*Video Wall configuration
- Tom Polman
- Martijn Friggen
Configuration Article | CA-20210902-MS-01 VDG Sense | Setup | Monitors  |  |
Video Wall introduction
A video wall is a monitor, or a group of monitors that displays the video of a server independently from the client of an operator. The video wall can be another system with a Sense Client or decoders. The video wall can be controlled using the operator’s Client, or in some cases using external applications that communicate with the Sense API.
Example installation
The image above shows the schematic of a simple video wall installation. In this schematic, there are two standalone clients installed on two separate systems. The operating client has two local monitors. The Video Wall client has three local monitors. Lastly, a Sense server is installed on a server system. Both clients will login into the same server.
Configuration
1. Setting up Video Wall client
To configure the Video Wall, the video wall system requires a Sense Client. When the client has been installed, start the client on the video wall system. In the login screen, open the settings screen by clicking on the gear icon in the lower left corner.
In the settings, click “Enable videowall mode” and save. Enabling Video wall mode will make this client visible as a video wall in the Sense monitor tab. Furthermore, Video Wall mode will make the client run in fullscreen mode. After enabling this option, it is advised to restart the SenseClient, to enable automatic detection.
Tip: Pressing Ctrl + W in Live mode will make the Sense main menu bar appear and disappear.
2. Adding Video Wall as remote monitors
Once the Video Wall client has logged into the server, open the main Sense client and go to the ‘Monitor‘ tab in the configuration mode. Click the button “Find Sense Clients“. In this dialog, the 3 monitors of the Video Wall client should pop-up. Select the monitors
The monitor tab should now display five monitors. Two are the local client monitors and three are the Video Wall client monitors.
3. Assigning Video Wall
The video wall monitors are now added to the local client as external/remote monitors. In the current state, the operator is able to send layouts to these monitors by selecting them in Live mode and selecting a layout from the live menu. However, the operator cannot yet control the layouts. The monitors need to be added to a video wall grid. Click the “Edit videowall” button to open the “Videowall menu“-dialog. With this dialog you can define how many rows and columns are available on the videowall by adjusting the rows and columns setters. If for example the real videowall exists of two rows and three columns set the row value to 2 and the column value to 3 then a 2 x 3 grid is drawn in the dialog. To each cell in the grid a remote monitor can be assigned by right-clicking in a grid cell to show the monitor list in a contextual menu. Select a monitor from the contextual list to assign the monitor to the grid cell.
When a videowall is setup a video wall icon is shown behind the monitor in the monitor tab and in the toolbar in live mode. Only the monitors that are not assigned still have their monitor icon, the assigned monitors are only accessible through the videowall menu. The size of the dialog in setup is also used in live mode as the size of the menu.