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When You Are Up Against The Wall, Video Mill Has Your Back (Customer Story)

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"Our clients are very excited about the Video Wall and its capabilities."
Hilding Larson, President, Matrix Mobile Television

Using Video Mill to Drive a 10 Display Video Wall.

Let The Games Begin !

Figure 1. The Video Wall (Click to see larger image)
🔍 Click for Larger Image
Figure 1. The Video Wall (Click to see larger image)

Watch the Companion Video
play video See the companion Youtube video that has a live video clip of this video wall in action.

Customer Testimonial
"Videomill does a lot more than just play videos. It does have a learning curve because of all the features it offers. Their Support was very helpful in explaining how the program worked and helped me out of a few programing problems. Once my programing was debugged, it ran perfectly throughout rehearsals and on event day."
- Hilding Larson, President, Matrix Mobile Television

The Requirements
Hilding Larson, president of Matrix Mobile Television, a media services company in San Luis Obispo California, emailed us with an interesting requirement. His client, the NBC television affiliate in San Luis Obispo, requested a video wall for a customer marketing event centered around the 2018 Olympic Games. The wall would consist of one large display at the center to present a Power Point slide show to clients. That display would be surrounded by an outer-ring of smaller displays to play various sports themed videos of various lengths on a repeating loop.

The Video Wall Operational Phases:

  1. While customers are filing into the conference room, the wall will play multiple, simultaneous, action sports videos as a visual backdrop for the meeting. The videos are different lengths in the range of 2 to 3 minutes long. All videos repeat continously. (Figure 1)
  2. When it is time to start the meeting, with a single button click, the presenter pauses all the sports videos, replacing them with a simple logo video to avoid distraction during the marketing presentation. (Figure 2)
  3. The presenter then begins a Power Point slide presentation using the center display. (Figure 2)
  4. At the end of the marketing presentation, with a single button click, the presenter resumes all the sports videos which repeat until the end of a Question and Answer session. (Figure 1)

The Video Mill Solution

Figure 2. Wall Appearance During Marketing Presentation Phase
Figure 2. Wall Appearance During Marketing Presentation Phase
Transitioning between the Video Wall operational phases above turns out to be fairly straight forward using Video Mill .

  • Multiple sports videos are added to the Video Mill Media List. Each video's target display is set to one of the monitors on the wall's outer-ring of displays.
  • Three Video Mill Automation Scripts were created.
    1. A "Start Automation" script starts the sports videos playing on the wall's outer-ring of displays. Each of the sports videos is set to loop continously (replay when it reaches its endpoint). (Figure 1)
    2. A "Pause Videos" script will pause all of the sports videos, then reload all displays with a logo video. (Figure 2)
    3. A "Resume Videos" script stops all the logo videos, then resumes all of the sports videos. (Figure 1)
  • The meeting presenter controls the 3 automation scripts with a 3-button handheld remote control device. Each button is programmed to execute one of the scripts. Virtually any PC-based handheld remote control device can be used with Video Mill .

book iconAlso see the Video Mill Knowledge Base article that details the implementation of this Video Wall.

Gear/Tech Specs

Outer-Ring of Displays Play Various Sports Videos
Outer-Ring of Displays Play Various Sports Videos
  • The large, center monitor is fed from an ATEM switcher that has video and Power Point playback inputs. This display is driven by the presenter's laptop.
  • The Four medium-sized displays are connected to the Video Mill laptop (a Windows 10 laptop with Intel i7 CPU) via a USB-C hub and USB to HDMI connectors.
  • The remaining 5 small displays are connected via HDMI DA (distribution amplifier) to mirror the Video Mill feeds.
  • Info link: USB-C hub.
  • Info link: HDE SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to HDMI Adapter High Definition Audio Video Converter with Cable.

Matrix Mobile Television

Video Mill Product Information

* Photos and video courtesy of Matrix Mobile Television Copyright © 2017.