Customer:
Local World, Bristol, UK.
Requirement:
A large screen video wall for displaying statistics and information to staff on their office floor.
Background:
This newspaper publisher originally approached us for a 3×3 video wall stand that would fit at one end of their office against the wall. Whilst there are several floor-stands available that we could have supplied, we pointed out that all these stands require access to the rear for wiring and also have feet for stability which increases the overall footprint of the wall and would encroach into the limited walkway. Also a stand would have restricted the height options required for the screens to be fully visible by everyone in the office. We proposed a floor-to-ceiling pole mount solution from B-Tech that we had used successfully before. With a very tight budget the client opted for NEC V463 46″ screens – perhaps not the first choice for a video wall installation but budget ruled out using ultra narrow bezel displays.
Installation:
Due to the location within a busy office installation was arranged for a Saturday when the office was empty. Having already done a recce of the site several weeks earlier the Pixelution team arrived first thing and after unloading the considerable number of boxes and tools required set about fixing the poles in place. This required a small bracket fixed to the floor, then taking the pole through the false ceiling and fixing it directly to the concrete waffle ceiling above. The total pole length was 3.7m. With the poles in place the brackets for holding the monitors were fixed to the poles at carefully measured intervals. To keep the budget down fixed brackets were used on the top and bottom rows of three with pop out brackets used in the middle row. This compromise allows enough access to all nine screens for fixing and cabling. The B-Tech mounts used have excellent adjustment in all three axes so it is relatively straightforward to level and line the screens up, pushing out or pulling in corners as required. Using this B-Tech system allowed for a very small overall depth of only 250mm from wall to front of screen.
One of the main advantages in using NEC screens for this type of project is the excellent tools they have built in for video wall support, even on the V (Value) series screens used on this project. To drive the wall a built in NEC OPS PC was used – a small but powerful computer that fits into a slot in the first monitor. Whilst any other external PC could be used this product provides a very neat solution that is covered by the same excellent three year warranty from NEC that applies to the monitors. It also saves having to find a location for a separate PC. The screens were then daisy chained via DVI with network cables run to central network switch. The video wall was then configured into a single 3×3 image – a relatively pain free procedure using the built in video wall processor in each screen. The final task before handover to the customer was to calibrate all the screens using NEC’s superb calibration utility. This comes with its own probe that is used to measure the output of each screen – it then decides which screen is the ‘base’ unit and goes back and matches all other screens to this base, thus ensuring an even and consistent colour balance across the whole installation.
Conclusion:
For a very limited budget (< £15k) a complete 3×3 video wall, including server and all configuration was purchased and installed in a single day.
To quote the customer:
“Thanks again for all your work on this. The finished result is excellent.”
– David Williams at Local World
Says it all really.
Pixelution supply and install a wide variety of bespoke video wall solutions. Designed and built to fit your budget and requirement using high quality components to ensure excellent results and many years service.