It is said that a picture paints a thousand words, but what about a video wall? Making its debut at the Pabellón de la Navegación (Navigation Pavilion) in Seville, the touring media exhibition Impressionists left viewers speechless as the works of Renoir, Van Gogh, and others illuminated a stunning floor-to-ceiling digital masterpiece. With Matrox® QuadHead2Go™ multi-monitor controllers’ ability to deliver flawless image quality across a sprawling canvas, Ukrainian multimedia company Front Pictures was able to provide a mesmerizing, twenty-first century take on the works of Europe’s most renowned Impressionist masters.
Video wall design brief
For Front Pictures, bringing some of the most distinguished modern paintings to life required a flexible and reliable video wall solution. What the company had in mind was a plug-and-play, standalone appliance that would be capable of driving multiple pristine-quality Full HD displays, as well as be compact enough to be quickly disassembled and reassembled to meet the travel needs of the digital exhibition. Having had years’ worth of successful experience with Matrox video wall products, Front Pictures’ choice to acquire QuadHead2Go devices was easy. “Matrox has provided our go-to video wall technologies for some time now,” said Yuri Kostenko, Front Pictures CEO. “We have used the Matrox TripleHead2Go triple-display appliance for many years now, and when Matrox released the QuadHead2Go, it was perfect timing. We had been looking for a higher-density-output device to support more displays from a small footprint, and we knew that Matrox’s multi-screen technology would perfectly suit our demanding installations.”
Creating on a digital canvas
The Matrox PowerWall™ software included with QuadHead2Go allows Front Pictures to easily install and customize configurations, making deployment simple. The installation behind the Impressionists exhibition comprises 14 screens – each being 4.4 meters in height – spanning 116 meters in total. Content for the exhibition created by Front Pictures is hosted on the company’s Screenberry media server. From there, the content is routed to six QuadHead2Go Q155 appliances – each capturing an HDMI® video signal from the media server for display across four HDMI-equipped projectors. QuadHead2Go devices connect to a total of 21 BenQ TH671ST projectors that cast the ultra-high-quality video onto the screens across 40,320 x 1080 pixels for a total resolution of 43.5 megapixels. The result is a monumental display of Van Gogh’s flower still life collections with petals that appear to float gently across the screens, among many other revitalized versions of Impressionist masterworks. When set to music, the moving paintings delivered by the QuadHead2Go video controllers and Screenberry media server transport viewers to the imaginations of Impressionist virtuosos.
An avant-garde multi-screen projection solution
With QuadHead2Go, Front Pictures sacrifices neither form nor function. According to Kostenko, QuadHead2Go has enabled the company to push the boundaries of what a visual experience can be with the convenience of a flexible, easy-to-deploy, multi-screen appliance. “With its ability to capture and display superior-quality video content, Matrox QuadHead2Go video wall controllers have enabled us to deliver a truly sublime art viewing experience,” he said. “Furthermore, the compact, low-power appliance takes up very little space, is easy to transport and re-install, and keeps hardware and maintenance costs low.”
