Lowcost VideoWall suggestions

[phibertron]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any good lowcost
videowall solutions for up to a 3x3 display

thanks
phibertorn

[The village idiot]

As in 9 monitors? Wow, that will run some dollars. Do you need separate images or just a large display? What about a projector, either front or back screen. If you need something that is very brite, yet still very large, you might look for some LED displays like they use a sports stadiums. I've seen some that were 2x3 foot panels, then something to matrix them together into one large display of 9 or more panels. They looked good right up to about 8 feet away! Outside in bright daylight! Daktronics makes some, I think, and at least one other company.

[g_shocker182]

Ask Best Buy. Some of their stores I go to have about 9 ~40" TVs hooked up together. Personally, I'd rather have 1 HDTV or DLP projector for that price, but they don't come as big .

[flaninacupboard]

After seeing how bright the LED displays are, i wanted to build one for my PC, or more specifically for DVD. I decided that a panel on the wall would be too nig to fit in the 720X576 resolution, so wanted to build a 2.2M by 1.5M chassis, about 2m high, filled with the LED's stacked up in layers. I was going to use optical fibres to transmit the light from the LED's to the relevant point on a screen. So i worked out a few things....
720X576 is 414720. i would need an LED for red, an LED for blue, and an LED for green. that's 1244160 LED's! and then i would need abuot 2m of optic fibre for -each- LED. that's 2488km, or 1600 MILES of optical fibre. I also worked out the optimum viewing distance from the screen was 12-14 metres away. I gave up on this idea shortly after.....

Be nice though! much brighter and better contrast than plasma, proper blacks and brighter than LCD projection, less horribleness than DLP, and much bigger than i could get with a normal CRT, and just beating my previous favourite, the CRT projector. but alas, i can't afford 1600 miles of optic fibre.

[The village idiot]

After seeing how bright the LED displays are, i wanted to build one for my PC, or more specifically for DVD. I decided that a panel on the wall would be too nig to fit in the 720X576 resolution, so wanted to build a 2.2M by 1.5M chassis, about 2m high, filled with the LED's stacked up in layers. I was going to use optical fibres to transmit the light from the LED's to the relevant point on a screen. So i worked out a few things....
720X576 is 414720. i would need an LED for red, an LED for blue, and an LED for green. that's 1244160 LED's! and then i would need abuot 2m of optic fibre for -each- LED. that's 2488km, or 1600 MILES of optical fibre. I also worked out the optimum viewing distance from the screen was 12-14 metres away. I gave up on this idea shortly after.....

Be nice though! much brighter and better contrast than plasma, proper blacks and brighter than LCD projection, less horribleness than DLP, and much bigger than i could get with a normal CRT, and just beating my previous favourite, the CRT projector. but alas, i can't afford 1600 miles of optic fibre.

That's funny. I was thinking almost the same thing. Just never went through the math about the number of led's and amount of optical cable.

Have you thought about the tiny little surface mount led's. Then you could put a small plastic lense over a triplet of them (R,G,B) to produce one optical fiber for each pixel. If you stack the led triplets you could still have a very small cabinet and a display that is only as big as the size of the optical fibers. The whole thing could either be very small, or very large, only depends on the size and spacing of the optical fibers. This seems like something that could be done in an automated factory with ease. I still don't know why no one has built such a beast yet. With the "pixels" stacked you could even replace them easily. Dead pixel, just replace a section of them.

[flaninacupboard]

well i was basing my calculation on using pre built LED display panels (which have the three led clusters mounted 8mm apart) first because i don't fancy soldering 1.2 million LED's by hand, and second because they come with a computer to control the display.i'd still have to attach 1.2million optical fibres to the LED's, but hey.....

[The village idiot]

But you see my point. They have the technology already built. Why not just make it smaller. Let the machines do the work. If it wasn't for placing and soldering the LED's I might try to retrofit my idea to an existing system. That many surface mounted LED's would be too much for any human... I think. Maybe if the big displays were cheaper... then I might try it... maybe not

[flaninacupboard]

oh yeah, from a mass prodcution point of view i agree with you totoally, but i don't hink that's gonna happen. perhaps i could start out small with a 80X40 display and build up from there.......

[g_shocker182]

Individual LEDs!?! Like stated you would have to be very far away so as to see all however many of them together and not individually.

For other out of a clue on this, I suggest you read this: http://www.bigbeefandbeer.com/jumbotronFAQ.htm

[flaninacupboard]

Well that's the idea of th optic fibres. if i used 1mm fibres each pixel would be 3mm, giving a screen width of 2.16 metres. Except i'd want my screen anamorphic, so really i want vertical spacing to be 3mm, giving me 1.72 metres height (on PAL 576) with 3.05 metres width for the correct aspect ratio. so each pixel would be 4.2mm wide and 3mm high.

It'd be a great display if you had the room though.

[RabidDog]

4 x pcs ... 1 main controlling 3 others
3 sub pcs have the matrox parhelia in each which can control 3 displays
thats 3 x 3 of any display size you want, The software is availbale somewhere I'm sure. How low cost is lo-cost?
9 cheap CRTs .. less than £1000
4 pcs about another £1000 (with haggling)
3 x parhelia £600
software .... ouch maybe up to £1000, £10000 even £100,000?

[The village idiot]

If you use 0.5 mm fibers it would be half the size. If you use a lens over the LED's it could be a third the size. If you use real glass fiber it could be very small, like desktop size. I'm still surprised that no one has built one yet. No more dim projectors with $1000 lamps. A real direct view display. Super brite, and super black. The best of all worlds. And NO image burn problems. And service by module, not an entire display. It would be perfect for the people that have more money than they know what to do with.

[EddyH]

junk secondhand VGA monitors, a bit of hardware hack(saw)ing, and a control box..... $100?

[alinas1]

Video wall processor is useful to make the large digital displays. They are clear, versatile and easy to develop.

[Cornucopia]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any good lowcost
videowall solutions for up to a 3x3 display

thanks
phibertorn

This is about as unhelpful a question as "what's the BEST encoder?" - Too vague and too broad!

What actual kind of budget is "low cost" to you? What do you mean by "good"?
What resolution (max & individual) are you talking about?
How far away will users be from these screens?
What will be showing on them - PC screenshots? Graphics? Movies?
Are you expecting the wall to be ONE BIG image spread onto multiple segments? or are you wanting multiple different images going on simultaneously? or BOTH?
Who is going to operate this? or is it meant to be turned on and left alone (automatic)?

Nobody can seriously help you further until you start answering these kinds of questions.

Scott

[Ai Haibara]

Scott, you might want to check the post dates. This is a post from 2003 that was unearthed by a spambot.

[Cornucopia]

DOh! Thanks, Ai Haibara, I wasn't looking closely enough today.

Scott

[bendixG15]

Sucked me in.......... ouch