Video Walls
The Macula Video Wall offers improved configuration options and functionality, as well as the ability to easily manage large-display installations. This is vital for operating large-scale video surveillance systems, especially when the ability to easily examine the area and quickly react to alarm events is essential. Video wall configuration using Macula is very flexible and it allows you to set up video output of virtually any physical display combination.
Video wall setup with Macula is very easy and similar to layout template creation: templates are constructed via Macula Console and then assigned an actual layout/channel view from Macula Monitor.
To access video wall management in Macula Console, choose the Configuration section in the bottom-left-hand panel and then select the Video Walls component from the menu on the left.
Create Video Wall
Click the + New video wall button on the upper panel to bring up the configuration dialog box.
On the Details tab, enter name and choose Folder for the target video wall profile.
Title: user-defined video wall name
Server: choose where the video wall will be available (leave none for Macula Enterprise – recommended option for most cases)
Then, select the video wall grid size by choosing the number of rows and columns from the drop-down lists; the maximum total number of viewports is 100 (10x10 layout), and maximum number of rows/columns can be up to 20. The viewport layout below will immediately reflect the changes, with display numbering for your convenience. Once you have chosen the video wall size, you can apply the following adjustments to the layout using the buttons below:
merge viewports: select a rectangular area containing multiple cells by clicking and dragging (selected cells will be highlighted light green as a result), then click the Merge button
remove viewports: if your video wall is irregular (not strictly rectangular in shape) or if you wish to pass over some displays, select one or several cells and click Remove to exclude these viewports from the grid
add viewports: this action is the opposite of removing viewports; click an empty area and click Add to insert a viewport
Click any viewport to change its name using the Properties section on the right-hand side. Thus, each display belonging to the video wall can have both a number and a title for users' convenience.
Once the viewport configuration is ready, switch to the Membership tab to add the target video wall profile to existing video wall groups. Manipulate groups by double-clicking items in either columns, or by using the Add and Remove buttons below. Each video wall can participate in one or multiple groups.
On the Permissions tab, choose users and users groups to view and administer target video wall profile. Administer permission allows users to change video wall layouts via Macula Monitor; View permission only allows them to view the existing video wall layouts assigned by other users.
When done, click OK to save and close the dialog box. Newly created video wall profile will appear in the item list and will become available for configuration in Macula Monitor. The video wall list contains information on grid size and the total number of viewports for each item.
Use the buttons on the upper panel to edit, remove and quickly assign group membership to the selected video walls (use CTRL+click or Shift+click to select multiple items at once). The bottom panel allows you to filter recently created/updated items.
Create Video Wall Group
Video walls, as well as other resource types in Macula, can be organized for easier management. To create a group for video walls, click the down arrow near + New video wallbutton and choose New video wall group from the drop-down list.
On the Details tab, enter the video wall group title.
Switch to the Members tab to choose existing video wall configurations to be included into the target group. Manipulate items either by double-clicking them in either columns, or by using the Add and Remove buttons below. Each video wall can participate in one or multiple groups.
On the Membership tab, select other video wall groups that should include the target group as a member (nested groups).
Finally, the Permissions tab lets you choose users and users groups to view and administer video walls for the target group. Administer permission allows users to change the member video wall layout via Macula Monitor; View permission only allows them to view the existing video wall layouts assigned by other users.
Once you have finished, click OK to save and close the dialog box. The newly created video wall group will appear in the item list. Use the buttons in the upper panel to edit/remove groups (use CTRL+click or Shift+click to select multiple items at once). The bottom panel allows you to filter recently created/updated items.
Video Walls on Recording Servers
Starting from the software version 1.15.0, it is possible to assign video walls to Macula Recording Server computers - instead of running them on Macula Enterprise. Macula Monitor instances acting as video wall clients still need to be connected via Macula Enterprise address (they will switch to local streaming automatically once the connection to the central server is lost).
This option has been added for deviant use cases, where the central management server is [often] unavailable from the Macula Recording Server locations, while it is still necessary to preserve the video wall functionality locally. Such a configuration has certain limitations; for most cases, you can leave the video wall running on your central server and use mirroring to ensure central server functionality during its downtime.
Advantages:
the video wall contents are available for all Macula Monitor workstations adjacent to the recording server, which hosts the video wall
the video wall tab is available on these "local" Macula Monitor stations and it is possible to change the current video wall state manually
E&A rules on the "host" recording server work for the "local" video wall
if the "local" recording server fails, the video wall will continue to run on the "local" failover node
Limitations (for the moments when there is no connection to Macula Enterprise):
it is impossible to change startup layouts/sequences for such a video wall
this video wall will be unavailable for all "external" Macula Monitor stations (as well as other resources)
it will be impossible for this video wall to accept "external" E&A triggers via global events
In other respects, such "local" video walls do not differ from regular ones, which are stored on the central management server. You can change the Server property of any video wall via Macula Console at any time, moving the video wall configuration to another server at any time.
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