January 2018 – RPT Motion Inc. Digital Sign Mounts

RPT PopUp Portable Video Wall Stacks

RPT PopUp Stacks are the building blocks of the RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Wall System. Each RPT PopUp Stack is a precision mount for a column of two, three or four 49″ or 55″ Ultra Thin Bezel Video Wall monitors in landscape orientation.

An introductory YouTube video on this system:

Here’s the PopUp Stack family picture for the RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Wall System. Each model shown folded and in the stages of deployment: Folded (if it’s a foldable version), Two High, and Three High. Not shown is the RPT PopTopUltra, an optional quick connect fourth row of monitors, which can be selectively added to RPT PopTopMax and RPT PopTop three high stacks if you need to deploy huge arrays.

RPT PopUp Stacks, without monitors, are designed to roll through standard office doors, onto passenger elevators, and for local deliveries into trucks or trailers, or for Common Carrier LTL freight into the smallest possible road-cases.

RPT PopUp Stacks connect horizontally with precision machined quick connect spacers. In a few minutes these precision spacers form RPT PopUp Stacks into a precisely spaced, rigid and precision aligned structural array of RPT GHB series 3-axis micro-adjustable mounts ready to drop monitors onto.

RPT PopUp Starter System:

RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Walls protect your initial investment by offering an upgrade and retrofit path to build larger arrays, so there’s nothing to lose by choosing a small starter system.

RPT PopUp Portable Video Wall basic starter system, a 2 x 2 array, front and rear deployed views. This level is the starting point for small business local rental offerings as well as for corporate or commercial uses where a video wall that can quickly move to a different location within a facility or a different facility is valuable.

Extending the RPT PopUp Video Wall System:

By adding as many additional stacks as you need, any rectangular array of 2, 3 or 4 monitors high can be quickly deployed. Larger arrays require a proper Video Wall Controller. RPT can add optional custom mounted ThinGlobal POE ZeroClients and with an HDMI over Ethernet video wall controller like Userful’s Software Video Wall Controller or MonitorsAnywhere Network Video Wall it becomes very simple to reconfigure one or multiple video walls and display contents from one or multiple inputs to quickly display complex content on the array. For speed and connection convenience, RPT has options for including a small rack mounted Power Distribution and Gigabit POE Network Switch options on some of your stacks.

Here is an example of a 2 high x 4 wide array, assembled from two RPT PopUp starter systems plus one extra set of precision connector bars.

RPT

RPT PopUp Portable Video Wall Multi-Height Arrays:

PopUp Stacks in an RPT PopUp Video Wall have the same bottom row height, but don’t need top be deployed at the same top height. Here’s a simple multi-height deployment assembled from a single three high stack added to a 2 x 2 starter array:

Here’s a PopTop 3×3 Portable Video Wall

Thinking outside the box a bit, owning a 3 x 3 system with 9 monitors, adding a single extra RPT PopUp Stack to your RPT PopUp Video Wall System allows you to deploy two 2 x 2 Arrays in the same or different locations. Or deploy a single 2 high x 4 wide array, plus as many other combinations of 4 single or joined stacks as you have monitors for. That kind of deployment flexibility maximizes flexibility of uses, as well as customer options and deployments in rental businesses, significantly increasing use and payback or income.

The RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Wall System allows you to quickly deploy small 2 x 2 to truly monster video walls quickly, accurately and reliably. To protect your investment you can start with a small system small and upgrade or expand capabilities incrementally as your needs or markets grow.

Single facility, corporate road show circuit, or small to large rental programs: just let us how big your array should be and how you would imagine using a freestanding portable video wall and we’ll propose a system that meets your needs today and expands to your future needs. Contact RPT Motion for more information on the RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Wall System:

Tiling Video Wall Monitors

Tiling: Can or should you lose the Video Wall Controller?

The picture above is a 2 x 2 deployment of the RPT PopUp Portable Modular Video Wall System. This modular, expandable and extensible system allows users to safely dismantle, transport and redeploy small to very large video walls quickly, safely and accurately. The modules wheel through standard office doors and using passenger elevators. The 2 x 2 Entry level system above, in a corporate facility or local rental environment, might be a great application that avoids the cost and complexity of a video wall controller and gives users a simple single port input. Any bigger and you probably want the capabilities and expense of a Software Video Wall Controller.

In the chart above, the left column is a 4K resolution array of 2 x 2 landscape array of 1080P monitors (1920 wide x 1080 high). The third column, a 4 x 4 array of 1080P monitors is 8K displayable resolution which has 4 times as many addressable pixels as a 4K resolution.

You can also compare square footage of an array screen. Given same monitor size, a 3 x 3 array has resolution and screen area 225% of the 2 x 2. A 3 x 3 array of 49″ monitors is over 7 feet high (plus clearance from the floor) and over 10 feet wide.

Resolution Confusion

I recently had a conversation with a video wall customer that highlighted significant confusion some users can feel when implementing a video wall. His high resolution content was the simplest possible: a single 4K full screen feed of 4K movie playing from a dedicated PC in a loop for a museum environment on a 2 x 2 array of large monitors.

Were they better off buying 4K monitors or 1080P monitors? What was the simplest and most cost effective video output from the PC to the array? The question of signage monitor tiling came up, and the customer had been confused by prior misinformation. Once they understood the issues at hand, they chose an array of 1080P monitors able to tile 4K input.

What made this application possible without a video wall controller is the simplest possible full screen single input content, and a perfect match between the 4K input resolution and the 4K array resolution.

Typical Video Walls:

Typically Video Wall Arrays are built with 1080P monitors connected to a PC video card with multiple outputs, to a hardware video wall controller, or to a software HDMI over Ethernet video wall controller like Userful or MonitorsAnywhere. The bigger the array, the more wires and configuration options are available. There are excellent reasons to use Userful, Monitors Anywhere, or other video wall controllers, but tiling might be a good choice if your content is simple, your array small and you understand the limitations.

Content is important in your decision:

Sometimes we can avoid the complexities and cost of a Video Wall controller or use of a multi-output video card and the related complexity and cost. Before we evaluate and choose the best option, we first need to understand the limits of the content we will display and also the limits of the controller options we might choose.

Tiling: Input Resolution and Output resolution

Most serious digital signage monitors offer tiling options with single input and a daisy chained array of monitors. Earlier models have generally produced less than satisfactory results because they expand the 1080P (1920 x 1080) input signal to as many monitors as you have in your array. You can manufacture or simulate resolution missing from your input.

Each monitor is assigned an array location at set-up and displays only the proper assigned section of the 1080P signal for that assigned location. A 5 x 5 tiled array of monitors will display each pixel in the 1080p signal at a 5 pixel x 5 pixel “clump” of pixels that may be easily visible. Your array surface may be huge, but your resolution won’t be larger than the original input, so an image viewed from close distances might be grainy.

1080P Full Screen Content as input

If the content input to an array will always be a single 1080P signal displayed full screen, then even the most impressive and expensive video wall controller or monitors can’t improve your displayed resolution. Whether you tile in the monitors or expand in the controller the results will be basically the same. If 1080P will your only content input and will always be output to a full array screen, you will lose display resolution whether you output to a single 4K monitor or an array of 1080P monitors tiled.

4K Full Screen Content

4K inputs might be a single 4K PC monitor output, or perhaps a single 4K output from another 4K source like a 4K Blu-Ray player, 4K AppleTV, etc. If we have 4K content to display, we should have the full 4K monitor resolution from input to screen and be able to display it fully.

A “starter array” of 2×2 landscape 1080P monitors technically has exactly a 4K displayable monitor resolution of 3820 x 2160. If your content is produced and delivered in 4K resolution and will always be displayed full array screen, this seems like a perfect fit.

The newest generations of many digital signage 1080P monitors now offer 4K inputs that can be tiled over daisy-chained arrays, allowing full 4K display at full resolution 4K on a 2×2 Array of 1080P monitors without using a Video Wall Controller. The Viewsonic 49″ and 55″ and Philips 49 and 55″ Monitors that we have qualified for RPT PopUp Video Walls have this functionality to display 4K on 2 x 2 tiled array of daisy-chained 1080P monitors. We suggest that you download the manuals and understand the limitations that may vary between manufacturers and models when 4K to 2×2 Tiling.

These monitors also offer bezel compensation via the monitor set-up menus, so you’ve get everything you need to present a full screen, high quality 4K image from a single 4K input without the expense of a video all controller.

Ultra Thin Bezel (3.5mm Bezel to Bezel) 4K input 1080P signage monitors are common and have been dropping significantly in price as I write this.

In conclusion, for the simplest content and arrays, the availability of 4K monitor tiling on 1080P monitors brings reduced cost and simplicity of set-up to 2 x 2 or larger Video Wall Arrays. If your content is single output full screen understand the limitations of tiling, you can make an intelligent decision whether you should use monitor tiling instead of a video wall controller.

Ask us for more information on RPT PopUp Portable Video Walls in 2 x 2 Arrays with tiling:

RPT PopUp Video Wall Introduction

This will begin a series of posts leading to the launch of RPT Motion’s Portable PopUp Video Wall.

PopUp Kiosks, PopUp Boutiques and PopUp Stores are modern buzzwords and marketing tools. We’re also seeing growth in small private single supplier trade shows, training events and seasonal product launches. Usually self-managed, these events are popping up in more locations, at smaller venues, even local hotels.

Portable PopUp Video Walls would be a great marketing tool, but quality video wall arrays are difficult to PopUp. As a result, rental video walls are usually not available in smaller markets or hotels where lower potential volumes make local supply either inaccessible or very expensive. Even in larger markets Rental Video Walls are usually expensive to deliver, set-up and configure. With high set-up costs, smaller or shorter events just can’t afford a video wall. As a result, conventional Video Walls are expensive to rent and unavailable in many smaller markets.

Portable Video Walls are difficult to deploy multiple times quickly and usually difficult to reconfigure to different array sizes and inputs. This is largely because there has been no available fully integrated Portable Video Wall deployment solution that is flexible, cost effective and convenient. As well, the deployed quality and ease of content presentation varies widely from horrible to acceptable.

RPT Motion Inc. has been in the industrial automation business for 37+ years and has built custom modular portable video wall mounting systems for close to a decade. These have generally been custom built for customer trade shows and corporate road shows. Some of these systems have been deployed hundreds of times since new and are still in use. When we’ve attended trade shows with our custom modular video walls, we consistently have the fastest installed and best aligned wall in the show. But our first generation modular video walls were aimed at single layouts, rectangular or artistic and were excellent free-standing mounting systems without full integration.

Integrating a complete plug and play, high quality portable video wall system is a complex multi-disciplinary task that takes time, money, knowledge and risk beyond what most Video Wall end users are willing to invest and usually beyond their level of technical competence. Often the solution chosen is expensive and more often it’s a tinkerer’s nightmare to set-up and configure late into the night before the show.

What if you could walk in and confidently PopUp an aligned and configured video wall and display content in under an hour? Then anytime you needed to move that wall, even through people sized doorways, down hallways, into passenger elevators and again have content up in an hour or less at the next location? What if, using the same hardware you could configure a 2 x 2 wall today, a 3 x 3 wall tomorrow and even a 3 x 30 wall or any other combination of walls if you had enough monitors, space and content?

An example of RPT PopUp flexibility adding value would be a small Video Wall rental operation owning 18 monitors, usually deployed as two 3 x 3 arrays. Each 3 x 3 array could also be deployed as two 2 x 2 arrays, so you could service one large (3 x 3) and two small (2 x 2) rentals from the same pool of monitors, or deploy a single super wide array of 3 high x 6 wide at the CEO’s mansion for a March Madness Bash or Superbowl Party displaying multiple feeds from 4K and 1080P sources? With our top level PopMax series, you could deploy a 4 x 4 Array of 55″ monitors and output full resolution 8K content on a 220″ diagonal screen

In 2018 these scenarios are not just possible, it’s all easy and quick with RPT PopUp Video Walls.

RPT PopUp Video Wall: What’s Changed?

There needed to be a better way.

It’s the start of 2018 and we’re in the right place at the right time. Over the past few years a lot has changed in the technology of video walls to help enable RPT’s PopUp Video Wall Systems. The two major industry changes are Monitors and Controllers. One makes a video wall less expensive and one makes a video wall less expensive and easier to configure and implement.

Monitors: Video walls need a bunch of big monitors. You don’t need 4K monitors in Video walls because you don’t have content or display ability to benefit from all that increased resolution in an array. High quality 49” and 55” ultra-thin bezel 1080P video wall monitors, the sweet spot for RPT PopUp Video Wall Arrays, are now dropping significantly in price.

Controllers: The evolution of modern and flexible software video wall controllers with HDMI over Ethernet Zero Clients, such as Userful’s Software Video Wall Controller is advancing rapidly. The configuration of video walls and connections of content and inputs to video walls is now easier and more flexible than ever. In the simplest deployment a mid-range Userful Server can be configured as a simple appliance directing a single user output (4K or 1080P) to one or more video walls networked with Gigabit Ethernet. Extended to maximum, a high end Userful server can configure one huge or multiple smaller video walls, can use 4K and multiple 1080P inputs, Ethernet cameras, web and locally stored content all configured, scaled, scheduled and looped as needed.

A high end Userful Software Video Wall Server can handle one hundred monitors. If you needed a 2 high x 50 wide, 3 high x 33 wide, 4 high x 25 wide or multiple arrays of some random mix of heights and widths, Userful can deliver content to it. The RPT PopUp Video Wall System is 100% ready to deploy in that or any other configuration. A more likely real world example is that a 20 wide foot trade show booth rear wall can be completely filled with a 2 or 3 high x 5 wide array of 55” monitors.

Ask us for more information on RPT PopUp Portable Video Walls