Runco's WindowWall gives you the $100,000 view you always wanted (eyes-on)
By Sean Hollister 
posted April 8th 2010 8:55AM
posted April 8th 2010 8:55AM
You see them, as soon as you set eyes on the gigantic, nine-panel screen. Those black lines are plainly visible. But the 46-inch Samsung panels in Runco's WindowWall have 7.33mm bezels that almost disappear from ten feet away, and when we first walked in, we actually thought they were part of the image. In a nutshell, WindowWall is a modular display system that turns entire walls into displays capable of rendering giant images across many screens, or display different media -- say, Doctor Who, LOST, FlashForward, V, Castle, 24, a couple computer screens and an episode of Firefly for good measure -- on each individual one. Making the system work in sync requires quite a bit of hardware, including a power supply unit and display controller unit for every four 1366 x 768 panels used, not to mention an upscaling box and a seriously sturdy stand (sorry, Humanscale) to hold up all that glass. The company boasts the whole system is scalable, meaning you can make it work with as few as four or as many as twenty panels and still run the entire system as a single screen at its full, gigantic native resolution. We weren't able to see these nine pumping pixels at 4098 x 2304, unfortunately, as the only content on hand was 1080p, but the footage did seem to be well synced across all nine screens. Of course, with a system like this the catch is cost -- for the nine panels, frame, reels of CAT cable and veritable server rack required to run this particular WindowWall, Runco said we should expect to pay a heartstopping $100,000. Droolworthy, to be sure, but too rich for our blood. Perhaps if the whole neighborhood chipped in, right before Super Bowl? 
Pfft...Arnold Schwarzenegger has had one of these for 20 years now.
@CRA1G
Yeah and his doesn't have bezels. lol
@CRA1G Get your @ ss to Mars!
@CRA1G
Maybe hell let us come over for Superbowl instead of the neighborhood renting one....but than again I know A LOT of you are actually thinking about that idea...I know I am
@CRA1G I can't imagine who would want a big screen with a big # in it? Totally unusable.
I'd just get depressed, knowing that its not real and there is actually five feet of snow outside.
$100,000 dollars! I'm just fine with my current 15" LCD, thanks though.
But really? THat's a lot of money... Money that could be spent elsewhere. You buy this for $100,000, you don't have the money for that new graphics card you need to drive it! XD
@Concorde105
you spend $100,000 on this, you have the rest of your $2 billion to buy whatever else you've always wanted
@bigdonny you have $2 billion and still want something? I would have bought it all long time ago, including that small country I always wanted...
Where did you/they get monitors with such small frames? I'd love a $600 3-monitor setup with those!
WTF why wouldn't you just use rear projection? You could build something similar for a fraction of the cost.
@Aleman not with this resolution and this thin
back to the future?
@Xstream
My thoughts exactly.
100 000$? If we say that one IMAX ticket is 10$, and we go to see a movie twice a week, that's 1040$ a year... 96 years!
@Atkins
Well...IMAX movie tickets definately are not $10...they cost me $15-20...also that's for one ticket. Say you have 5 people in your household and you watch 2 movies a week...that comes out to watching movies twice a week for 9.6 years @ $20+/person(including drinks and popcorn)
Now the easiest solution you see is just don't go to the movie theatre...it's really a huge ripoff for the most part.
@Hondizer Well, I don't have a household of 5, but I get your point.
So is it a Window or is it a Wall?
I wish you had taken a picture from 10 feet away so we could see how much the bezel really disappears. Looks pretty cool anyway, except for the price of course.
My company build same thing but with IP devices (1 ethernet in, 3x VGA out). Wall is extendable in runtime.
Pic 2 of 3: Look ma beeezeeel!
seems a really expensive way to go about achieving that! am sure there are some pro AV solutions that would beat that hands down...
Why hasn't anyone made a bezel-less screen yet. Atleast for these 9+ screen demos!!! The bezel with these multi screen shots make it look tacky. But def one of the smallest bezels ive seen so far
@Eli Haj
"We weren't able to see these nine pumping pixels at 4098 x 2304"
Would you kindly tell me where I can buy a projector that can display 4098x2304? Unless you mean get some 1080p projectors and do what they did here.
Couldn't something similar to this be done on the relative cheap by just buying a hefty quad core PC, one of those 6xOutput gfx cards, and 6 off-the-shelf Sammy TVs?
Lets work it out -
1 x 46" sammy TV - £1200 x 6
1 x some kind of monitor mounting setup - £500
1 x ATI EyeFinity 6 output gfx card - £1000 est.
1 x Ridiculous PC - £1500
----------
£10,200
Thats a tenth of the price for two thirds of their setup, all done at 1080p per screen!
So who'd pay for Runco's setup!?
@Heliosphan
Because your solution run on unreliable Windows and it can crash. Also, sometimes you need multiple HD inputs which require additional PCI HD input boards which comes with (sometimes buggy) untested drivers.
So, yes, it is possible to build cheap video-wall solution based on consumer PC with one or more graphics cards in it, but if you need 24/7/365 system (like control centers needs), then you must open your wallet.
@yooyo3d hate to tell you this but a lot of control centres/NOCs run windows for the big displays. Actually the big displays are more to impress customers and/or media than serve a useful purpose.
@Heliosphan
just goes to show ya, rich people will buy anything.
@yooyo3d
this can be achieved using any os, not just windows, even free linux distros.
In this day and age of 3D wall covered TV's, Elvis would be so proud.
The King and I approve.
I've always wanted something like this, but had imagined it to be more like a window size. I thought it would be cool to hook it up to a high end webcam pointing at some really nice view, like the one demo'd in this article. Being a webcam it would be like looking out an actual window, just someone's window in Hawaii.
How to monetize a bad idea: sell it to business people.
For that price, a reasonable person would be able to setup a theater, with surround sound and maybe a home theater projector.