If you've ever been dazzled by a big screen, you've seen a video wall. These high impact screens are increasingly used in retail stores, especially higher impact locations such as flagship stores or shopping malls. But they're also a popular addition to conferences, church events, office foyers, transport hubs and even in educational settings.

Lets dig into the world of video walls, and how you can use them to your advantage...

A video wall is a digital display using either individual smaller screens to make up the display area, or one single large display screen. Video walls are often seen in high end retail environments, at events such as conferences or trade shows, and they're also a striking feature  in sports stadiums, hotels and even office foyers.

When multiple screens make up the video wall display, content can be played either separately across each monitor, or as one big picture, by splitting content across individual screens.

One of the main benefits of using video walls is that they are very eye-catching and engaging. With the larger aspect ratio, longer viewing distance, brightness and action occurring on the screen, they naturally draw the eye and can be visually striking in the right place.

As such, a video wall can be a useful addition for when you either need to draw an audience, or if you want to ensure your content is seen and deliver a critical message.

Video walls can also be a fun way to encourage your audience to interact with the screen (as shown in the Lenovo use case below), or to allow more room for content displays such as streaming video, bold messages or striking images.

Due to their large display area, video walls are often used in relatively open indoor spaces. Because the viewing distance is longer, video walls can be used to draw the attention to a specific area within the space, or create a bold impression.

Some of the most common locations for video walls are:

Retail venues such as shopping malls or flagship stores

Trade shows or conferences - often in the lobby

Basically, video walls can be set up anywhere you might want more impact than a small screen.

ScreenCloud powered the digital signage network at the America's Cup in Barcelona, which consisted of several stage areas with video walls, as well as other zones behind the scenes in the team areas and media zone.

While video walls and billboards might appear the same, they often serve different purposes and use slightly different technologies.

Digital billboards are often designed specifically for promotional content, such as adverts.

However, video walls can be used for different types of customized content, from your own video or promos, to announcements or live streaming/narrowcasting a local event.

Another difference with video walls vs billboards is that video walls can be temporary structures. You can hire people to setup a video or display wall for events, or move your video wall to a different location.

Billboards tend to be fixed in a specific place, and their environment is usually chosen for the visual impact it might have with local traffic.

So, although you can use a video wall as a billboard, chances are that you won't use a billboard as a video wall.

Below is a great example of a social media video wall at the checkout in a large retail store.

Can you use a regular TV for a video wall?

Setting up video wall solutions doesn't have to mean specific made for purpose monitors. You can use readily available consumer grade TVs and monitors - although these are not designed to perform for long periods of time.

However with the ubiquity of large screen TVs in our homes, a single TV in your lobby won’t be that impressive anymore.

The largest single TV you can purchase is around 98”, which is a screen around 86” wide (218 cm) and 48” tall (122 cm). That’s plenty large enough for many office, factory, and other work digital signage use-cases, but not large enough even for menu signage at an average fast food restaurant today. Theaters have far larger screens, only they’re powered by projectors, and require near-darkness to be clearly visible.

For the largest digital signage, you need a video wall made up of multiple screens. And there are multiple ways to build one

Using LCD screens or LED panels for video walls

LCD screens, including TVs, computer monitors, and signage-focused professional displays, are the screens that are easiest to buy and install. You see them used as quick-service restaurant menu boards and airport arrival boards, and somewhat less commonly as storefront signage in retail displays.

They’re detailed enough to read from a close distance, with 4K or higher resolution per screen. And they can be powered by standard PCs, much like standard digital signage. They’re backlit by LEDs, so you may sometimes see them called “LED TVs,” but the actual picture is shown on an LCD screen.

LED panels, used for full-wall displays, digital billboards, and the Vegas Sphere among other use cases, can power the largest displays you can dream up.

Typically built from 50cm square LED panels, an LED video wall may contain dozens or hundreds of individual panels that, together, make up a single display that appears seamless from a distance. Their brightness and color come from the same individual bulbs.

They’re lower resolution, though, and the individual LED lights - instead of your content - will be visible at close distance. They also require dedicated cabling, power suppliers, and controller hardware, things a TV includes built-in.

But, they’re individually replaceable; if one panel breaks, you can swap in another easily without replacing the whole display setup.

Each option is better for different purposes. LCD screens are best for a quick rollout, and for screens that may be viewed at close distances. LED panels are best for planned rollouts and larger budgets, for the largest screens that will be viewed from further away.

Start first with your location’s needs. Think about your facilities and the location where you want to build a video wall. Is your video wall used for office or corporate digital signage, as an event or or as part of a welcome display.

Consider the size of your wall area and how close the average viewer will be to your screens. Those give you clues to which type of screens are best for your needs.

TVs and monitors, with 4k or higher resolutions, are far more readable up-close than an LED video wall. A 55” TV is clear and readable at a 7.7’ (or 2.35m) distance, according to Rtings, with the distance increasing for larger sized TVs (an 85” TV is best viewed from at least 11.9’ or 3.63 meters away).

An 8K TV might be clearly readable at closer distances; an HD TV might be clearest further away.

LED video walls need far more distance to be clearly visible. The average LED video wall panel has 2-4mm gaps between the LED bulbs (known as pixel pitch). Stand close enough and you’ll see individual lights instead of the intended picture.

The further away you stand, the better the picture will look. That works well for visual effects, like the animated Los Vegas Dome, while text will need to be proportionally larger the farther away viewers are from your screen. Use the 150:1 rule, recommended by Level 3: 1 inch tall text on an LED video wall is readable by people 150 inches away.

Perfect for promotions viewed from across a store, but too tall for a menu viewed a few feet away.

It’s all a tradeoff. Larger screens, best viewed further away, with the illusion of a seamless display. Smaller screens, best viewed up-close, with bezels visible to those who notice but that can be minimized with smart design.

LED video walls can also be used in more unique ways. TVs only come in rectangles. LED panels do too, but they’re small enough that they could be staggered, angled, and covered with framing for an illusion of a round or curved display. That’s why the most unique signage in public buildings are all powered by LEDs, as often are stage backdrop signage in concert venues and church video walls.

What to consider when choosing your video wall display

There are a few more considerations to keep in mind when deciding between LCD screens and LED panels for your video wall:

Brightness: Consumer TVs typically support only 300-500 in standard mode, while professional displays or HRD mode can support 1000 nits of brightness (as a comparison, the Apple Watch has a 1000 nit display, while the Apple Watch Ultra has a 3,000 nit display for outdoor use). TVs are also often glossy and reflective. LED panels support 3,500 nits or higher, and are often built for outside use. That makes LCDs best indoors in environments with little glare, and LEDs better for bright and outdoor environments.

Viewing angles: The best LCD TVs tend to have around 70° viewing angles—meaning you can stand as much as 35° from the center of the TV and still clearly view content. LED video panels have far wider viewing angles, up to 120-180°, meaning you can be almost 90° from the center of the panel and still see the image, perhaps at slightly lower brightness and clarity than dead-on. LCD screens work great when viewed directly, such as at a checkout counter, while LED panels are better for being viewed in a large room or outdoors from any direction.

Budget: Individual consumer-grade TVs may only cost around $1,000. Professional-grade TVs, such as the 75” Samsung QBB, might cost $2,300 or so. Individual LED panels are reasonably cheap, starting at $600 per 1.5’ square pane, but you’d need to spend $4,800 for eight panels in 2x4 arrangement to match a 75” TV size, plus controllers, power supplies, and additional mounting hardware.

Installation: Building maintenance teams or local TV installers could easily install large TVs. LED video walls will require custom installation. With each pane weighing as much as 62 pounds (30kg), LED video walls require a professional rigger with signage installation experience.

LCD video walls are the best fit for smaller budgets, indoor digital display use, and text-heavy content. LED video walls are best for custom shapes and sizes, challenging visibility scenarios, and large graphic content.

Many of these screens might also come with their own digital signage CMS, but we strongly recommend using a made for purpose digital signage solution such as ScreenCloud.  

The simplest video wall is simply a very large TV. 86” TVs are widely available today at around $1,000, and 98” TVs are available for 3-5x that price.

That means it’s possible to have a 7-foot wide and 4-foot tall video wall with a single display. No bezels, no panel gaps, no multiple video feeds to worry about.

That simplifies everything. You’ll need a somewhat larger wall bracket, and several technicians, to mount the TV on your wall, but everything else works the same as any other digital signage.

You could use built-in smart TV features to power the TV, or use off-the-shelf professional signage hardware such as the ScreenCloud OS P1 device to turn your TV into digital signage.

If nearly-adult-height is enough for your video wall, a single extra-large TV might be the best option.

For larger video walls, in an indoor setup where bezels aren’t an issue? An LCD video wall made up of multiple TVs is the best place to start.

Consumer TVs offer the cheapest upfront cost, with budget 50” 4K TVs starting at around $300 and 75”-86” 4K TVs at around $1000.

Most will have somewhat sizable bezels, typically around a half inch or 1.2cm wide on higher end TVs and larger on budget TVs, and may have larger bezels and the brand logo on the bottom bezel.

They’ll also be designed to be used a few hours a day, and can last from 25-50,000 hours under optimal conditions, which means they may lose brightness, show burn-in or color degradation, or have bright hotspots with all-day use.

OLED TVs offer richer colors and higher contrast ratios, but may even lower estimated lifespans and a higher chance of burn-in.

Professional displays and commercial-grade TVs cost 2-4x more than consumer TVs upfront, but include business-ready features.

Logos are typically hidden on the back, with 1.7-3.5mm bezels that are far less noticeable from a distance. They’re built to be run continuously, typically built for either 16 or 24-hour-per-day playback and warrantied for 50-100,000 hours of use. They’re also brighter, with cooling equipment to keep them operating in harsh conditions at max brightness. Check ScreenCloud’s consumer TV and professional display buyer guides for screen and brand recommendations.

Then, calculate the number of TVs you need for your video wall. Say you want a video wall that’s 10 feet wide. Using Rtings’ estimate of screen width, a 70” TV is around 61” wide. Two of those side-by-side would be just over 120” wide, and if you want the same ratio as a standard TV, use four displays in a 2x2 arrangement for a 10 foot wide, 5.6 foot tall video wall.

Mounting, power, and other connectivity needs come next. Each mounting bracket will need to be positioned precisely if you want your TVs to line up correctly, and each display will need its own power connection and HDMI cable. Check ScreenCloud’s TV Mount recommendations to start your bracket search.

Now, how will you push video to your screens and have them act like a single display? Standalone media players only include a single HDMI port and at best support 4k resolution. A video wall with multiple TVs needs either a dedicated PC to power each display and merge them into a single virtual screen, or a video wall controller that splits a single video stream to multiple HDMI outputs.

The video wall controller is the easiest option. A multi-stream transport or MST hub takes a single HDMI input and splits it for multiple displays. You’ll need one that supports extended mode, not just mirror mode, which would show the same picture on each screen - such as those from J-Tech or ISEEVY. Those can cost from around $400 for a 4-display setup powered by DisplayPort, to $1,000 for a 6 display HDMI-powered setup. But, at best, each screen will show HD or lower quality video as the controller splits a single 4K stream between the displays. Please note that only standard ratios, 16:9 or 16:10 for 2x2 or 3x3 video wall setups, are supported by the ScreenCloud player.

The best option to power an LCD video wall is a PC. You need a desktop PC with PCIe port expansion, plus one or more video cards with multiple HDMI or DisplayPort outputs. AMD FirePro or Radeon Pro, Nvidia Quadro or some Geforce models, or Matrox video cards all are designed to support 4 or more HDMI or DisplayPort outputs. Depending on your PC, you could add multiple cards to support 8 or more displays. Or, you could buy a custom rack-mounted PC like the iBase for 16 HDMI outputs.

Alternatively, if you use computer monitors rather than TVs with USB-C DisplayPort 1.2 or newer, you may be able to daisy-chain multiple monitors together from a single DisplayPort output from your computer. You may also be able to power multiple displays individually from your computer’s USB-C ports (check your PC and video card specs to see how much it will support).

Pull it all together in your PC’s Windows display settings or your video card’s software. For built-in video cards and up to 3 displays, open Intel’s Graphics Control Panel and check the Multiple Display Setting for the collage option that lets you treat each screen as a section of a larger single display. NVIDIA’s Control Panel includes a similar option under Set up Multiple Displays. AMD’s Eyefinity shows up in Windows’ default Display Settings, to arrange displays the same way you’d set your screen resolution in Windows.

And now, your TVs will act as one. Play a movie, start a PowerPoint presentation, or run digital signage software like ScreenCloud to build informative displays and share dashboards, up-to-date weather and transit info, promotions and slides, menus, and more to share with your audience. Want your bezels to be less obvious? Use a black background, and arrange text to not be located near the center of your display wall.

For the largest video walls, in bright areas that need to be visible from a long distance, LED panels are the best way to build your video wall. They can be (almost) any shape and size you can dream up.

Start first with the panels. LED video panels individually have a far lower resolution than even an HD TV, much less a 4K or 8K screen. Most LED panels will have 2-4mm pixel pitch, the gap between individual LEDs. For most indoor uses, the best options will be panes with 2mm or lower pixel pitch. For even higher quality signage, the newest MiniLED screens from suppliers like Planar have as low as 0.6mm pixel pitch that approach TV quality. That will make the image still visible when standing closer to the screen, and less likely to have a moray effect in photos and visible (versus wider pixel width where panel lines and moray may be visible, as above). The lower the pixel pitch, though, the more expensive the panel.

LED panels tend to come in squares that can be arranged however you want. You could turn an entire wall into a screen, if you want, as long as the dimensions line up fairly closely to a multiple of your video pane size. And since average panes are 50 cm squares, it’s easy to calculate the total number of panes you’ll need.

Unlike a TV, with HDMI ports and plugs built-in, each LED pane needs power and video connection. That means that in addition to the panels, you’ll also need a video processor to accept HDMI and other video inputs, a sending card to split that video signal across each LED video pane, and CAT6 ethernet cabling to connect each screen. Each pane will also need a power adaptor, along with mounting hardware to bring it all together. You’ll also need a media player, such as a ScreenCloud P1 or a custom PC for higher resolution, to push video and slides to your signage, relying on the video processor and sending card to split the video between each of the LED panes.

It’s fairly easy to buy a standard large rectangular LED video wall, such as a 137”, 6-pane LED video wall, for around $9000, for a plug-and-play setup. Larger video walls and more detailed setups that, say, wrap around a curved wall or appear non-rectangular, may be even more expensive and require custom panels and mounting hardware. For those, you’ll need to work with local providers to get a custom build installed in your facilities, with budgets starting from $50k.

Video walls can be a great way to display messages, from retail or events, to religious venues or public spaces. Find out about video walls in our guide.

How to get content to play across multiple screens in one video wall display.

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