If you’re just joining, check out the past few weeks: we talked about meeting rooms, command centers, and training spaces. This week, we’re talking about one of the most overhyped and misunderstood elements in modern AV — video walls.

Let’s start here:
A video wall is not a design feature.
It’s a communication tool.
But somewhere between the spec sheet and the handover, that truth often gets lost.

What Actually Goes Wrong with Video Walls

• Pixel Overload: Just because you can fill a wall with high-res LED doesn’t mean you should. More pixels won’t fix unclear content or a bad layout.
• Content Strategy? What Content Strategy?
  We’ve installed walls with no plan for what would be shown. The end result? A looping screensaver and a client wondering why they spent six figures.
• Heat, Power, and Maintenance:
  Video walls look sleek. But behind them? Heat buildup, dust, access nightmares, and power loads no one calculated properly. Oh, and replacing one tile isn’t always “seamless.”

One Lesson That Keeps Repeating

People assume the bigger the wall, the more impressive the space.
But if your content doesn’t scale, if your source resolution is off, or your control system lags — then you’ve just installed a very expensive frustration.

We once had a client display a 1080p feed across an 8K wall. It looked terrible. Why? Because no one told the content team the wall was actually 8K.

What Makes a Video Wall Actually Work

• A real content plan — before installation
• Scalable signal flow
• Proper heat ventilation and service access
• Calibration tools and a team that knows how to use them
• And yes… someone trained to change content without calling the integrator every time

Final Thoughts

Video walls are impressive when they work.
They’re embarrassing when they don’t.
And they’re useless when nobody knows how to use them.

So next time someone says, “We want a big video wall,” ask:
“What do you need people to see, and what do you want them to feel?”

That’s where the real design begins.

This was Week 4 of AV Truth. If you missed last week’s post on Training Rooms, click here!