How to create a Synchronized VideoWall with 4YouSee

Attention: This videowall synchronization feature explained below works only for 4YouSee Player on Windows or Linux platform and is only available for enterprise plan customers.

4YouSee has a resource called videowall that allows you to work with synchronized videos, using two or more machines independently, and depending on the configuration, they will show the videos synchronously on all screens.

Basics Concepts About Videowalls

To configure your videowall with 4YouSee it is important to understand the concept of player master and player slaves.

The player master is the player who will be responsible for indicating to the other players (the player slaves) which content they should play, being the player master responsible for keeping the content synchronized between the screens.

In this way, in a 1x3 videowall (1 row by 3 columns - that is, 3 screens together in a row), One of the three players will be the master and the other two the slaves.

It is very important to bear in mind that to place the synchronized contents, you must edit the video and divide it into 3 parts in the case of this 1x3 videowall. So, in this case, there are 3 screens, each with a 1280x720 (HD) resolution, you must create a 3840x720 video and then divide it into 3 1280x720 videos, to place each part of the video in a video wall player.

Prerequisites for a Synchronized Video Wall

To have an optimal functioning of your synchronized videowall, it is ideal that you have the following resources:

• 1 exclusive router for the computers where the videowall players are, so that communication is faster between the players.
• Players must have a wired connection, instead of using a wireless connection, to optimize the communication time between players.
• The players must be on excellent computers, since the synchronization process involves greater processing than the behavior of a normal player.
• The synchronization server must be preferentially installed on the master player's machine.
• Synced videos must have the same resolution, duration and frame-rate settings.

In case of not meeting the above ideal conditions, your videowall may work, but with performance problems in the synchronization of the contents.

How to configure the VideoWall in 4YouSee Manager

We will use as an example, the configuration of a 1x3 videowall, as illustrated in the figure, so the following 3 steps must be followed:

1. Configure the sync server.
2. Create and configure the slaves and master players.
3. Configure the videowall contents in the playlist of the Master player.

1. Configure the synchronization server do 4YouSee

To configure the synchronization server it was necessary to create a separate article. Remember that you need to write down the IP of the computer where the server will be installed (Computer where the Master Player will also be configured) and then place it in the settings in 4YouSee Manager.

How to install/configure the 4YouSee Synchronization Server

2. Create and Configure the Slaves and Master players

Remember: The videowalls only work in 4YouSee Player for Windows or Linux !, so when creating the players, you must choose the "Windows and Linux" platform. If you have doubts, we recommend that you read the following article. Change the platform of use where my Player is

Changing the platform To configure a videowall it will first be necessary to create the player slaves in 4YouSee Manager. You do not need to configure anything special on them, so just create the two players with the names Slave 1 and Slave 2 defining the platform in both "Windows and Linux". You can see the How to Add New Players article if you have questions. In the playlist associated with these players, it should not have the same videos that are part of the videowall.

After creating the two player slaves, add a new one that will be the Master player.  Then, click on the last tab Videowall (1) and check the option Enable Videowall (2). Next, a screen will be shown to configure the videowall. Define the videowall structure in Rows x Columns (3) and then the Structure (4) of the screens will be shown.

You must now click on the icons of the screens that appeared and choose which are the players that will be working on each one of them. From left to right, select in the sequence: Master, Slave 1 and Slave 2:

When you click on the first screen, a message like the following will appear, where you must choose the Master player.

When you click on the second screen, a message like the following will appear, where you must choose the Slave 1 player.

When you click on the third screen, a message like the following will appear, where the Slave 2 player must be chosen.

The structure that previously appeared with the screens deactivated, now shows them active. And in this way you can see that the monitor that has a green line underneath, indicates that this is the position of the master:

Later, under the videowall structure, you will be able to choose if you want the videowall not to Register the content logs of the Slave players (1). If this option is checked, the player slaves will also send logs of videowall content that they have played. If this option is not checked, the master player will be the only one that will send the videowall logs.

A little further down, in the Synchronization Server section, you must enter the IP of the synchronization Server (2), which is the same IP of the machine where the Master Player is installed. This information can be obtained during the sync server installation process. In our example the server is on a machine with IP 192.168.0.131. The Server Port (3) is by default 4321. Observe below how the fields are filled in and after that click on the Add or Update Button (4).

3. Configure the videowall content in the Master's playlist.

After configuring the players, you must configure the content that will be displayed in sync. If you don't have the content yet, you can try downloading the 3 following video:

1. Vídeo 1/3
2. Vídeo 2/3
3. Vídeo 3/3

Attention: The videowall will only work with videos. You cannot create synchronized videowalls with HTML, images, Flash or other content.

Add the content and if you have questions about how to do it, you can see the article How to Add Content

Next we are going to create a playlist with the videowall content and then associate it ONLY TO THE MASTER. Create this playlist by clicking on the Playlist (1) > Playlists (2). Then click on the Add icon (3) located in the upper right, as shown in the following image:

Then, click on    that is next to the Carousel (1) and select Videowall Option (2).

In the menu that opens, set the same format that you configured with the Rows x Columns (1) format so that it has 1 row and 3 columns. In this way, if you click outside the field, the structure (3) will appear.

If you enable the option to Abort videowall execution in case of error in some content or player (2), it means that if an error occurs when playing one of the videos in the slaves or masters, they will not reproduce the content of the videowall. This is useful if you want your videowall to be displayed as a single video. In this case, if any of the players represents a problem, it will not affect the reproduction in the others.

The content is then associated to the screens, so you must click on the corresponding screen (4) to choose the content that will be played on them.

On the screen it displays, you should search for the content you want. In this example, we are going to associate the content shown at the beginning of this article in the following way:

• Video 1/3 in row 1, column 1
• Video 2/3 in row 1, column 2
• Video 3/3 in row 1, column 3

Leave the Quantity (1) field with 1, and leave the Add Last (2) option checked. Click on the Apply button (3).

After configured, it will look like this:

After adding the videowall to the playlist, you will be able to see the associated contents by clicking on the videowall (1) and then on the Preview option (2):

To finish, click on the Save As button (1) at the bottom right and name the playlist "Master Playlist". Now we are going to associate the playlist to the master player and for this go to the Players > Players menu, click on the Update of the Master player:

In the player menu that appears, select the "Master Video Wall" (1) for Monday and with that, the playlists of the other days will be changed automatically.