Creating a Video Wall using VLC - Actineon

ACTINEON, INC.

Creating a Video Wall using VLC

1.00

Davidson Hom

3/26/2013

This document contains instructions on how to set up a video wall using the open source media player VLC.

Date Revision Author Change 03/26/13 1.00 DH Initial creation

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Contents 1 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 1

2 Initial setup ...................................................................................................................................... 1

3 Configure a video wall with the Panoramix filter .............................................................................. 2

4 Configure a video wall with the Wall video filter .............................................................................. 9

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1 Overview VLC is an open source cross-platform simple and fast media player. One interesting feature of VLC is its

limited support for video walls. There are two methods to achieve a video wall: the wall video filter and

the Panoramix filter. Vendor specific technologies such as EyeFinity are not required in order to

implement video walls with VLC.

2 Initial setup Do not download the latest version of VLC, currently 2.0.5 as of this writing. There are issues that

prevent correct full screen operation. Instead, go to the ftp archive and download version 1.1.x. For

Windows version 1.1.11 is recommended. The ftp archive can be found under:

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/

Install VLC with the recommended settings.

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Configure a video wall with the Panoramix filter

Always reset preferences before making any changes to the video filters. This can be done by clicking

Tools->Preferences

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Then click the “Reset Preferences” button at the bottom of the page.

You will be prompted “Are you sure you want to reset your VLC media player preferences?” Click the

“OK” button.

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Now click Tools->Preferences again.

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At the bottom of the Preferences page, click the Show settings->All radio button. Then expand the

Video and click Filters. Under Video output filter module check Panoramix: wall with overlap video

filter.

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Expand the Filters tab and click Panoramix. Change the following settings:

length of the overlapping area (in %)-> 0

height of the overlapping area (in %) -> 0

Attenuation -> Unchecked

Then click the “Save” button to save the changes.

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Now go to Media->Open File… and select the video to play.

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Go to Tools->Effects and Filters.

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Select the Video Effects tab and scroll right to the Vout/Overlay tab. Confirm Panoramix is checked and

the correct number of Rows and Columns are configured. Then press the “Close” button.

Double-click the video to switch to fullscreen. At this point there will only be one fullscreen window.

Double-click the video again to switch out of fullscreen mode. There will now be one window per

display. Move the windows to the appropriate display and double-click any of the windows to go to

fullscreen on all the video windows.

3 Configure a video wall with the Wall video filter Always reset preferences before making any changes to the video filters. Please see the beginning of

Section 3. Configure a video wall with the Panoramix filter for instructions on resetting preferences.

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Click Tools->Preferences.

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At the bottom of the Preferences page, click the Show settings->All radio button. Then expand the

Video and click Filters. Under Video output filter module check Wall video filter.

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Expand the Filters tab and click Image wall. Change the Number of columns and rows to the appropriate

values. Change the aspect ratio if necessary. For example a 2x2 display at 1920x1080 requires the

Element aspect ratio to be 4:3.

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Now go to Media->Open File… and select the video to play.

Windows displaying portions of the video will open. Move the windows to the appropriate display and

double-click any of the windows to go to fullscreen on all the video windows.