I wrote a blog post for the Hiperwall web site about how we can put content anywhere and at pretty much any size. This was prompted by one of our competitors claiming they could do Picture-In-Picture, while we couldn’t. Well that’s absurd, because we can put anything anywhere, so if you want a video stream in front of another video stream, just move it there. Heck, put 2 or 3 in front – that’s OK. I even made the video shown in the blog post of an animated video stream becoming partially transparent as it flies over another video stream that is in front of a very high-resolution live data feed of the air traffic map around LAX.
This capability has been part of Hiperwall for years, so we don’t really think about how powerful and different it is until we’re reminded of exactly how limited our competitors are. Picture-in-Picture is an amusing thing for a competitor to think is great, because it has fallen out of favor – the TVs I bought in the first decade of this century all had it as a feature, but modern TVs don’t bother, because it is a hassle and most people don’t use it. Now I’m not saying it isn’t a useful concept for a video wall, but I think flexible object positioning is far more capable and powerful than very limiting Picture-in-Picture features.
