Two walls of 9 screens
More than 20 m² of display between the two, nearly 9 metres wide, divided into zones by entity. 65-inch televisions linked over HDMI, with no network connection at all.
Case study · Temporary control room
Lourdes 2026.
Twelve entities, one picture.
For Pope Leo XIV's visit, on 26 and 27 September 2026, the prefecture of Hautes-Pyrénées (the State's local authority in the département) brought its services together in a control room set up for the occasion. We designed and built its video walls, then ran them day and night. Here is everything we deployed, and what we take from it.
- Walls built in 2 days
- All over HDMI
- No shared network
- In service 24/7
18 computersshown, against 8 requested
12 entitiesor so, in front of the same picture
20 m²of video walls, and more, between the two
24/7more than 48 hours of service
The event
An exceptional weekend.
The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and also a head of state. Leo XIV is only the third Pope to come to Lourdes. A visit like this mobilises the security and emergency services of an entire State.
200,000people or so, over the weekend
3,000police officers and gendarmes
700first responders mobilised
475people treated
370 firefighters, 280 first-aiders from the Red Cross and the Order of Malta, 50 healthcare staff from the SAMU (French emergency medical service). Sources, opened in a new tab: the rescue services' review (France 3 Occitanie) and the security operation (France 3 Occitanie).
The prefecture sums it up in one sentence: the visit “took place in good conditions and without any major incident”. Behind an operation like this, a room was needed where the services see each other, talk to each other and decide together. About a hundred people, in the rooms, followed the video walls throughout those 48 hours.
The photos show only part of it. The room was very large, and many other services worked behind the panels.
- Prefecture
- Sécurité civile (civil protection)
- SAMU
- Fire and rescue service
- Police nationale (national police)
- Gendarmerie (national gendarmerie)
- RAID
- GIGN
- Internal security
- Municipal police
- Army
- Sanctuary cameras
- and other services
The story
Three weeks, two walls, one weekend.
Here is the operation as we lived it, from the first plan to the last cable folded away.
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Early September
The layout is settled
Everything starts with a plan. The authorities approve the layout of the walls: each entity will have its zone, in an agreed place. We write it into the software exactly as it is.
From then on, no more improvising. What will be displayed on the day is decided, zone by zone, almost three weeks ahead.
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The following two weeks
Days and nights of testing
The test workstation runs non-stop. Whole days, and nights. Twelve computers displayed at once, scenario changes in series, sources unplugged and plugged back in.
The tests bring out defects. We fix them one by one. 178 changes later, the version is frozen: the software will not change again.
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The build
Two days, three of us
A large hall, a stage, and everything to build. The structures arrive on castors: 3.80 metres high, about 125 kg of structure, and about a hundred kilos of screens to hang on it. Eighteen televisions to align to the millimetre.
In theory, it needed four days. Two days after we arrive, everything is cabled, aligned, and driven by touch.
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Friday 25 September
The day before
Back on site. We check the complete chain in real conditions: one workstation, the room's network, screen sharing, the picture on the wall. The backups are there, ready.
Tomorrow morning, the room opens.
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Saturday 26 September
The room opens
About a hundred people take their places. The prefecture, Sécurité civile, the SAMU, the fire and rescue service, the police, the Gendarmerie, the army. Women and men who are serious, focused, committed.
We had been asked for 8 captures, that is, 8 computers to display on the walls. More are needed: every service that sees the wall wants to bring its own picture. We will end up at 18.
At 19:05, the Pope's plane lands at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées airport. At 19:40, he prays at the Massabielle grotto. On the wall, the first countdown has just reached zero.
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Sunday 27 September
The big day
At 09:00, the meeting with the bishops. At 11:00, Mass on the Sanctuary Prairie. In the afternoon, the meetings with the sick and with the nuns. At 21:00, the torchlight procession. Over the weekend, about 200,000 people have come.
In the room, the work does not stop. A cable unplugged here, a window to reposition there, a screen to extend so as to show only what should be shown. We run from one workstation to the next. It takes patience, and a great deal of it.
We are two, in relays. When one sleeps, the other watches over the walls.
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Night of 27 to 28
The countdown
Since opening, one zone of the wall shows a countdown before each stage of the programme. Tonight, it announces the last one. Three lines: “Départ du pape” (“Pope's departure”), a countdown in large red figures, and the target time. 07:40.
At 04:51, 2 hours, 48 minutes and 50 seconds remain. Every thirty minutes, we record the state of the machine. No crash.
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Monday 28 September, morning
The departure
The convoy sets off. Our eyes are glued to the walls. The pictures relay each other: the sanctuary cameras, the municipal police, the Police nationale, the Gendarmerie. A Gendarmerie colonel, like a conductor, guides us to bring the services' pictures together in the same view.
The decision-makers are gathered. A finger points at a detail. They discuss, they decide. The convoy reaches the airport.
Operation complete. The Pope has left Lourdes.
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Monday 28 September
The dismantling
Dismantling starts the same day. Throughout the weekend, we handed out our embroidered “Lourdes 2026” keyrings to those who lived it alongside us. Even the prefect got one. A moment like this is lived together.
It is the most significant event of our journey. One does not take part in protecting a Pope every day.
What we deployed
From each service's table to 20 m² walls.
One computer, two walls
One computer drove the control screen and both walls, each in ultra-high definition (4K). It had no Internet access. Next to it, a backup server ready to take over.
Three satellite rooms
Driven at a fingertip. Each brought together up to 8 sources on its screen with our Multiprise HDMI.
Mirror screens
Five to seven 65-inch screens repeated the picture from the walls. In a room this large, not everyone is facing the walls.
Three Elo touchscreens
Two for us, to drive the walls. The third at the control desk, facing the room, for the services to change the display themselves.
A countdown on the wall
Stage after stage, one zone of the wall displayed the time left before each milestone of the programme: the arrival, the Mass, the procession, the departure. In very large red figures.
A backup for every link
A backup server for the control, television picked up by antenna if the online feed dropped, QuickShare installed in the room, which does not need the Internet. Everything was ready.
A tactical case
The room's own network and a control screen, brought together in one case.
A team on site
Design, assembly, operation, dismantling. Three people for the build, then two in the room throughout the operation.
The complete chain, from workstation to wall
- The services' workstations18 computers, a dozen entities
- One HDMI cable per workstationno shared network
- The capture boxes4 HDMI inputs each
- The control computerCollectivView, touchscreens
- HDMI over network cableup to 50 metres
- The video wall controller1 picture spread over 9 screens
- The video walls2 walls, 18 screens
Two words come up often on this page. To capture a computer is to take the picture of its screen through its HDMI cable, without touching its network. A scenario is a saved layout of the wall, which you recall with one gesture.
The real need
We had been asked for 8 captures. We made 18.
It is the simplest lesson, and the most useful. Every service that sees the wall wants to bring its own picture. Between the request and the end of the operation, the need more than doubled: 18 computers shown, for a dozen entities.
- Adding a source means one more HDMI cable
- One source can feed several zones
- No network to open between the services
8 → 18
captures requested, captures in service
Video 1 · The build
Two days of assembly, instead of four.
Two days after we arrived, everything was cabled, aligned and driven by touch. In theory, it needed four days. There were three of us. A tour of the site, cable by cable.
- The tactical case and the room's own network
- The HDMI signal carried over network cable to the walls
- The services' islands, facing the walls
- The screens, the structure, the controller
Video 2 · The walls
A 3.80 m high wall, on castors.
Two supports of 9 screens each, placed on the stage. Aluminium uprights, castors with brakes, and millimetre adjustment to align the screens. Kimex supplies the mounts, we bring the walls to life.
- Kimex, a French brand based in Bordeaux
- About 125 kg of structure, and about a hundred kilos of screens
- Off-the-shelf 65-inch televisions
Video 3 · The controller
One computer on 9 screens, one single cable.
A wall of 9 screens, and a single HDMI cable coming in. The video wall controller spreads the picture. We set it to 3 × 3, live. After that, the software cuts this picture into zones, windows, sources.
- One input, up to 16 outputs
- A box costing €150 to €200 depending on the seller
- Hardware we know well, and that can be replaced in a few minutes
Video 4 · The satellite rooms
8 computers on one screen, driven at a fingertip.
Around the main room, three satellite rooms, all equipped with our Multiprise HDMI. The one shown in the video was intended for the Police nationale: up to 8 computers on a single screen, and a touchscreen to choose what you look at.
- One tap on a workstation: it goes full size
- From the single source to the mosaic of 8
- Unplug, plug back in: the picture comes back on its own
- HDMI cables only, no technical skills required
The preparation
We test for a long time, then we freeze.
An event of this scale does not forgive improvisation. For more than two weeks, we prepared the setup, then ran it on the test workstation. Whole days, and nights.
16 daysof preparation, 13 of them testing on the test workstation
178changes tested before freezing the version
1,614tests in the automatic check
140sources checked one by one
- D-20
The wall plan was written
It reproduced the layout approved by the authorities: one zone per entity, in the agreed place.
- D-17
12 computers displayed at once
First tests on the test workstation: twelve simultaneous captures, in ultra-high definition.
- D-14
1,614 tests, 140 sources
A complete automatic check, and every source of every scenario verified. 28 sources that no longer responded were replaced.
- D-7
A smoothness defect fixed
Smoothness dropped after several scenario changes. The defect was found, measured, fixed.
- D-4
24-hour endurance test, version frozen
Two walls, nine capture zones per wall, scenario changes in series, for 24 hours. No drift. The software version did not change afterwards.
- D-1
QuickShare validated in the room
One workstation on the room's network, a link, screen sharing, the picture on the wall. In real conditions.
- 26 to 28
From Saturday to Monday, no crash
A reading every thirty minutes, from late Saturday afternoon until Monday. No crash, and headroom on both the graphics card and the memory.
Ten defects revealed by the tests, all fixed before opening
We prefer to show them. CollectivView is our most recent software, and the Lourdes room asked a lot of it: two walls, eighteen captures, scenarios following one another for two days. These fixes now benefit all our rooms.
- Captures dropped one by one after several scenario changes. Before: 11 failures out of 25. After: none.
- Smoothness fell after three or four scenario changes.
- Sound overlapped from one scenario to the next.
- The control screen was the last to appear: it took 18 to 23 seconds, against 9 to 13 after the fix.
- Plugging a capture card back in could make all the pictures disappear.
- Ultra-high definition was lost on the capture cards.
- Enlarging a zone that still had no picture froze all the others.
- The control screen did not show what the wall was showing.
- Hidden buttons reappeared.
- 28 sources out of 140 no longer responded in the scenarios. All were replaced.
Several of these defects only appear after hours of operation. A ten-minute demonstration would not have shown them.
Resilience
A backup behind every link.
Maximum resilience: it is our motto. In a crisis room, you do not ask whether something will fail, you ask what to do when it happens. For every link that could fail, we had a backup on site, plugged in and tried out.
If the control computer fails
A backup server was installed next to it, ready to take over and resume the display of the walls.
If online television fails
A UHF antenna, a two-input tuner card and a TNT dongle (digital terrestrial TV): enough to pick up the channels by antenna, as at home, without depending on the Internet.
If a guest arrives at the last minute
They join the room's network, over Wi-Fi or with our cable, open a link, click: their screen is on the wall. Nothing to install.
If the Internet goes down
The computer that drove the walls had no Internet access anyway: the walls did not depend on it. Nor did QuickShare: it ran on our server, in the room.
None of these backups had to be used. All of them could have been. That is why they were there.
The hardest part
The technology held. The hardest part is the cable that gets unplugged.
We prefer to tell everything. In a temporary room, the difficulty is not the video wall. It is at each workstation, around a simple HDMI cable. Nobody is at fault: in an operation, people have other things to do than adjust a screen.
Cables plugged, unplugged, plugged back in
In a temporary room, workstations move. People unplug to go to a meeting, plug back in on returning, and the picture disappears from the wall at the worst moment.
An HDMI cable not pushed in fully
The simplest defect, and the most frequent. A plug only half in gives a black screen, or a picture that jumps.
A window that cannot be placed
The picture is on the wall, but it is the wrong one. Everyone needs help to bring their window to where the room has to see it.
Duplicate or extend: confidentiality is decided there
In duplicate mode, the wall shows the whole screen of the workstation. In extended mode, it only shows the window placed on it. It is a setting that takes two minutes to show.
It took patience from us, and running everywhere, throughout the operation. It is the part of the job that no data sheet shows, and it is why a team is needed on site.
- A temporary room is not simply delivered: it is accompanied, from the first workstation plugged in to the last
- The “duplicate or extend” setting protects what must stay confidential
- The picture of a workstation that is plugged back in returns to the wall on its own
On the wall
A countdown for every stage.
Throughout the operation, one zone of the wall displayed a countdown before each stage of the programme: the arrival at the airport, the prayer at the grotto, the Mass, the meetings, the torchlight procession, the departure. Each stage had its deadline, large, in front of the room.
- Saturday 26 · 19:05Arrival at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées airport
- Saturday 26 · 19:40Prayer at the Massabielle grotto
- Sunday 27 · 09:00Meeting with the bishops of France
- Sunday 27 · 11:00Mass on the Sanctuary Prairie
- Sunday 27 · 15:30Meeting with the sick and the hospitaliers (volunteer helpers)
- Sunday 27 · 16:45Meeting with the Carmelite nuns
- Sunday 27 · 21:00Rosary and torchlight procession
- Monday 28 · 07:40Departure by plane for Metz
Public programme of the visit. Source, opened in a new tab: the official website of the journey.
- One countdown per stage, set to a precise time
- Very large red figures
- The time of day and the target time, repeated below
Monday 28 September
The convoy, camera after camera.
On Monday, around 8 o'clock, our eyes were glued to the walls. We had to follow the convoy to the airport. The pictures relayed each other: sanctuary cameras, municipal police, Police nationale, Gendarmerie.
A Gendarmerie colonel, like a conductor, guided us to bring the services' pictures together in the same view. The decision-makers, gathered together, a finger pointing at a detail, discussed, then decided.
The walls were driven with CollectivView, our software for rooms where several services work in front of the same picture.
Discover CollectivView
Video 5 · End of operation
Operation complete. The Pope has left Lourdes.
On Monday morning, the convoy had left. The walls still displayed the colours of the prefecture and of the visit. Dismantling started the same day.
Two walls built in two days, more than 48 hours of service, and a hall handed back as we had found it.
Video 6 · The keepsake
A keyring for every companion on the adventure.
Leo XIV is the third Pope to come to Lourdes. That deserved a keepsake. We had 200 “Lourdes 2026” keyrings embroidered, and we handed them out throughout the event, over a coffee, between two adjustments.
Everyone left with their own, right up to the prefect of Hautes-Pyrénées. We were delighted. In a room where everyone is serious and focused, a smile exchanged counts too.
Emotion, and a rigorous service: that is what we wanted to share with our companions on the adventure.
Confidentiality
What we see, and what we keep.
In this room, we had in front of us the screens of services whose work concerns only them. Here is what that implies, and what we forbid ourselves.
We only receive the picture
An HDMI cable only carries the picture of a screen. It gives no access to the workstation, nor to its files, nor to its network.
Nothing was recorded
CollectivView collected no photo and no video during the event. We kept nothing of what was displayed on the walls.
No photo of the room in service
Photos were forbidden there. All the pictures on this page date from the build, the tests or the end of the operation.
The networks stay separate
Each service keeps its own information system. Nothing links them to each other, or to ours. And the computer that drove the walls had no Internet access.
The hardware
Piece by piece.
Everyday hardware, which you can find, replace and understand. Nothing that ties us to a single manufacturer.
| Item | What we installed | Key point |
|---|---|---|
| Screens | 18 televisions of 65 inches, 9 per wall | Linked over HDMI, with no network connection at all. Switched off with one gesture, not eighteen times. |
| Structure | Kimex mounts 3.80 m high, on castors with brakes | French brand, in Bordeaux. Millimetre adjustment. About 125 kg of structure, and about a hundred kilos of screens. |
| Video wall controller | 1 input, up to 16 outputs, set to 3 × 3 | It spreads one picture over the 9 screens. €150 to €200 depending on the seller. |
| Link to the walls | HDMI extenders over network cable | 100 metres claimed on the box, 50 metres in practice with a good category 6 cable. |
| Captures | HDMI capture boxes with 4 inputs | 18 computers shown. One source can feed several zones. |
| Control | One computer, two 4K outputs, three Elo touchscreens | CollectivView. Two touchscreens for the control, a third for the services to use. No Internet access. |
| Backup | A backup server, next to the control computer | Ready to take over. It did not have to be used. |
| Backup television | UHF antenna, two-input Hauppauge tuner card, TNT dongle | The channels picked up by antenna if the online feed dropped. It was not used, but it could have been. |
| Satellite rooms | Multiprise HDMI with 8 inputs and touchscreen | Up to 8 computers on one screen, from the single source to the mosaic of 8. |
| Mirror screens | 5 to 7 screens of 65 inches | The picture from the walls, repeated elsewhere in the room. |
| Room network | Our own router and a Linux server (Ubuntu) | QuickShare hosted in the room, over Wi-Fi or by cable. No need for the Internet. |
In pictures
From the first cable to the end of the operation.
None of these photos was taken during the event: in the room in service, photos were forbidden. They show the build, the tests and the end of the operation. And CollectivView recorded nothing: no photo, no video of what was displayed on the walls.
Lessons learned
What we take from it.
The need grows
From 8 captures requested to 18 in service. Every service that sees the wall wants to bring its own picture. You need a system where adding a source comes down to one cable.
HDMI brings together what networks keep apart
Twelve entities means twelve information systems that must not connect to each other. You bring the pictures together on screen, never the networks.
A backup behind every link
A backup server, television by antenna, QuickShare in the room and its hosted version as reinforcement. None had to be used, all were ready. At the very worst, we still had a solution.
Long tests bring out the real defects
Several of the defects fixed only appear after hours of operation. It is the days of testing that brought them out.
The operator stays in control
The picture comes back on its own when a cable is plugged back in. But the software never restarts a source by itself, and never switches over without an order. In a crisis room, it is the human who decides.
A crisis room does not sleep
More than 48 hours of continuous service, two of us, in relays. An event of this scale runs 24 hours a day: it must be planned for from the quotation.
From the smiles of our clients and of the participants, we want to believe that the service went beyond expectations. The strength of the collective.
Let's talk about your roomMany sell control rooms without ever having worked in one. We have worked every day, for six years, with control room managers and operators.
Few have run a room of this scale, in real conditions, for more than 48 hours. This experience now benefits every room we equip, from the smallest to the largest.
You are preparing an event
The questions we are asked.
How long does it take to set up a room?
At Lourdes, the two 9-screen walls were built in two days instead of the four planned in theory, by a team of three people. The structures arrive on castors and are adjusted to the millimetre.
Do the services' networks have to be linked?
No, and that is the very principle of the setup. Each workstation gives its picture through an HDMI cable. Each service's information systems stay separate.
Can you take control of our workstations?
No. An HDMI cable only carries the picture. We see what you choose to display, we can neither control your computer nor read its files.
Is what is displayed recorded?
No. At Lourdes, CollectivView collected no photo and no video. Nothing that was displayed on the walls was kept.
Can sources be added along the way?
Yes. At Lourdes, the request went from 8 to 18 captures. Adding a source means plugging in a cable and giving it a zone on the wall.
What happens if the Internet goes down?
The walls, the control computer and QuickShare, installed in the room, do not need the Internet. And if it is the room's network that goes down, we switch to the version hosted in France, on the team's decision. For television, we had planned an antenna and tuners.
And if the control computer breaks down?
A backup server is installed next to it, ready to take over. At Lourdes, it never had to be used.
Can a last-minute guest show their screen?
Yes: they join the room's network, open a link, click. Nothing to install, no account. If they cannot connect over Wi-Fi, we hand them a cable linked to our router. Use remains subject to each service's security rules.
Who runs the walls during the event?
We do, on site, day and night. At the control desk, a touchscreen facing the room also lets the services change the display themselves.
Will my staff have to learn anything?
Almost nothing: plug in an HDMI cable, and choose between duplicating and extending their screen. It is this second setting that avoids showing on the wall what must stay confidential. We show it to everyone, on site.
What is needed at each workstation?
One HDMI output, and one cable. Nothing to install on the computer, no network to share.
Do you also build permanent rooms?
It has been our trade for six years: 28 SDIS (departmental fire and rescue services), SAMU, prefectures. Permanent or temporary room, the hardware and the method are the same.
Contact us
A name, a number.
Easy Multi Display is a French company, based in Montpellier. Since 2020, we have designed, developed and installed video walls for crisis rooms ourselves: 28 SDIS, SAMU, prefectures.
Guy Condamine, managing director
+33 6 79 07 55 19
Acknowledgements
The teams of the prefecture of Hautes-Pyrénées showed remarkable professionalism.
A big thank you to Chrystel Abbadie and Maxime Dutrieux, of the prefecture's SIDSIC (departmental interministerial information and communication systems service), and to Patrice Cano, head of the information and communication systems department of the SDIS 65.
Thank you to Kimex for the quality of its mounts and for its follow-up.
An event to secure? A room to set up for a few days?
Permanent or temporary control room: we design, we build, we stay at your side.