Media server

A media server stores and plays the show’s video content, and sends it out to screens, LED processors or projectors. On a mapped or multi-screen show it also handles the warping and blending that make several outputs behave as one picture.

The honest comparison is with a laptop, because a laptop is what it replaces. A laptop will play a video. It will also sleep, show a notification, change resolution when a cable is reseated, and drop a frame while something updates in the background. None of those matter in an office and all of them are visible on a twelve-metre screen.

A server also allows content to be cued rather than clicked: every clip laid out in order, triggered on a call, and on a large show locked to timecode so video, lighting and audio hit together.

For a single video in a breakout room this is overkill and a laptop is the correct answer. For a main stage, an award sequence, a mapped surface, or anything where a stumble is in front of the whole room, it is the difference between a show that runs and a show somebody is nursing.

Corporate event production — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Video switcher The device that decides which source the screens are showing at any given second, and the person operating it is as much of the specification as the box.
• Projection mapping Projecting onto something that is not a flat white screen — a building, a set piece, a staircase — with the image built to fit that exact surface.
• LED wall A screen built from modular LED panels bolted together, bright enough to read in daylight and sized to the room rather than to a projector lens.