Over the past few years, there have also been significant changes in the technology available to control and manage the LED walls, and the content on them. This white paper will examine these technological changes.
Traditional video processor systems for LED--such as Christie's Spyder or Barco's S3 have been the go-to solutions for deploying the large LED wall displays. In the past, this kind of expensive AV equipment was necessary to achieve the large LED wall displays known as spectaculars--those seen in Times Square in New York or in large retail outlets. However, technology has changed--LED walls are being used for a lot more than just spectacular displays, and the solutions needed to deploy them no longer need to be so expensive and no longer need to run on specialized or proprietary hardware.
Over the past few years, the rapid increase in computing power in off the shelf hardware--as seen in the capabilities of Nvidia's current GPUs, combined with the ever-increasing CPU capability from Intel--has allowed companies like Userful to provide the same level of processing power, synchronization and resolution capability using software, the network and a commercially available off the shelf server rather than proprietary or specialized hardware.
The increase in CPU and GPU capability over the past decade has been a key driver in transforming AV from an industry focused on hardware solutions to an industry driven by software and network-based solutions. The days when expensive proprietary hardware was needed to deploy an LED spectacular or any other type of direct-view LED wall, are over. Instead, companies like Userful allow organizations to deploy large, interactive multi-controller LED walls with a solution that is software-driven, managed through the cloud, adheres to enterprise security and management standards, and requires only commercially-available-off-the-shelf hardware that will be familiar to any IT professional.
One of the important benefits of this is cost savings. Specialized, proprietary hardware always comes with a hefty price tag, and Userful's approach of standard, commercially available off-the-shelf hardware drives down costs. However, there are other important advantages to being able to drive direct view LED walls from software and network-based solution that runs on standard hardware.
By adopting a software-based solution, customers can purchase a single product from a single vendor that includes all the enterprise management, security and control features they need.
In contrast, most traditional video processors used to drive LED walls in the past have required additional management and software packages and layers added on and integrated to deliver the essential management features expected in an AV deployment today including:
Userful offers customers two configuration options for direct-view LED walls, one is connecting an LED controller to the Userful server over the network. The other allows customers to directly connect the LED controllers to the Userful server.
For 1080p or 4k walls with a single LED controller, customers connect that single controller to a Userful adapter which in turn connects over the network to a Userful server. That server can be on-premise or in the cloud. (Deployments that are predominantly video or digital signage can use a cloud server while deployments with more complicated multi-source image processing need an on-premise server).
For any LED wall that requires multiple controllers, Userful offers genlock synchronization for flawless image quality across panels connected to multiple LED controllers. This level of synchronization is uniquely important in an LED deployment that has no bezel meaning the human eye is much more sensitive to even the slightest tearing or seaming between LED panels. Userful achieves perfect synchronization between LED panels by connecting each LED controller directly to a server. This server is still an off-the-shelf commercially available server, still runs Userful software, and is still controlled using Userful Manager, but it is directly connected to the LED wall controllers.
This approach supports the highest resolution and the most LED panels, and it eliminates the proprietary and specialized video processors and media servers that used to be required to deploy spectacular LED walls.