wall controller is high performance and reliability. Disadvantages include high cost and the lack of flexibility.

The most simple example of video wall controller is single input multiple outputs scaler. It accepts one video input and splits the image into parts corresponding to displays in the video wall. [17]

Most of professional video wall displays also have built-in controller (sometimes called an integrated video matrix processor or splitter). This matrix splitter allows to “stretch” the image from a single video input across all the displays within the whole video wall (typically arranged in a linear matrix, e.g., 2x2, 4x4, etc.). These types of displays typically have loop-through output (usually DVI) that allows installers to daisy-chain all displays and feed them with the same input. Typically setup is done via the remote control and the on-screen display. It is a fairly simple method to build a video wall but it has some disadvantages. First of all, it is impossible to use full pixel resolution of the video wall because the resolution cannot be bigger than the resolution of the input signal. It is also not possible to display multiple inputs at the same time. [18]

Software-based PC & video-card controllers is a computer running an operating system (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) in a PC or server equipped with special multiple-output graphic cards and optionally with video capture input cards. These video wall controllers are often built on industrial-grade chassis due to the reliability requirements of control rooms and situational centers. Though this approach is typically more expensive, the advantage of a software-based video wall controller vs the hardware splitter is that it can launch applications like maps, VoIP client (to display IP cameras), SCADA clients, Digital Signage software that can directly utilize the full resolution of the video wall. That is why software-based controllers are widely used in control rooms and high-end Digital Signage. [19] The performance of the software controller depends on both the quality of graphic cards and management software. There are a number of multi-head (multiple output) graphic cards commercially available. Most of general purpose multi-output cards manufactured by AMD (Eyefinity technology), NVidia (Mosaic technology) support up to 6-12 genlocked outputs.[ citation needed ] General purpose cards also do not have optimizations for displaying multiple video streams from capture cards. To achieve larger number of displays or high video input performance one needs to use specialized graphic cards (e.g. Datapath Limited, Matrox Graphics, Jupiter Systems). [20] [21] [22] [23] Video wall controllers typically support bezel correction (outside frame of monitor) to correct for any bezel with LED displays or overlap the images to blend edges with projectors.

Matrix, grid and artistic layouts

4x3 video wall under construction. Kelvin Hall video wall 01.png
4x3 video wall under construction.

The integrated video wall scalers are often limited to matrix grid layouts (e.g., 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, etc.) of identical displays. Here the aspect ratio remains the same but the source-image is scaled across the number of displays in the matrix. More advanced controllers enable grid layouts of any configuration (e.g., 1x5, 2x8, etc.) where the aspect ratio of the video wall can be very different from that of individual displays. Others enable displays to be placed anywhere within the canvas, but are limited to portrait or landscape orientation. The most advanced video wall controllers enable full artistic control of the displays, enabling a heterogeneous mix of different displays as well as 360deg multi-angle rotation of any individual display within the video wall canvas.

Multiple simultaneous sources

Advanced video wall controllers will allow you to output multiple sources to groups of displays within the video wall and change these zones at will even during live playback. The more basic scalers only allow you to output a single source to the entire video wall.

Network video wall

Some video wall controllers can reside in the server room and communicate with their "graphics cards" over the network. This configuration offers advantages in terms of flexibility. Often this is achieved via a traditional video wall controller (with multiple graphics cards) in the server room with a "sender" device attached to each graphics output and a "receiver" attached to each display. These sender/receiver devices are either via Cat5e/Cat6 cable extension or via a more flexible and powerful "video over IP" that can be routed through traditional network switches. Even more advanced is a pure network video wall where the server does not require any video cards and communicates directly over the network with the receiver devices. [24]

Windows-based Network video walls are the most common in the market and will allow a much better functionality. [25]

A network configuration allows video walls to be synchronized with individual digital signs. This means that video walls of different sizes and configurations, as well as individual digital displays can all show the same content at the same time, referred to as 'mirroring'.[ citation needed ]

Transparent video walls

Transparent video walls combine transparent LCD screens with a video wall controller to display video and still images on a large transparent surface. Transparent displays are available from a variety of companies and are common in retail and other environments that want to add digital signage to their window displays or in store promotions. Bezel-less transparent displays can be combined using certain video wall controllers to turn the individual displays into a video wall to cover a significantly larger surface. [26]

Rendering clusters

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raster graphics</span> Matrix-based data structure

In computer graphics and digital photography, a raster graphic represents a two-dimensional picture as a rectangular matrix or grid of pixels, viewable via a computer display, paper, or other display medium. A raster is technically characterized by the width and height of the image in pixels and by the number of bits per pixel. Raster images are stored in image files with varying dissemination, production, generation, and acquisition formats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphics card</span> Expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device

A graphics card is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a display device such as a monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to integrated graphics processor on the motherboard or the CPU. A graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs the necessary computations is the main component in a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to erroneously refer to the graphics card as a whole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAMDAC</span> Color to analog voltage table

A random-access memory digital-to-analog converter (RAMDAC) is a combination of three fast digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with a small static random-access memory (SRAM) used in computer graphics display controllers or video cards to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals to drive a color monitor. The logical color number from the display memory is fed into the address inputs of the SRAM to select a palette entry to appear on the data output of the SRAM. This entry is composed of three separate values corresponding to the three components of the desired physical color. Each component value is fed to a separate DAC, whose analog output goes to the monitor, and ultimately to one of its three electron guns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Display resolution</span> Number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed

The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors in cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, flat-panel displays and projection displays using fixed picture-element (pixel) arrays.

Text mode is a computer display mode in which content is internally represented on a computer screen in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a uniform rectangular grid of character cells, each of which contains one of the characters of a character set; at the same time, contrasted to graphics mode or other kinds of computer graphics modes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volume rendering</span> Representing a 3D-modeled object or dataset as a 2D projection

In scientific visualization and computer graphics, volume rendering is a set of techniques used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set, typically a 3D scalar field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jumbotron</span> Large-screen television

A jumbotron, sometimes referred to as jumbovision, is a video display using large-screen television technology. The original technology was developed in the early 1980s by Mitsubishi Electric and Sony, which coined JumboTron as a brand name in 1985. Mitsubishi Electric sold their version of the technology as Diamond Vision. It is typically used in sports stadiums and concert venues to show close up shots of an event or even other sporting events occurring simultaneously, as well as outdoor public places.

Parallel rendering is the application of parallel programming to the computational domain of computer graphics. Rendering graphics can require massive computational resources for complex scenes that arise in scientific visualization, medical visualization, CAD applications, and virtual reality. Recent research has also suggested that parallel rendering can be applied to mobile gaming to decrease power consumption and increase graphical fidelity. Rendering is an embarrassingly parallel workload in multiple domains and thus has been the subject of much research.

An output device is any piece of computer hardware that converts information or data into a human-perceptible form or, historically, into a physical machine-readable form for use with other non-computerized equipment. It can be text, graphics, tactile, audio, or video. Examples include monitors, printers, speakers, headphones, projectors, GPS devices, optical mark readers, and braille readers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shader</span> Type of program in a graphical processing unit (GPU)

In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as shading. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of specialized functions in computer graphics special effects and video post-processing, as well as general-purpose computing on graphics processing units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multi-monitor</span> Use of multiple physical display devices

Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer system. Research studies show that, depending on the type of work, multi-head may increase the productivity by 50–70%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video display controller</span> Type of integrated circuit

A video display controller (VDC), also called a display engine or display interface, is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing or game system. Some VDCs also generate an audio signal, but that is not their main function. VDCs were used in the home computers of the 1980s and also in some early video picture systems.

The G400 is a video card made by Matrox, released in September 1999. The graphics processor contains a 2D GUI, video, and Direct3D 6.0 3D accelerator. Codenamed "Toucan", it was a more powerful and refined version of its predecessor, the G200.

Matrox Graphics eXpansion Module (GXM) supports the use of multiple monitors over a single video source by splitting the output of a video source, providing an enlarged workspace or gaming environment. GXM is not a graphics card itself, and in fact requires a fairly powerful graphics card for playing games on multiple monitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Large-screen television technology</span> Technology rapidly developed in the late 1990s and 2000s

Large-screen television technology developed rapidly in the late 1990s and 2000s. Prior to the development of thin-screen technologies, rear-projection television was standard for larger displays, and jumbotron, a non-projection video display technology, was used at stadiums and concerts. Various thin-screen technologies are being developed, but only liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display (PDP) and Digital Light Processing (DLP) have been publicly released. Recent technologies like organic light-emitting diode (OLED) as well as not-yet-released technologies like surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) or field emission display (FED) are in development to supercede earlier flat-screen technologies in picture quality.

The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CPT Corporation</span> Producer of word processing machines

CPT Corporation was founded in 1971 by Dean Scheff in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with co-founders James Wienhold and Richard Eichhorn. CPT first designed, manufactured, and marketed the CPT 4200, a dual-cassette-tape machine that controlled a modified IBM Selectric typewriter to support text editing and word processing.

Display lag is a phenomenon associated with most types of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) like smartphones and computers and nearly all types of high-definition televisions (HDTVs). It refers to latency, or lag between when the signal is sent to the display and when the display starts to show that signal. This lag time has been measured as high as 68 ms, or the equivalent of 3-4 frames on a 60 Hz display. Display lag is not to be confused with pixel response time, which is the amount of time it takes for a pixel to change from one brightness value to another. Currently the majority of manufacturers quote the pixel response time, but neglect to report display lag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD Eyefinity</span> Brand of AMD video card products

AMD Eyefinity is a brand name for AMD video card products that support multi-monitor setups by integrating multiple display controllers on one GPU. AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 series "Evergreen" in September 2009 and has been available on APUs and professional-grade graphics cards branded AMD FirePro as well.

References

  1. ↑ "Mitsubishi Electric Receives IEEE Milestone for Outdoor Large-Scale Color Display System" (PDF). Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  2. ↑ "Mitsubishi's Large-Scale Display Changed the Way We Watch Live Sports « IEEE University of Lahore". site.ieee.org.
  3. ↑ "Mitsubishi Diamond Vision Mark III HR 15mmPP Flat Matrix CRT". lampes-et-tubes.info.
  4. ↑ "Futaba SONY (TL-08D) 8-799-070-01 Flood Beam CRT Jumbotron Tube". lampes-et-tubes.info.
  5. ↑ "Itron HB 2F89068 Mark III Flat Matrix CRT Unit". lampes-et-tubes.info.
  6. ↑ Drummer, G. W. A. (January 1, 1997). Electronic Inventions and Discoveries: Electronics from its earliest beginnings to the present day, Fourth Edition. CRC Press. ISBN   9780750304931 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Whitaker, Jerry C. (December 23, 1996). The Electronics Handbook. CRC Press. ISBN   9780849383458 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ "Futaba TL-3508XA Jumbotron Display - Industrial Alchemy". www.industrialalchemy.org.
  9. 1 2 "What is a Video Wall?" . Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  10. ↑ "Clarity Margay II Specifications" . Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  11. ↑ "Terminal 2 Baggage Claim Building Opens In July" (PDF). Oakland International Travel Planner. Port of Oakland. 2006. p. 12. Retrieved 2017-12-05. An 8-foot by 21-foot video wall featuring finished works by local artists commissioned by the Port of Oakland
  12. ↑ "Las Vegas Airport 100 Screen Video Wall". CineMassive. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
  13. ↑ "Living Media Wall" . Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  14. 1 2 "Startup of the Week: Hiperwall".
  15. ↑ Digitaldirectoryexpress
  16. ↑ World’s largest HD video board to be built at Texas Motor Speedway - NBC Sports, 23 September 2013
  17. ↑ Keene, David. "Video Wall Webinar Archive Open for Attendance". AVNetwork - Digital Signage Weekly. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  18. ↑ "Panasonic Intros New Digital Signage Displays, Including Its First Video Wall Display". Rave Publications.
  19. ↑ McMurray, Ian (26 January 2011). "LTP installs media wall". Installation International.
  20. ↑ McGrath, James. "Datapath introduces quad channel video capture card". Installation International. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  21. ↑ Andy, Patrizio. "Matrox lives for another millennium, but with AMD at its heart". ITWorld. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  22. ↑ "InfoComm 2014: Matrox Presents the Matrox Mura MPX Video Wall Solution". Rave Publications. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  23. ↑ Underwood, Emily (19 May 2014). "Get the Big Picture: 17 Video Walls to See at InfoComm". Commercial Integrator. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  24. ↑ "Rise of the Network Video Wall". 2 June 2015.
  25. ↑ Abrons, Sara. "ISE 2017: MonitorsAnyWhere Shows Off Network Video Walls – rAVe [PUBS]". www.ravepubs.com.
  26. ↑ "Userful and WG Electronic Transparent Video Walls".
  27. ↑ L. Renambot, R. Rao, A.and Singh, B. Jeong, N. Krishnaprasad, V. Vishwanath, V. Chandrasekhar, N. Schwarz, A. Spale, C. Zhang, G. Goldman, J. Leigh, and A. Johnson. "Sage: the scalable adaptive graphics environment." In Proceedings of the Workshop on Advanced Collaborative Environments, September 2004.
  28. ↑ Greg Humphreys, Mike Houston, Ren Ng, Randall Frank, Sean Ahern, Peter D. Kirchner, and James T. Klosowski. "Chromium: a stream-processing framework for interactive rendering on clusters." ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 21(3):693–702, 7 2002.
  29. ↑ D. Hughes. "Sinking in a sea of pixels - the case for media fusion." In Proceedings of Immersive Projection Technology Workshop, May 2004.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.