ACTi TV Wall Installation Guide V1.0.05
TV Wall Server 1
System Administrator’s Manual
2014/07/03
For V1.0.05 Version
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
Legal Notice
Disclaimer
The information contained in this document is intended for general information purposes.
ACTi Corporation shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or
consequential damages arising from the furnishing, performance, or use of this manual.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The English version of this document is the official one for all purpose. All the translated
versions are provided as a convenience. Any discrepancies or differences created in the
translations of any other languages are not legally binding.
Copyright
Copyright © 2003-2014 ACTi Corporation All Rights Reserved.
Trademarks
ACTi Connecting Vision and its logo are registered trademarks of ACTi
Corporation.
Microsoft® and Windows® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the
United States and/or other countries.
Intel® is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the
United States and other countries.
All other product or company names mentioned in this document may be trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
About This Manual
Target Audience
This manual is intended for System Administrators who are responsible for installing and
setting up TV Wall Server Stations. The reader is expected to know the fundamentals of IP
surveillance system integration and the skills of setting up the multi-monitor environment, as
well as to own the administrative privileges of CMS server in order to access the TV Wall
Server settings and layout arrangements.
You may also check ACTi Download Center for updates and documents:
http://www.acti.com/DownloadCenter/
Technical Support
If you have any questions during system installation, please feel free to contact our engineers
via our Customer Help Desk platform http://www.acti.com/CHD.
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
Table of Contents
1 Legal Notice 2
Disclaimer 2
Copyright 2
Trademarks ............................................................................................ 2
2 About This Manual 3
Target Audience .................................................................................... 3
Technical Support .................................................................................. 3
3 Table of Contents 4
4 Introduction 6
Product Overview .................................................................................. 6
System Architecture .............................................................................. 7
System Requirement ............................................................................. 8
5 Installation 10
Connect the Monitors ......................................................................... 11
Adjust the Display Settings ................................................................. 12
Install TV Wall Server Program ........................................................... 14
Activate TV Wall License ..................................................................... 15
Online Activation 15
Offline Activation 15
Step-by-step Online License Activation ....................................... 16
Step-by-step Offline License Activation ....................................... 18
Start TV Wall Service ........................................................................... 20
Bring up the Views ....................................................................... 20
Configure OSD Settings of Monitors ........................................... 21
Disable Windows Screen Saver and Monitor Sleep ............................ 22
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
Disable Windows Screen Saver ................................................... 22
Windows 7 22
Windows 8 22
Make the Monitors Always Stay Awake ....................................... 22
Windows 7 22
Windows 8 22
6 Configure TV Wall Monitor Views 23
Add TV Wall Servers ............................................................................ 23
Create TV Wall Views .......................................................................... 24
Step One: Create a TV Wall Views Group (Optional) .................. 24
Step Two: Copy Existing Views (Optional) ................................... 25
Step Three: Edit Views (Optional) ................................................ 26
Step Four: Create a View to Display TV Wall Controller .............. 27
Assign Views to Monitors .................................................................... 31
Step One: Create a View Set ....................................................... 32
Step Two: Assign Views to this View Set ..................................... 33
Step Three: Save This View Set .................................................. 35
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Introduction
Product Overview
In a video surveillance deployment, especially with hundreds or thousands of cameras
monitoring vast areas, it is ideal for the control center to employ a TV Wall display system.
As the TV Wall system offers multiple screens to display good picture clarity and
distinguished details of numerous channels, the security personnel is benefitted a lot when
monitoring unusual activities and analyzing video data. With the adoption of large screens, it
also allows a group of viewers to watch simultaneously, which is not likely to be carried out on
a single normal-sized monitor.
To ensure that your central management system is compatible with future-proof display
deployment, ACTi TV Wall, an add-on feature of CMS server, enables multiple CMS preset
views to be displayed on different monitors at the same time. A system operator no more
needs to switch between layouts on the same screen with the help of ACTi TV Wall, which
indeed brings more operational efficiency and gets the viewer more awareness of occurring
incidents.
Installed on a separate server computer, ACTi TV Wall application is scalable and flexible
due to its hardware independency. In other words, the number, types, as well as
configurations of the monitors are totally up to the installer’s decision and installation budget
for the project’s display needs.
.
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
TV Wall Servers
TV Wall
System Control
NVR
Video Stream
Communication
CMS
System Architecture
Within CMS system, a TV Wall Station acts as a CMS Client, it consists of a TV Wall Server
computer (where TV Wall server program is installed) and multiple monitors. As the TV Wall
service starts up, NVR Servers will be requested by CMS Server to stream video to TV Wall
Station.
However, with the purpose of pure real-time monitoring, a TV Wall Station is more like a
video recipient, for only live video and motion alerts are presented on TV Wall monitors; while
other operations such as video playback or PTZ control are performed via genuine CMS
Client interface (as Web Client or Workstation Client).
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
Minimum
PC Spec
Live Channel
Number(*3)
Standard(*2)
Advanced(*2)
CPU
<100
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz
Intel Core i5 2.4 GHz
100-200
Intel Core i5 2.4 GHz
Intel Core i7-920 2.67 GHz
>200
Intel Core i7-920 2.67 GHz
Intel Core i7-3970X 3.5 GHz
RAM
1-400
4GB
>400
8GB (*4)
Operating
System
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012 (*5)
Network
Ethernet 1000 Base-T
System Requirement
The performance of TV Wall display quality is largely determined by the computer hardware
capability and number of live channels. The table below provides basic guidelines for
selecting proper hardware for TV Wall Server computer (1*).
*1 These specifications are based on following camera settings:
1280x1024, 3Mbps, 18fps, MPEG-4
*2 In some cases, the dropping of frames on live view is done purposely to avoid system
instability caused by CPU overload. TV Wall Server program will automatically activate
“Decode I Frame Only” mechanism for all live channels when the server‘s CPU loading is
over 80%. The computer system at Standard level may occasionally switch to “Decode I
Frame Only” mode, which provides fewer frames per second but still enough to tell
significant movements and original image resolution; while an Advanced-level computer
allows live channels to display at original video frame rate at all times due to its more
powerful CPU.
*3 The total concurrently displayed channels of all monitors. For example, a station of 6
monitors whose layout is using the arrangement below will have 1x1 + 2x9 + 3x16
= total 67 live channels
1 monitor displaying 1x1 layout
2 monitors each displaying 3x3 layout
3 monitors each displaying 4x4 layout
*4 Please use 64-bit Windows operating system if your TV Wall Server computer has more
than 4GB RAM.
Microsoft Windows Operating System has limits on memory and address space,
regardless of the real or virtual memory available on a particular computer. Take Windows 7
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
Professional for example, the maximum physical memory for a 32-bit(X86) system can
address is 3.5 GB even though 16 GM of RAM has been installed on this computer.
Therefore, if you consider increasing the computer’s multi-tasking capability by adding more
RAM, you'll need a 64-bit version of Windows to take advantage of it all.
Please visit the link below
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778%28VS.85%29.aspx#physical_memory_
limits_windows_7 for more memory limitations on various Windows platforms.
Besides the limitation mentioned above, you may find the usable memory displayed on
Computer Properties is still less than actual installed memory.
This is a common symptoms of all Windows platforms, please find explanations and
solutions in this Windows official support document
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610/en-us ;
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/taking-the-mystery-out-of-64-bit-windows
*5 Please make sure your operating system is fully patched with the latest service packs.
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TV Wall Server 1 System Administrator’s Manual
1. Connect the Monitors
2. Adjust the Display Settings
3. Install TV Wall Server Program
4. Activate TV Wall License
5. Start TV Wall Service
6. Disable Windows Screen Saver and
Monitor Sleep
1. Add TV Wall Servers
2. Create TV Wall Views
3. Assign Views to Monitors
TV Wall Station
CMS Client
Installation
The installation process involves two phases – setting up TV Wall Station and configuring TV
Wall Views.
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Connect the Monitors
The setup of multiple monitors involves several different sources – hardware, software and
configurations; hence, there is no real limit to the scale of a TV Wall Station. With the
employment of dedicated appliances, a professional personnel can even implement a
high-end video wall in CMS system.
To leave the most flexibility and scalability to multi-monitor installation, ACTi TV Wall
application is designed as a seamless solution to go with any level of TV Wall Station. With
the ACTi TV Wall server program installed, a windows computer can turn into the TV Wall
Server, without extra adjustments made on the computer itself.
In general, the key factor determining how many video outputs a TV Wall server computer
supports are the number and capabilities of graphic card (on-board or external).
Please make sure your equipments can fulfill the required number of monitors, and
consider the following suggestions to have all your components work smoothly together:
1. The computer’s motherboard supports your required number of graphic cards. It is
recommended that you use the same model of graphic cards to avoid problems caused
by mixing different models. For example, a TV Wall Station of 6 monitors requires all
the following items:
a. A computer whose motherboard supports three graphic cards.
b. Three graphic cards, each capable of outputting to two displays concurrently.
c. Six monitors whose video inputs match the graphic cards’ output port types.
2. Go to Microsoft Update to install any related hardware updates and operating system
device packs.
3. Visit the manufacturer's website to update the graphic cards’ drivers to the latest. By
now, your computer should have recognized all the connected graphic cards and show
them under on Windows Device Manager.
4. Power on all the monitors, and connect them well with the computer.
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