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Connect an LED board

An LED board comes with a control system from its manufacturer, and with setup software that your installer used to commission it. The steps below work for any manufacturer. For background, see LED boards.

How an LED installation is chained​

A control computer sends video to a sending card. The sending card passes the picture over ordinary network cable to the receiving cards in the board, which light the panels.

Your computer sees the sending card as a second screen, and the board shows whatever goes to that screen.

What the setup software is for​

The setup software does two jobs, and you only need one of them.

The first is setup and the panel map. The software records how the panels are arranged, along with brightness and colour settings, and the hardware stores that data. You do this once.

It can also play files on the board. ArenaDirector handles playback, so you do not use that part.

Keep the setup software installed but closed. You only open it again when the panels need to be mapped again.

Before you start​

  • You need the board's exact native size in pixels and its cabinet size. Your installer or the panel map in the setup software has both values.
  • The board must be mapped and calibrated in its setup software.
  • The sending card must be connected to the computer that runs ArenaDirector.

Connect it​

  1. Connect the sending card's video input to a free video output on the computer. The computer detects a new screen.
  2. Set that screen's resolution to the board's exact native size.
  3. Set that screen's refresh rate to the rate of your broadcast standard.
  4. In ArenaDirector, on Patch, select + Add output → LED boards. On the LED surface page, set Type to LED perimeter. See Describe an LED surface.
  5. Under Sending card → Screen, select the screen of the sending card.
  6. Under Type and cabinets, enter your cabinets so that Surface size matches the size of the board. Then add your sections.
  7. Add a canvas, then connect it to the surface on Patch. See Create a canvas and Patch the show.
  8. Show the canvas. The board shows the same picture as the canvas.

The canvas Resolution now matches the size of the surface, and you can run a rotation on the canvas.

If your ring is wider than the card's input, you also need folding.

Match the size, do not scale

Set the screen resolution to the board's exact pixel size. The board has a fixed number of pixels, so describe your cabinets to give the canvas the same size. If the sizes differ, the app scales the picture, which makes it soft or the wrong shape.

Set the frame rate to the board's exact rate. Even a small difference, such as 59.9 Hz when the board expects 60 Hz, makes the picture stutter and tear.

If the board's size is not offered​

Computers usually offer only standard screen sizes, and a perimeter board is almost never one of them. Your LED installer can supply either of these:

  • A custom resolution, added with a small utility, so the computer can send the board's exact size.
  • An EDID emulator that plugs into the video output, so the computer always detects the sending card as a screen and keeps the custom size.

Dual-colour boards​

Some older perimeter boards are dual-colour and show only red, green and amber. You connect one and send pictures to it the same way as a full-colour board: ArenaDirector sends a normal picture, and the board shows it in the colours it has.

A dual-colour board cannot show full-colour photographs, so make its content from high-contrast text and simple logos. Previews in the board's colours are planned.

See also​