Having a Video Wall was always a luxury. As was Digital Signage. But Yodeck is a game-changer.

(UPDATE: Video-Wall support is now available on Yodeck! Click here for the guide on how to set it up!)

Inspiration

We first saw Raspberry Pi’s used for video wall on the PiWall. But it had issues. You could only get a single video to play without interrupting everything, and you could only display videos, nothing more. But it was a great start.

We have always believed that it was possible to create a better Video Wall feature than that, in Yodeck. But it would be difficult and it would require a lot of effort.

Lenkeng to the Rescue

And then, we found the Lenkeng LKV373A. This little pair of devices work as an HDMI Extender over Ethernet. Pretty standard these days, right? The cool thing is that they do it using IP broadcasting, with their own “protocol” dubbed “HDbitT”. That is actually an IP Video Stream that we can receive and utilize in Yodeck! We now have a “HDMI-in” device for the Raspberry Pi, which costs $36 on eBay! Hurray!

Note that the LKV373 (versions 1 and 2) are not compatible. You need v3.0, the one designated as LKV373A. With this device, you can use any video source with HDMI-out (like SAT boxes, DVB-T receivers or any A/V equipment) within a Yodeck Player. That’s great, and we had that feature request. But what about the Video Wall?

Using the LKV373A for a Video Wall

The LKV373A broadcasts the video stream to the whole LAN. On the other hand, a Yodeck Player can play any rectangular section of a video stream. So… having 4 Yodeck Players with their screens on a 2×2 grid configuration, each playing their part of the broadcasted IP video stream, would allow for a cool Video Wall feature! And if you use another “master” Yodeck Player as the HDMI-out device feeding the LKV373A, then you have a complete Yodeck Video Wall set!

The only disadvantage is that the final result on the video wall is limited to 1080p (Full HD resolution, so you can’t have the receiving Yodeck Players rendering content locally. But, believe me when I say that, in 99.9% of the cases, you won’t mind.

So, what now?

Sounds complicated?

All you need to know is that you need to get an LKV373A . And we already provide full support for LKV373A devices, both as HDMI-in as well as for Video Walls.

Credits for making this work go to Danman, who did the research and published it on his blog.