Video Wall Implementation

[Jon Bannan]

Good morning all

We are in the process of 2 new building designs that currently discuss a
video wall in the large forum areas. While we've all seen them, my
question to you is what are some of the struggles that you've
experienced. Not so much from a hardware point of view, but am more from
implementation, staffing, content management, etc.

The Deans would like to use it to enhance inter-disciplinary connections
across campus by periodically displaying digital art, digital signage,
larger lectures, interactive multi media etc. So in your environment,
who manages content, creates content, schedules content, approves
content, removes content?

I have a internal group meeting to discuss the use and am putting
together questions for the group now so any info from your experiences
would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Jon Bannan
The College of New Jersey

--

Jon Bannan - CTS - DMC-E-4K

Media Manager
Media & Technology Support Services
http://www.tcnj.edu/~mtss

The College of New Jersey
2000 Pennington Road
Forcina Hall 123
Ewing, NJ 08628
609-771-2304 - Office #
609-637-5126 - Fax #
ban...@tcnj.edu


--Follow MTSS on Facebook--
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[Dechter, Christopher]

We have a 20' video wall (comprised of 4x5 55" panels) in our business school that is highly visible and the centerpiece of the building atrium.   It is split into two modes— an upper wall of 4x4 and a lower wall of 1x4.  While the actual resolution is 7680 x 4320 (upper) and 7680 x 1080 (lower), we scaled the upper wall down to 3840 x 2160 in order to get more content pushed to it.  Initially it was a fight to get people to stop using web-quality graphics on it, so the lower resolution makes it more accessible.  As for content itself, the wall is fed by a PC running Scala digital signage software (through a Clarity Matrix processor).  

We have someone on staff who does nothing but digital signage for campus, so that worked well to have her be the point of contact for scheduling and managing what gets displayed and when and so on.  As much as possible, all content is scripted and scheduled very tightly through Scala.  Most of the day, it's a rotating feed of announcements and information slides changing every 20 seconds and for special events, it becomes a single welcome slide or conference agenda.  The lower wall runs a news tickers with weather, headlines, and financial information. 

Here's a picture: http://i.imgur.com/To2DBB6.jpg  and here's the policy we use: http://bloch.umkc.edu/faculty-staff/digital-signage.aspx

My recommendations would be to get a policy in place before the wall goes live and carefully monitor the quality and appropriateness of the images and video files sent to the wall.  It's still a struggle to get people to understand that running a video clip encoded at 720x480 will NOT look good on the wall.  

Chris

-- 

Christopher Dechter

Classroom Technology Services

University of Missouri - Kansas City

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[Whitfield, Ben]

One area critical to this is maintenance. Be sure that the architect and the AV vendor are on the same page. Have the Video wall built so that it is easy to perform maintenance on it. These are normally 24/7 displays and you will need to service them at least once a year depending on what type displays you go with. You can have an expensive maintenance contract with the AV vendor, or you can do it in house. You are going to be able to want to get to the rear of the units from time to time. In our case, I inherited a poor design that sits between 1st and 2nd floors, with no rear access to blow out dust or make changes to connections. To remove any of the displays, scaffolding is required. The rack sits in a closet 100 feet down a hallway and around the corner so whenever making changes to the displays, I have to have someone at the rack and someone at the displays with two way radios. To add to the pain, the displays are recessed into the wall is such a way it prevents utilizing many newer displays available today.

I have four 65" cubes fit in a square pattern that for the past two years has sat dormant since one of the four is dead. This is one area you want to avoid, a design that is not future adaptable and difficult to maintain. Architect's tend to think in the now, and how cool there design will look when first turned on, not the hassles you will have in servicing it. So get that out into the open right off the bat.


Ben Whitfield
Office of Information Systems
UNC School of Medicine
439 MacNider Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Ruben_W...@med.unc.edu
919.966.6841

Stultum est timere quod vitare non potes.
Publius Syrus

-----Original Message-----
From: av...@googlegroups.com [mailto:av...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jon Bannan
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2014 9:16 AM
To: av...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [av-1] Video Wall Implementation