T.V. Wall

[Simplybill]

Found What I needed on other Threads...


A theater company wants to have their entire set as a still and moving projection coming from a Wall of T.V.'s. They asked me if I knew how to make this work(apparently their set designer is a very flighty). I don't, but I told them I might be able to find out.

So, T.V. Walls anyone know anything about how to wire, program run and build a T.V. wall? Can old T.V. be used or do computer monitors need to be used? What program can be used to send the signal, and what should I be looking at price wise? Plus any other information you can give would be great. I have been looking and have only been able to find dead end websites. The other TV wall thread, while interesting was not so much one wall of T.V.s forming the same image. I have some thoughts, but would love some advice.

[kwotipka]

Our local university has/had this sort of thing. I remember working on it afew years back for them. They had a 4x4 grid of 27" Dottronics monitors as well as two stacks of 4 on the side. They were all hooked into a video wall controller. The rig was used for performance art. The biggest pain other then the fact that they changed color every few days, was the weight.

They mounted the whole rig on rolling "carts". The thing was very unstable and top heavy.

I am told that you can still get the old school CRT based monitors but they are heavy and never hold registration and color.

If possible, I think I would go with some newer technology. I worked with some panasonic plasmas that would automagically create a video wall. All you had to do is tell it it's place in the grid and it would figure out what part of the signal to use.

[ruinexplorer]

Originally Posted by kwotipka

If possible, I think I would go with some newer technology. I worked with some panasonic plasmas that would automagically create a video wall. All you had to do is tell it it's place in the grid and it would figure out what part of the signal to use.

I agree. This is the most readily available technology and you can get it from many rental houses. I worked for one and we had Sony LCD monitors that could do the same thing. There is a limit to how many screens could be linked (16 I think) to make one image. Though if you have the budget to rent that many display units, you might be able to find other technology as well. :^)

[Thomas]

The answer may have been found already but was not posted here.

Panasonic 9 and 10 series business displays have an onboard matrix function that lets you stack them 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 etc as well as the option to ignore the physical distance between screen edges or not- use depends on whether its a still image or an animation you plan on showing.
TH-42PWD6 is a good one to use.

Kiff.

[bobgaggle]

maybe I'm ignorant, but why not just use a projector? Are you looking for better quality from TVs? Don't have a convenient place to hang a projector?

[Simplybill]

I asked them that...apparently the whole show is based around four kids who's whole perception of life is through TV...So they wanted to use the TV's to show their world...I dunno, I'm not designing, Im just looking for answers for them.

[ruinexplorer]

Originally Posted by Simplybill

I asked them that...apparently the whole show is based around four kids who's whole perception of life is through TV...So they wanted to use the TV's to show their world...I dunno, I'm not designing, Im just looking for answers for them.

Just don't let them change their minds last second and want different feeds per TV sometimes and one large feed (as we have been discussing) at other times. You will need different content management for that. Good luck!

[icewolf08]

I would go back and suggest projection again. I would have to imagine that it would be a lot cheaper to build an RP screen into a frame that looks like a giant TV than to set up and manage (and acquire) all the displays and equipment needed for a video wall. You could even use a projection approach and build it to look like multiple TVs and still only use one projector.

I am just throwing out ideas, but I would imagine, unless you have a pretty substantial budget just for this element of the show, that you will find that building a TV wall with the appropriate controllers will get very expensive very fast.

[museav]

Rear projection may be less expensive in many situations, but we might need to know more about the application and conditions to know what would be the most effective solution. With the apparent desire to use the image as the set then factors such as the image size, the affect of lighting on the image, whether there is physical depth for rear projection and so on could affect what solutions are viable or effective.

I believe NEC was one of the first to do this, however as already noted, a number of manufacturers offer commercial flat panel display products that incorporate 'tiling' a single image across multiple displays without an external processor. But you are going to be limited to the number of displays and pretty much to just the one big image, so I don't know if that fits their vision.

[SHARYNF]

I did some work for defense command and control centers. If you troll on Ebay, on occasion you will see products from RGB Spectrum, the superview product line. I use them with a projector it give me the ability to use one projector and depending on the model six inputs that can be scaled and placed anywhere on the image space, and again depending on the model have a conputer generated image in the real. The unit I have is a Superview 3000. Initially they were incredibly expensive, now because the older ones only support up 1600x1200 image size and Not 1920x1080 they are starting to sell in the under 1000 dollar range.

Sharyn