With video wall controller devices, an image can be scaled across the whole video wall or multiple images are spread out across the video wall. It can also be a combination of both in the case of Picture in Picture (PIP).
Video wall controller (or processors) is aimed at running large video walls. A video wall controller receives one or numerous sources and then splits the content for delivery to multiple displays. It generally enables administrators to manage the configuration or contents of their video wall. Two major types of video wall controllers are discussed below:
- Hardware-based Video Wall Controller: This video wall controller is an appliance-based processor and built on a proprietary FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) hardware platform, designed with a dedicated processor, high-speed cross-point video bus, and a customized and embedded operating system. The hardware-based video wall controllers are almost plug-and-play and are suitable for small to large scale video walls (up to 144 screens or more).
- Software-based Video Wall Controller: This video wall controller uses standard or industrial PCs, instead of proprietary hardware. A software-based PC & video-card controller is a computer running an operating system (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) in a PC or server furnished with distinct multiple-output graphics cards and optionally with video capture input cards. The content is handled natively by the CPU (and often by the GPU as well), and a video wall controller software installed in this PC offers advanced structure and content management tools. The PC-based video wall controller is normally used for small-scale video walls (typically 16 screens or less) due to the limits of the PC configuration and Gen-bus bandwidth.
