Pixel Mapping for LED banners and video walls

You turn Pixel Mapping on in the screen settings: open the screen, expand Advanced, set Output to Pixel Mapping, and click Configure pixel mapping. In the editor you enter the Input resolution and the Output resolution, then divide the source into regions. Note that changing the Output setting detaches the content from the screen, so you have to send the content again afterwards.

What you use it for

  • LED banners with a wide or unusual resolution.
  • Video walls where the source has to be spread across several panels.
  • Screen layouts that don't match the source resolution.

Example: your design is 8704 by 192 pixels, but the video processor expects a signal of 1920 by 1080. Pixel Mapping cuts the source into strips and stacks them on the output canvas.

Turning Pixel Mapping on

  1. Go to Screens in the sidebar.
  2. Click the screen you want to set up, or right-click it and choose Settings.
  3. Expand Advanced at the bottom.
  4. Set Output to Pixel Mapping.
  5. Click Configure pixel mapping to open the editor.

Output and Layout are two separate settings, and you can combine them. With both Pixel Mapping and Sub-screens on, the sub-screens show only images and video, and you set the sub-screen canvas to the Input resolution of the mapping. See Sub-screens.

Setting up regions

At the top of the editor you fill in two resolutions:

  • Input resolution: the size your content was made at.
  • Output resolution: the size your video processor or screen expects.

A new mapping starts on 1920 by 1080 for both.

Cutting into strips automatically

  1. Fill in the Input resolution, for example 8704 by 192.
  2. Fill in the Output resolution, for example 1920 by 1080.
  3. Fill in the Strip width, for example 1920.
  4. Click Auto-slice. The editor creates regions that cut the source into strips of that width and stack them on the output canvas.

Auto-slice replaces the regions you already have.

Adding regions by hand

  1. Click Add region.
  2. In the row, fill in the four values under src: that is the piece of the source you cut out (x, y, width, height).
  3. Fill in the four values under dst: that is where it lands on the output canvas (x, y, width, height).
  4. You can also drag a region around the output canvas with your mouse.
  5. The trash icon at the end of the row deletes a region.

Saving and sending the content again

  1. Click Save in the mapping editor.
  2. Click Save in the screen settings.
  3. Send the content to the screen again.

Step 3 is necessary: the moment Pixel Mapping goes on or off, Screenbird detaches the content from the screen, because content made for a mapping is unusable without it and the other way around. So the screen falls back to its default view first. See Sending content to a screen.

After that, the screen applies the mapping to video and images. Apps, designs, and web embeds are not mapped: they play full screen.

Watch the source resolution

Only content that matches the Input resolution exactly is rearranged one to one. If the size differs, the screen first scales the source to the input resolution, following the scaling set on that item. With Fill, that means cropping. So build your content at exactly the input resolution.

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