FEATURE: TILED DISPLAYS


Mounting solutions for non- rectangular displays, such as eyevis omniSHAPES, are primarily provided by the display manufacturer


[KEY POINTS]


Narrow-bezel displays in tiled configurations make for more challenging mounting solutions


Simple access for service and replacement is easily overlooked – but essential


In tiled configurations, mounting has an important role to play in managing both heat dissipation and cabling


For non-rectangular displays, mounting solutions are typically provided by the display manufacturer or by specialist companies


A mounting challenge?


‘Hang and bang merchant’ is the pejorative name given by the industry to less-than-professional installers who can barely put a screen on a wall. Such installers would almost certainly find mounting tiled displays a challenge too far, finds Ian McMurray


FOR STUDENTS of the vagaries of the English language, ‘mount’ is a classic case. It’s both a verb and a noun. As a verb, it can be both transitive and intransitive. To get on a bicycle or a horse is to mount it (although care needs to be taken in the latter case, as ‘mount’ is often used, especially in the animal kingdom, in a procreative sense…). You can mount an attack, an army, a play, a podium, a hill or the stairs – or stamps in a stamp book or diamonds in a ring. Costs mount, as does tension. Computer geeks often refer to ‘mounting’ a disk drive – a relic of computing practice of years gone by. As a noun, it can be a variation of ‘mountain’; it’s also a somewhat poetic synonym for ‘horse’. But, perhaps most commonly, it’s a fixing of


22 June 2013


some kind that attaches something to something else. And, of course, mounts


play an essential role in the AV industry. But mounting a single screen on a boardroom wall is a significantly different proposition from mounting multiple screens in very close proximity to each other – for which there is growing demand, given the rising popularity of tiled displays, whether of rectangular or irregular shape. Precise alignment is only the beginning. “There’s not much point in buying ultra- narrow bezel screens if you can’t mount them tightly together,” smiles Peter van Dijk, business development manager at Mitsubishi Europe. “That’s why Mitsubishi designs its LCD display walls around the mounting system.” Guy Van Wijmeersch,


strategic marketing director for advanced visualisation systems at Barco, sees things similarly. “Tolerances in the three dimensions need to be taken care of, as customers want the smallest bezels,” he says, “and that means a consistent distance between bezels as well as between different glass surfaces.”


Alignment is, of course, necessary across three dimensions: horizontal and vertical are obvious, however, there is also depth to take into consideration. But, as Rachel Ververda, export manager at mounting solutions company SmartMetals, notes, even that is not necessarily straightforward. “Sometimes,” she says, “our customers come across displays that have an insufficiently strong housing,


so that the front of the display angles forward. In these cases, the corners of the displays need to be aligned. It’s very helpful working with displays that have corner mounting holes for easier alignment.” If anything, alignment is


the – relatively – easy part. Configuring multiple screens together generates heat. “For the reliability of the


system, the operating temperature is an important issue,” notes Max Winck, marketing manager at eyevis, “so it’s necessary to guarantee proper ventilation of the tiled displays to prevent them from failures or other effects, such as image retention on LCD screens. It’s especially necessary when the displays are mounted close to the ceiling of a building, where it’s generally warmer. That’s why we


provide all our tiled display solutions with appropriate ventilation systems to ensure their reliable operation. For the mounting itself, it is necessary to have a certain space behind the displays to enable an efficient airflow or to install a ventilation structure, such as air channels.”


MAINTENANCE Properly designed mounting systems provide precise alignment, and facilitate airflow to mitigate the effect of heat. There is one further function that they must be designed to fulfil – a function that is easy to forget about, but fundamental. While maintaining or replacing a single screen is typically fairly straightforward, maintaining or replacing one when it is tightly surrounded by other screens can be significantly


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