Tips for Designing a Video Wall: Display Selection

Tips for Designing a Video Wall: Display Selection

Without a doubt, a large video wall is a high-impact strategy for delivering targeted content and capturing the attention of customers, visitors or employees. But an appropriate display type must be chosen according to the installation space and requirements. Here are some examples of selecting the right displays for video walls.

Retail Shops

Video walls in retail shops usually play advertising content for the items sold in the shop, and they must be easily seen by passersby and customers within the shop. Video walls are often used to show product features, colors, and details, and emphasize them from a location that can be easily seen from the customer routes.

Video walls can be used to show the true size of the product and advertise a promotion or a product behind the counter. The lighting in retail shops is usually bright, so it is best to use an indoor display with high brightness. Video walls with high brightness could also be considered for window-facing settings according to the brightness of the sunlight.

Broadcast Stations

The cameras in broadcasting stations capture the videos played on the video walls, so the video walls may require color temperature calibration according to the lighting and camera settings. When a product with no options is selected, it may need to be replaced if the color temperature of the screen is not compatible. Lighting or reflections of people on the surface of the video walls may disrupt screen visibility, so choosing a product with a high haze may be required to prevent reflection. It is better to use a display with a thin bezel since the viewing distance is short and you don’t want any video distortion, but it is necessary to choose a model that fits the customer’s budget when designing the system.

Control Rooms

Narrow bezels are required for video walls in control rooms to prevent video distortion. But when used with the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, which displays lines, connections, and system diagrams, it is preferred to use DVLED displays that do not show the bezel line. Additionally, a product that doesn’t show afterimages after displaying a fixed image for 24 hours, 7 days a week, must be chosen.

Large Landmarks

Shopping malls or public facilities sometimes use unique video walls to attract attention. Thin, flexible OLED products can be installed on curved surfaces to enhance the immersive effect of the video content, so they are the ideal products to maximize the use of landmarks.

Airports

Large video walls are used to announce the flight schedule and check-in information to passengers in airports. A display with high brightness that doesn’t show afterimages with fixed content must be chosen to increase visibility.

Following these guidelines will help make the most of a video wall deployment. When combined with an effective content strategy and high-quality, high-resolution content, these guidelines can ensure an impactful presentation to targeted audiences.

 

 

Tips for Designing a Video Wall: Understanding Customer Requirements and Environment

Video walls are impressively large screens created by tiling multiple displays together. Displays such as LCD panels or OLED panels, DVLED displays, projector screens, and rear-projection cubes are all used to compose video walls. The purpose of a video wall is to present content with high visual impact and critical details to attract and hold viewer attention.

Video walls are used for delivering information or advertising products in places such as control rooms, meeting rooms, broadcast stations, airports, retail stores, and others. What’s more, cases where giant video walls are being used as landmarks to attract people are increasing.

Displays used for video walls have a narrow bezel to minimize video distortion between the screens, provide functions of operating content and controlling monitors for multiple displays (Video/LAN/RS-232C Daisy Chain), and require coupling with a Content Management System (CMS) for content operation.

Video walls differ according to the installation environment (size, structure, surrounding brightness) and targeted content. The types and characteristics of the display products and CMS must be understood to suggest the optimized solution based on the information obtained. The total funds and operational complexity may differ greatly depending on the type of displays and models chosen, so the optimized solution can be suggested only after thoroughly understanding the customer’s needs.

LCD video walls can only be installed on flat structures since the displays cannot be custom-curved, but OLED or DVLED displays can be curved. If video walls are needed to be installed on curved surfaces, OLED or DVLED displays may be selected.

With DVLED, the distance to discern individual pixels changes, depending on the ‘pixel pitch’ (distance in millimeters from the center of a pixel to the center of the adjacent pixel), so an appropriate pixel pitch display must be chosen according to the viewing distance. If the viewing distance is short, LCD or OLED could be a better choice than DVLED.

It is better to use displays with high brightness if the video wall is being installed in a bright environment, and products with high haze for the surface of the screen are better for places where the visibility of the content may be disrupted by reflected light. Especially the video walls for broadcasting stations require a product that can change the color temperature according to the surrounding lighting, so knowing what products are available by understanding the light temperature beforehand is necessary.

The content type that is to be used in the video wall must be selected before employing a video wall. It must be known if it will be used for simple videos or images, if there are various external inputs or interactive content displayed, and what the content changing cycle is, to select the best CMS and operate a video wall accordingly. The overall system components and surrounding equipment may differ depending on the chosen CMS, so understanding this prior to the installation is necessary.

Next week we’ll go over some guidelines for selecting the right video wall displays based on the installation space and requirements.

Customized LG OLED Displays Transform Elementary School into Experiential Learning Environment

Sherlock School in Cicero, Illinois, is an elementary school focused on using state-of-the-art technology and design to enhance the learning environment. For the newly built facility, Cicero District 99 wanted to create an environment that would motivate and stimulate the students by introducing them to technology in ways they might not have encountered before.

The district sought to implement technology solutions throughout the facility to create flexible learning environments for the students – this would include unique, eye-catching video displays in the main entrance and fourth floor interactive space. The plan required assistance from a skilled team and the use of high-tech solutions that would keep students invested in learning. With construction underway at the school, the timeframe was tight to have the project completed before school started.

What’s more, the district wanted to implement creative display designs utilizing curved screens, which would require intricate installation.

Cicero District 99 selected Snap Install, Inc. as the integrator for the project. Snap Install selected LG Open Frame OLED commercial displays, because the flexible displays can be curved to create state-of-the-art installations that provide immersive experiences. For mounting solutions, longstanding LG partner Peerless-AV® was the natural choice.

And so the collaborative team of Snap Install, LG Business Solutions and Peerless-AV designed a customized approach for the school.

This was a unique project in that the LG Open Frame OLED displays would be custom-curved for the ceiling and wall designs right there on site. Peerless-AV was able to quickly design, test, manufacture, and install video wall mounting solutions that support the displays, and Snap Install finished the job within the aggressive deadline, also including two large LG LCD video walls.

It was stellar teamwork and the results are outstanding in the brand-new school, with plenty of exciting digital goodness to engage the kids every day. The main lobby provides an unforgettable experience with 34, 55-inch curved LG Open Frame OLED displays (55EF5E-L) – 24 on the ceiling and 10 in two columns on the wall, supported by Peerless-AV’s dedicated mounting solutions. The fourth floor features two video walls, each composed of eight 55-inch LG Narrow Bezel displays (55VH7E-A) and eight Peerless-AV SmartMount® Supreme Full Service Video Wall Mounts with Quick Release (DS-VW775-QR).

Congratulations and a big THANK YOU to Snap Install and Peerless-AV.

Just imagine the reaction from the students, teachers, parents and guests when they walk into this school. Check out these videos:

 

 

New LG Video Walls Feature 0.44mm Bezels and Embedded Smart Calibration Tool, plus External, Hot-Swappable Power Supplies

LG’s new 55SVH7F and 55SVH7PF-H are 0.44mm even bezel video wall panels that create a virtually seamless image, with vivid uniform color throughout the assembled large screen. Both models also feature a new embedded Smart Calibration tool that reduces both installation and maintenance time, and ensures consistent performance. Additionally, model 55SVH7PF-H is designed with an external power box with a long range, which can be easily installed and provides hot-swapping power supply redundancy.

The unprecedented razor-thin bezel – 0.44mm even bezel and 0.88mm bezel-to-bezel – creates a nearly borderless picture, making content look more realistic and depicting a subject with virtually no distortions. LG’s IPS technology delivers a true 178-degree wide viewing angle for optimum visibility from any direction and distance. Assembled as a large video wall screen, the new panels enable an even more immersive experience for viewers.

The quick and easy Smart Calibration tool uses an embedded light sensor and calibration chipset to measure each panel’s brightness and color reproduction, and makes adjustments to ensure uniformity across all connected panels. The new calibration procedure requires no external tools besides the included remote control, and can be completed on a 3×3 video wall in as little as three minutes by any user. Conventional calibration methods, on the other hand, generally require up to two hours with a trained specialist. Smart Calibration can be performed on a weekly or monthly basis, enabling consistency throughout the video wall’s operational lifespan.

Consistent performance reliability for every panel can be ensured in mission-critical environments. Model 55SVH7PF-H features an external power box LPLG001-FV (sold separately) with hot-swappable power supplies, with each box containing four power supplies but only requiring three for operation. This allows operators or integrators to quickly replace a failing power supply without any effect on operation. Each power box can provide power for up to nine panels, depending on its distance from the video wall.

Both the 55SVH7F and 55SVH7PF-H even bezel video wall panels offer 700 nits of brightness and can be installed in a horizontal or vertical orientation for a variety of video wall needs. Redesigned menus and a new GUI specifically for vertical orientation provide intuitive operation, while a high haze level effectively eliminates glare and enhances visibility and legibility under bright conditions. LG’s webOS 4.0 smart signage platform allows for simple navigation and content functionality.

Three Strategies for Creating Retail Brick-and-Mortar ‘Stickiness’

Webopedia defines ‘sticky’ as the ability to keep visitors on a Web site once they have navigated there or encourage the visitor to return frequently (i.e., the visitors “stick” to the site). A site’s stickiness depends on the content of the site that encourages the visitors to remain there but is not necessarily what the visitors went to the site for.

But today we’re not talking about online retail, we’re talking about brick-and-mortar stores.

Websites Design for Stickiness. So Should Retail Stores.

When you can create a brick-and-mortar retail environment that’s rich in visual appeal, and so well thought out as to engage and accommodate customers through every step of their visit, customers will feel compelled to remain in the store for a long time and come back often. And the stickier your location, the greater the chance that customers are going to spend their money with you as opposed to looking around for other places to shop. Let’s look at three key steps today’s retailers are using to create stickiness:

1) Enhance Your Brand Image

A powerful way to enhance a retail brand image is to elevate the store environment with attention-grabbing visual technology. Customers will respond to and remember what they see throughout the store, and the right digital signage displays can make all the difference. When used with moving content that mesmerizes customers with lifestyle images, product beauty videos and high-resolution graphics, digital signage can evoke the feelings you want your customers to associate with your brand.

Consider all the places your customers might be throughout your store. Today’s digital signage offers the form factors and flexibility to fit virtually anywhere, from outside the entrance to the front windows to the back wall, and anywhere in between. All while making your brand look like a technology leader.

2) Send Personalized Communications on the Spot

Many digital signage displays are available with Beacon and Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) technology to enable individualized messaging to customers that have the store’s app on their smartphones with Bluetooth enabled. When the beacon detects such a smartphone, it can push personalized content to the phone or even directly to the display as the customer approaches.

The most effective types of messaging make the customer’s immediate experiences easier and richer. This can include welcome greetings, information about the products near the display, special offers and coupons, and product recommendations based on the customer’s shopping history on the store app.

That’s not all Beacons can do. They can generate data including demographics about how customers move through a store, highlighting areas where people tend to spend time. They can also be used to create sales system metrics and help with analytics.

3) Extend Your Store With Endless Aisles

Having a wide assortment of products is critical to the success of a retail operation. But unlike an online store, bringing every model, color and variation onto the retail floor may not be feasible, especially when trying to create an environment that stands out while maximizing sales per square foot.

Digital signage excels at making the most of the retail sales floor. It can enable customers to view the entire inventory on a big, beautiful screen where details are crisp and colors pop. Retailers can then carry strategic items in the store and use the displays to show everything else that is available, in what is called an endless aisle. By combining digital signage with touchscreen overlays and services like dropship, retailers can bridge the gap between online and in-store and create a very effective and accommodating, self-serve shopping experience.

Create endless aisle experiences that cannot be had online, by using interactive software and a touchscreen overlay. In a furniture store, for example, a display can be placed in a showroom to provide product information, fabric choices and related accessories. It can also give the customer the opportunity to upload a picture of their living room, add a couch, change the color and add other pieces. The customer can be pleasantly occupied viewing hundreds of pieces of furniture in their virtual living room, and design their living room on the big screen.

The same idea can be used to create endless racks and shelves. An example would be to integrate a video camera on top of a small display in an eyeglass/sunglass store. A customer could then sit comfortably in front of the display, see themselves on the screen and virtually try on hundreds of styles with the touch of a button.

A Lesson from Flagship Stores

Major brands are spending millions of dollars to create flagship stores—larger retail environments that serve a different purpose than just selling product. These iconic stores are more involved in creating a relationship with the customer that solidifies the brand image, connects with the customer and creates loyalty.

Following the gist of that lesson, there isn’t an area in a retail environment that cannot be fitted with commercial display technology and engaging content to create amazing customer experiences, all in the pursuit of greater retail stickiness.

Installation Inspiration: The LG OLED Wave at CES 2020

LG Commercial Displays mesmerized CES® 2020 spectators and welcomed them to the LG booth with a spectacular exhibition called the LG OLED Wave.

The awe-inspiring installation featured 200 open frame, 55-inch LG OLED digital signage screens, tiled into a show-stopping spectacle that demonstrated LG OLED’s unrivaled picture quality and flexibility.

The LG OLED Wave was created with 128 convex and concave screens, and 72 flat screens. Measuring 20 feet high and 82 feet wide, the exhibit immersed CES attendees in a breathtaking journey of discovery, displaying the glory of the natural world as it has never been seen before, accompanied by a choreographed audio soundtrack.

This is the fourth year that LG has delighted CES attendees with an LG OLED showstopper. First came the LG OLED Tunnel in 2017, followed by the LG OLED Canyon in 2018, and the LG OLED Falls last year. You can read about them all in our blog archives.

Display experts agree that LG OLED is the most evolved display technology on the planet, delivering stunning pictures with perfect black, incredible contrast and intense colors from virtually any vantage point. Self-lighting pixels, which can be turned on and off individually, help make images incredibly lifelike. Without the need for a backlight, LG OLED displays are extremely lightweight and thin, allowing for screens that can be mounted perfectly flush to a wall, or made flexible enough to be rolled up like a poster.

See the LG OLED Wave in action in this video from CNET:

LG SuperSign Resource Center Makes It Easy to Get Started with Digital Signage

LG SuperSign software for digital signage offers much to businesses while being easy on the budget. Our new online resource center (link below) makes it easy to select and download the SuperSign solution that best fits your needs.

What is LG SuperSign?

LG SuperSign is turnkey digital signage software for LG standard and outdoor signage, video walls, interactive displays, and SuperSign TVs. The software selections are ideal for small or medium-sized businesses that need an easy, eye-catching and effective way to communicate with their customers.

Besides the powerful capabilities, SuperSign’s intuitive GUI and straightforward layout enhances user-friendliness, saving users from having to go through a complicated learning process. SuperSign software solutions provide convenient content management, monitoring and control, and white balance calibration. Different levels of software are available based on intended use and business requirements:

Content Management solutions include all-in-one SuperSign CMS for editing, scheduling, and distribution with mobile management; LG Simple Editor for use with LG SuperSign TVs; and SuperSign Media Editor for use with asymmetrical video walls or LG Ultra Stretch signage.

Monitoring and Control solutions include all-in-one SuperSign Control+ with remote control via single server; a basic SuperSign Control for up to 100 displays via network; and LED Assistant for use with LG DVLED signage.

White Balance Calibration via SuperSign WB facilitates adjustment of video walls via camera or sensor.

Also available on the SuperSign Resource Center are Legacy Software final releases, including SuperSign Editor and SuperSign W-Lite Server – content management software for editing, scheduling, and distribution.

Find all you need at the LG SuperSign Software Resource Center today.

Two Strategies to Increase Your Commercial Display Business Exposure in 2020

If you’re an LG commercial display solution provider, reseller, systems integrator or end user, your expertise could be very helpful to both our target audiences. For 2020, we are offering two strategies that can expose your business to a wider array of industry categories and drive more people to your website.

1) Contribute to the LG Commercial Display Blog

We invite you to write a post specifically for our blog. Should you decide to do so, here are some of the benefits you could enjoy:

It can help establish your authority. The best B2B blogs answer common questions from leads and customer interaction. If you create content that’s helpful for both audiences, it can help establish your company as an industry authority in their eyes.

It can help improve your SEO, and drive more long-term results via more Retweets and shared engagements. In the following days, weeks, and months, you could continue to receive traffic and leads from your original blog post.

Should you decide to let LG Commercial Display link to a current post on your company’s blog, it could extend the reach of your company’s content. Our goal is to extend the reach of every piece of content and/or communications we publish, and our blog could connect more unique viewers to your content on your own properties and help your own organic search as well.

2) Let LG Business Solutions Create Your Case Study

Sharing your commercial display project has plenty of benefits, and we can help make it happen. By participating in the LG Business Solutions case study series your company will be recognized as an innovator for adopting some of the latest display technologies on the market. If your project is selected, we will write your case study, and then spread the news. What’s more, your case study might also become a video.

There’s absolutely no cost to you. Just plenty of benefits:

We will feature your case study in our monthly newsletter that goes out to a vast database of influencers and decision-makers.

We’ll offer the case study for download in targeted industry publications.

We’ll use our social media channels to push your case study out for even more exposure.

We’ll feature your case study in our Chicago Business Innovation Center, on the LG Commercial Display Blog, and in our Case Study Resource Hub. Click the link and have a look through our case study series – imagine yours being one of them.

We hope you’ll put these strategies on the front burner for 2020.

 

For inquiries please email Paul Vitellaro at paul.vitellaro@lge.com

 

Happy New Year to Our Blog Readers

Happy New Year

 

As we wrap up 2019, we’re looking back at some key installations that brought big smiles to LG B2B, our amazing partners, and the businesses we served:

The 2,400-site rollout of digital signage in Best Western lobbies;

The LG OLED Falls at InfoComm;

The commercial-grade TVs added to 850 Snap Fitness locations;

The 105 commercial displays in the Memphis Tigers locker room; and

The more than 10,000 commercial displays in over 50 Topgolf locations.

These installations feature different LG commercial display technologies and specialized software solutions from our certified partners, but they all have one thing in common: the result is an exciting and more accommodating experience for customers, visitors, and employees that makes the businesses stand out from the competition.

To that end, how may we help you in 2020?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you see that we cover a variety of topics, news, and product introductions. Our aim is to give you information and insights that could be beneficial to your business in the world of commercial displays. And for 2020, we want to know what you want to know.

We invite you to reach out to us on our social channels and tell us what you’d like to see featured on this blog. Give us some topics. We’ll do our best to accommodate your interests.

All of us at LG Business Solutions wish you a very Happy New Year bursting with big smiles, achievements, and prosperity.

 

 

Introducing LG ExtendedCare™ — Peace of Mind for Your LG Commercial Display Investment

Digital signage delivers many benefits for a business, including increased customer engagement, improved brand recognition and a higher percentage of impulse purchases.

But there is an inherent cost of downtime. If the digital sign is not working, that can negatively impact the business by leading to lost sales. And the longer the signage is down the greater the loss can be.

LG is a partner you can trust. We are a global leader in digital signage design, product development and manufacturing. We globally operate 118 subsidiaries and branches, 5 design centers, and fully support over 9,000 service centers. And to provide the best support possible for our displays, we have introduced LG ExtendedCare.

LG ExtendedCare provides extended warranty, repair and services for LG display products, with various care plans offering different levels of protection. Clients can add 1, 2, or 3 years additional warranty beyond the LG Standard Warranty up to a total coverage term of 5 years. If the original warranty is for 2 years, they can add 1, 2 or 3 years. If the original warranty is for 3 years, they can add 1 or 2 additional years. LG ExtendedCare must be purchased within 30 days of purchasing the product.

Two premium services can be added to enhance peace of mind and increase speed of service. Quick Swap Service allows fast delivery of replacement units to the business’s location, with either Next Business Day Exchange or 72-hour Exchange options. White Glove Service includes Quick Swap delivery and adds authorized LG technicians on site to uninstall the old unit, deliver and install the replacement; and offers the same options. The addition of these services will be present for the entire term of the warranty, including the standard and extended periods. Best of all, there is no limitation of repairs and swaps as long as the warranty with Quick Swap is in place.

LG ExtendedCare service truly understands a business’s needs, makes life easier and provides the right options for every client.

For more information on LG ExtendedCare including an intuitive Selection Guide tool, visit lgextendedcare.com.

NOTE: The Selection Guide tool will be available as an iframe for our partners’ websites in early 2020.