Create a BrightWall Presentation
This page / section pertains to BrightAuthor Classic, our legacy app. BrightSign Author is our latest app for managing content and players.
Development of BrightAuthor Classic has largely ceased and the app will eventually be deprecated and replaced with BrightSign Author.
To create a new BrightWall presentation, navigate to Create > BrightWall™ (if the Create a new Video Wall window doesn’t open automatically, click File > New BrightWall™). A BrightWall presentation requires a BrightWall Configuration file to set the platform, dimensions, and layout of the video wall. Once you create a BrightWall Configuration file, you can use that file to quickly generate BrightWall presentations with the same video-wall setup.
- Save As: Enter the name of the new BrightWall project.
- Where: Choose where to save the BrightWall project file. Note that the project file is different from the presentation files that will actually be published to the players.
- Configuration file: If you have created a BrightWall Configuration file, you can use it to generate settings for the BrightWall project.
- Create BrightWall Configuration: Click this button to create a new BrightWall Configuration file. Use this option if you haven’t created a BrightWall Configuration file yet, or if you would like to create an additional BrightWall Configuration file with new settings.
Create a Configuration File
Clicking the Create BrightWall Configuration button will open the BrightWall Configuration window, which provides the following options.
- BrightSign Model: Choose the BrightSign player model that will display the video wall. All players that are part of the video wall must be of the same model type.
- Connector type: Choose the connector (HDMI, VGA, Component) that each player will use to connect to its display. All players that are part of a video wall must use the same connector.
- Screen resolution: Choose the resolution of each screen in the video wall. All video wall screens must have the same resolution. You can view all available screen resolutions in this page.
Regular BrightWalls only support video files in landscape mode.
- Monitor orientation: Choose one of the following:
- Landscape: Content is not rotated.
- Portrait – bottom on left: Video is rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees. Select this option if the bottom of each monitor is on the left when it is portrait oriented. Note that portrait modes apply to Stretched BrightWall presentations only.
Portrait – bottom on right: Video is rotated clockwise 90 degrees. Select this option if the bottom of the each monitor is on the right when it is portrait oriented. Note that portrait modes apply to Stretched BrightWall presentations only.
- Monitor overscan: Select an overscan setting to determine how each video fills the display screen.
- No overscan – use full screen: Displays video to the edge of the video signal.
- Overscan – action safe: Restricts the image display to an area that is compatible with most displays.
- Overscan – title safe: Restricts the image display to an area that is much smaller than the image generated by the video signal.
- Number of rows: Specify the vertical length of the video wall (in number of screens).
- Number of columns: Specify the horizontal length of the video wall (in number of screens).
- Domain: Specify a domain number (between 0 and 127) for the video wall. This number must be unique for each video wall on the local network. This will ensure that multiple video walls can run on the same local network without synchronization messages interfering with each other.
- Bezel Width and Height: Account for the bezel size of the monitors that make up the video wall. This allows for better alignment of videos in the video wall. These measurements only apply to Stretched BrightWall presentations. For Regular presentations, bezel width and height will need to be accounted for in the content creation application.
- By percentage: Enter the bezel width and height as percentages. These percentages must be positive whole numbers. Use the following calculation to determine bezel percentages:
- Width: The width of the bezel between active screens (i.e. the total of both left and right bezels) divided by the width of an active screen. The result is multiplied by 100. For example, a video wall made up of screens with a width of 42 inches and a 1 inch bezel on each side would be calculated as follows: (2”/42”)*100=5%
- Height: The height of the bezel between active screens (i.e. the total of both top and bottom bezels) divided by the height of an active screen. The result is multiplied by 100. For example, a video wall made up of screens with a height of 23.625 inches and a 1 inch bezel on each side would be calculated as follows: (2”/23.625”)*100=8%
- By measurement: Enter the bezel width, bezel height, screen width, and screen height in millimeters (mm). Calculations will be done automatically.
- Save As: Click this button to save the BrightWall Configuration file. It will then be used as the Configuration File for the BrightWall presentation.
Once you’ve created or selected a BrightWall Configuration file, click Create BrightWall Presentation. The BrightWall™ Presentation Properties window will open.
BrightWall Presentation Properties
The BrightWall™ Presentation Properties window is divided into two tabs: Main and Audio.
Main
- Type: Choose whether the BrightWall presentation is Regular or Stretched:
- Regular: Each panel of the BrightWall presentation is made up of a different video file. To create a single video surface out of multiple screens, video assets will need to be tailored for the video wall using the source application (e.g. Adobe After Effects): You will need to split the videos into their respective screens and adjust for bezel width before adding the assets to BrightAuthor Classic.
- Stretched: The video wall is made up of a single video. The video is then automatically split among the screens. This option allows you to display video files, as well as Streaming VideoStreaming Video, Live VideoLive Video, and RF InputRF Input.
Stretched presentations render the whole video on each display first then zoom to show the assigned portion. This behavior limits the maximum resolution for Stretched presentations to the maximum render resolution of the player. For information on what maximum resolution players support, please refer to its specific hardware page.
- View mode: Choose the view mode of the presentation. In Regular presentations, this option applies to videos on individual screens, similar to the View Mode option found in the Zone PropertiesZone Properties menu. In Stretched presentations, this option applies to the entire wall. The following descriptions apply to Stretched presentations only:
- Scale to Fill: The video will be stretched over all screens in the video wall. If the aspect ratio of the video wall does not match the ratio of the video content, the video will likely appear stretched or distorted.
- Letterboxed and Centered: The video will not be stretched. Instead, it will appear at the center of the video wall at its original resolution, which may cover one or multiple screens. Areas of the video wall that are not filled by the video will display the background color of the presentation.
- Fill Screen and Centered: The video will be stretched to the height or width of the video wall (whichever length is greater). If the aspect ratio of the video wall does not match the ratio of the video content, the video will be cut off at the height or the width (whichever length is lesser).
The Scale to fit and Fill screen and centered options will not remove letterboxing if it's part of the video file.
- Display screen layout information when presentation starts: Check this box to have screens in the BrightWall display positioning information for a few moments when the presentation starts scheduled playback. If this box is not checked, the presentation will begin immediately without displaying positioning information.
Audio
- Audio Output: Enables or disables the Analog, HDMI®, and SPDIF audio outputs. In BrightWall presentations, only the leader unit (i.e. the player driving Screen 1) outputs audio, so these settings do not affect any of the follower units in the presentation.
- Pass through: Supplies the un-decoded audio signal through the HDMI connector. Use this option if the zone audio (for example, AC3 Dolby Digital) is being decoded on an external device.
- Stereo: Supplies the audio as a stereo signal.
- Audio Mixing: Enables the stereo, left-only, or right-only audio signal.