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Business owners can choose to set up a video wall to display signage individually or singly across multiple display devices designed to look like one unit. A variety of display solutions are available to create your own digital signage wall and are used in stores, offices, warehouses, and other business locations.
While setting up a video wall is a fairly simple process, careful planning is required to achieve the desired result. Creating a video wall is desirable to market products and services, to generate greater interest in these business offerings, and to provide information that attracts more sales. While setting up a video wall may sound like a scary process, it is not that difficult if you follow the guideline below.
Select your screen type and design your wall project
Select a screen-type as a base for your video wall. As a rule, currently for most of the projects they choose commercial-grade video wall display units at sizes from 49 to 55 inches with DisplayPort capability. Once the screen type has been chosen, you should plan the design of the video wall. There are standard options, like 2x2 or 3x3 screens. In this case the aspect ratio of video wall will be 16:9, the same as the aspect ratio of each screen in the wall. This is good for the content creation and management, because you won’t need to design the customized content items every time you will need to change something on your wall. But also, there are non-standard video wall installations with different aspect ratios and big number of display units. Furthermore, the displays within the wall can be placed in mosaic mode, for example. In listed cases you will need to create the content items according to the design and final aspect ratio of your video wall.
Mount and connect the devices
Then we can go to the installation process. For this purpose, you will need to purchase supporting equipment such as mounts, which fit to your displays. Choosing the mounts, first of all, pay your attention on the VESA size and weight of your display units. There are a lot of the options within the market, that’s why we would strongly recommend you to take the advice of a specialist. More than it, we believe, that it is better to entrust the installation work itself to a professional integrator.
At the next step you need to select the management solution, which you will use in a daily mode in order to power your video wall. There 2 options here: video wall controller or simple media player. We would recommend first option only for video walls without DisplayPort feature, because the controllers are quite expansive and even with them anyway you will need to choose a media source for your broadcasting, like USB dongle, PC or media player. With option 2 you will just need to connect any media player you want to the HDMI input of the first screen in the connection chain and then to connect the remaining screens to it using special cables. Choosing media player, we would advise you to take a closer look to the Android-based devices, which are often preferred due to several factors including cost, flexibility, quality, and ease of use. When the installation is done, make sure that the wall is properly marked in line with your design so that everything fits well.
Source the preferred software app
Now you need to decide how will you manage the content on your wall. The obvious option is digital signage software. Let’s take a look on a process using the example of Look DS. If you do not use one of our plug’n’play media players with pre-installed firmware, then go to the Google Play Store on your device, search for the Look digital signage app and follow instructions to download and install this on your player. Surely, app player is just a part of a solution.
Connect your player to the CMS
Get sure, that your device is connected to the internet. Once you turn on our plug’n’play media player or launch our app on the third-party Android hardware there will 6-digit code appear on your video wall. After that you will need to create your account in the web-based Look Content Manager and enter the code in the appropriate field in order to connect your video wall to our remote management CMS. If all was done properly, you will see the colored Look logo on your wall, which means, that you’re ready to go. Now you can use all the possibilities of the solution, incl. remote content delivery, broadcasting scheduling, settings management, layout creation, proof-of-play opportunities, widgets, inbuilt apps and others.
Select content for display
Just as you planned the installation, now you can plan the content that you want to share on your video wall. Design content according to your displays’ setup. Choose from the templates or create your own layout with the several active areas to play different content at the same time. Use the inbuilt apps to create eye-catching social media or news feeds.
Final step
Now all you need to do is to plan and schedule your content daily, for the week or the month ahead. Once you have done this part, all that's left is to press “add to the screen” button to get your video wall streaming content to promote your business.
Video wall applications
Video walls can be installed anywhere that you wish to display digital signage. Customers may choose to mount a video wall in their homes for security purposes, or in commercial locations for business reasons. City authorities will also look at creating video walls to display information and images that are beneficial to the public.
Applications purposes include providing information, offering product or service details, entertainment, and other reasons, many of which are aimed at increasing profits in commercial ventures. Whatever the reason behind mounting video walls is, the benefits are multiple because they create a focal point wherever they are found.
The benefits of creating video walls
Vast wall coverage creates an exceptional buzz for international events, whether these are for sports, political or economic reasons. Smaller video walls developed for digital signage can and do encompass many of the same benefits, ranging from excellent resolution to flexible design and processing properties at affordable rates. Users can anticipate many benefits from their video walls, as discussed below.
Exceptional audience engagement
Customers cannot help but be attracted to digital signage video walls. They are eye-catching and entertaining, often providing much relief when waiting for service. Additionally, modern technology delivers images in high-definition, high-resolution displays, producing clear crisp pictures that keep audiences enthralled. When you want to share information for any reason on-site, a video wall is the way to go about it. When you want to get results, quality images and videos with no restrictions on image clarity is the best strategy.
Flexible marketing solutions
As a marketing tool, the video wall has few rivals. Its sheer flexibility in terms of design display options and content provision is broad and powerful. Other than appealing hardware flexibility and affordability, the video wall is also versatile in displaying content from many different sources. Unlike older technology, the video wall has the capacity to deliver a variety of information on different screens or the same content on one screen. Simply set the system up to do what you want it to accomplish in line with your marketing goals.
Setting up a video wall is much easier than it looks. With the right tools, this task can be accomplished in short time. Once set up, it can become your most powerful marketing strategy.
