Recently the Sandbox came into possession of six Raspberry Pi Model B+ microcomputers, and lab assistants were eager to put them to use. The first project the Sandbox undertook with the microcomputers was a video wall, which we showcased during open house. The inspiration and core of the project is an open-source software project called PiWall. Our set up included four 1080p 24″ monitors each independently connected to a Raspberry Pi, and one additional Raspberry Pi (appearing at the right) used to control the four display Pi’s via Secure Shell (SSH). The video wall can be seen in action playing a CIS Sandbox interview recorded earlier in the semester.
We found the performance and quality of the video to be very good, however there is a noticeable lag between the audio and video. All in all, with some spare monitors, a shelf, and a few hours of set up time, a small-scale video wall was set up at a fraction of the cost of an off-the-shelf product. The project was very beneficial in learning to navigate the Raspberry Pi “Raspbian” operating system, linux networking, and shell scripting. With a bit more work, and possibly wall mounting the monitors, a more permanent video wall is a definite possibility! Be sure to stop by the CIS Sandbox to see the video wall in action.
To learn more about PiWall, visit the project’s website at http://piwall.co.uk.
To learn more about Raspberry Pi, visit the project’s website at http://raspberrypi.org.
