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Making A Videowall

Posted by michael on from the one-is-not-enough dept.

Ur@eus writes "Zeeshan Ali Khattak has made a videowall using Red Hat Linux, GStreamer and commodity hardware. The solution was made based on the need to create a flexible and cheap solution for use in Pakistani Schools and Universities using commodity hardware. To find out how this was done and some more details, and of course some cool pictures, check out the Video Whale project homepage."

10 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Cropping needs improving by fruey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Great idea, looks good... but in most video walls you have to allow for the space between each monitor when you crop, or reduce the physical space between each. Here, there's way too much space between each screen (both vertically and horizontally) and the images look strange because the cropping doesn't allow for it.

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    1. Re:Cropping needs improving by helmutjd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think in this case they would've been better off with a different brand/type of monitor altogether... those ones have far too much plastic trim around them. Cropping that much out of the movie would really kill the image, and the only other alternative would be to remove all the monitors from their mouldings to get 'em closer together (not fun). Sweet project, though.

  2. Why? by Omkar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A video wall seems extremely cool but uniquely useless, especially for a school in Pakistan. Can anyone tell me why this wall was built? The only use I can think of is to play Super Smash Bros: Melee. Oh, and the cropping needs work.

    1. Re:Why? by davey_darling · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My first thought was that something like this could be a fairly low buck way to set up a cool video display at a nightclub or party..

      You could gather any old mismatched monitors and throw them up on a wall somewhere, hell, even just stack 'em on top of each other and strap 'em together for that cool 'arty' look...

      I'm sure there have been many art exhibits that have done similar things before. (you know the ones, they usually highlight the terrible things that television has done to our society and whatnot) Now you can do it too!

      Hell, it's a few days late, but I'm sure you could whip up a pretty spooky halloween display with this thing.. Show a creepy movie on displays scattered about the place, instant kinda high-tech terror..

  3. Wouldn't four quadheads be more usefull by baschie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It seems that four computers with four pci videocards would cost about the same as one computer with 4 Matrox G200 MMS Quadhead videocards ($699). You would not need all kinds of software distributing the videosource over four computers and it would make administrating and moving the whole system much easier.

  4. Wait a Minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Don't forget: this stuff is for the wealthiest 5%. The rest of the population occupies itself with eking out a living.

  5. Re:Why not use old LCDs? by kubla2000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You could salvage LCDs from old laptops.

    Not so easily done: http://www.eio.com/lcdconnect.htm as far as I can tell, you'd have to get into some pretty heavy-duty electronics and buy convertor cards to handle the different input expected by a laptop display from that which is delivered by a vga card.

  6. Re:Listen to you! by lucifuge31337 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would have been much more impressed if it were scrounged hardware. The monitors are new...not the plastic on the display cable of most of them still. All in all, if looks like crap, and the cost of parts exceeds a better alternative. I call that a bad idea.

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  7. eliminating the spaces... by rusty0101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have seen several notes deriding the spaces between the displays. The "fixes" suggested for this include using LCDs (which I suspect are outside of the budget), or disassembling the monitors and bringing the CRTs closer together. (anyone want to discuss the safty issues of pulling one of the center displays out to replace it?)

    I suspect it would be far cheaper, to use fresnel lenses in front of the CRT's with modifications to the rack they built to center the CRT on the fresnel, and mask off the power light for the monitor.

    Will it be perfect? No, but I think it will be more flexiable.

    -Rusty

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  8. There is another good use... by gozar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, for this particular application I feel that a projector would be better utilized, but there is another cool way this could be used. By using just two screens you could watch a letterbox movie! That is something you could try at home, with just two video cards. Get a couple of 19" monitors, remove the cases, put them close together, and viola, your own wide screen high resolution monitor...

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