Proportions for a video that will play on 4 large screens video-wall style

[ARB1976]

I am trying to make and export a video that will be shown across four 55-inche Dell monitors positioned vertically one next to the other. Each screen is 4K so 3840 x 2160. Should I make the composition size 8640 x 2160 so that it plays on four screens seamlessly? Thanks

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

The workflow depends entirely on what software you will use to playback the video wall projection. Most want separate videos for each screen. This entails creating a comp big enough to contain all of the nested smaller screens or creating a very large graphic of the final layout to use as a guide for lining up the edges of the images on the smaller screens. I've done both. 

Very few playback systems will want one huge video that is big enough for all of the screens because it is much easier to synchronize multiple media players than it is to playback one huge video and distribute it on multiple screens. If the playback system requires one video the frame size and frame rate will be in the specifications. You will also probably have to render to a proprietary codec. 

I guess all those words could have been made into just one sentence. Check with the folks that are playing back the video.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

I can only second Rick's suggestion. talk to the people who actualyl do the playout/ projection. Even in this day and age where 8k TVs are a normal thing even for home use, most of such stuff is still played through synced harddrive recorders feeding each screen individually for simple practical reasons. Unless the monitors support some proprietary technology that could handle such a signal split or they are fed from a very powerful stationary PC, possibly with multiple GPUs, it's more likely you have to splice out the individual screens by pre-composing your large final composition to individual render comps so they can be loaded as individual clips on th disk recorders.

Mylenium