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Userful Video wall NOC Application

Luiejen Marc A. Gascon

Saint Louis University
School of Engineering and Architecture
Department of Electronics Engineering
ECE 527F: Field Trips/OJT, Seminars, and Review
May 16, 2021
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Company Profile
Company Name: Userful Corporation.
Address: San Ramon, California, United States
Headquarters Regions: San Francisco Bay Area, West Coast, Western US
Contact Details: 1(403)289-2177

Products and/or Services

Industry: visual networking platform for communication and collaboration across the
enterprise.

Customer Profile
Worldwide companies and enterprises that needs any kind visual networking platform for
communication and collaboration.

Leadership Profile
Founder & Chairman: Timothy Griffin
Tim has combined inspired product design and entrepreneurship to evolve centralized desktop
computing. In 1999, Tim founded Userful to make centralized desktop computing and
management efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly through new ultra thin and
zero client solutions. He is a true entrepreneur, having previously founded and led consulting,
research, and design companies.
Director & Chair of Compensation Committee: David Edmonds
Edmonds is a founding member of six technology companies including Burntsand Inc., which
grew to 10 locations across North America with more than 500 employees and $81M in
revenue. During this period, Edmonds was involved in acquiring 6 technology companies across
North America. Burntsand traded on the TSE and ultimately was acquired by Open Text
Corporation. During his career, David has raised over $40M to support the growth of the
technology firms he was involved with.
Director & CEO: John Marshall
John Marshall is CEO & Board Member at Userful, a leading provider of AV-over-IP solutions for
enhanced video communication. He focuses on developing and implementing strategic growth
initiatives for Userful; launching the company into new markets, product and technology
development, and expansion through new technology and channel partnerships. He has more
than 25 years of experience building innovative, market-leading organizations.
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Director & Chair of Strategy Committee: John LeMoncheck

John LeMoncheck has been a leader of companies and business units for more than 25 years
across a wide variety of industries including consumer electronics and human interface devices.
He has served as CEO of startup consumer electronics technology companies SiBEAM and
Cambrios. Before joining SiBEAM, LeMoncheck was vice president of Consumer Electronics and
PC/Display Products for Silicon Image, where he led the company's successful launch and
commercialization of the HDMI standard.
Director & Chair of Audit Committee: Karen Willem
Karen Willem currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer for SugarCRM, recently acquired by
Accel-KKR, a leading technology-focused private equity firm. Karen is a veteran of the
technology industry, with more than 25 years of experience in finance, sales, and general
management in both public and private companies. Her previous roles include: CFO of LILEE
Systems, a leader in IOT technology; iPass; Xsigo Systems, a leader in network virtualization
technology which sold to Oracle, and more.
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Process flow diagram

To use Userful software it must be installed first in a standard PC a standard Ethernet switch or
Network is then connected to the PC. The Displays are connected to the network, each display
has a zero client receiver. A zero client receiver is a device that has an HDMI output to the
display and an Ethernet port. These Zero Client receivers don’t have CPU, Memory or Hard
Drive its only job is to receive information from the PC and transfer it to the displays. The
processing computing and other technical work are done in the PC itself. Any kind of device can
manage the Userful Video Wall because the control center of the Userful Video Wall is accessed
through a browser.
Userful Control Center
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The graphical user interface of the browser is easy to use because it’s has drag and drop
feature.
Some of the Highlight Features of this Device are Zones, Presets, Multi Window, Interactive
Viewer, Userful’s REST API, Automatic Failover.
The Zones allow the operators to display multiple sources at once. Operators can also group
video wall displays and assign different contents to each group. This feature provides improved
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data visualization in control rooms and command centers. Next are the Presets, this feature
works hand in hand with Zones. The presets allow the operators to save the content of each
zone and other video settings as presets. This will give the operators the opportunity to recall
the settings quickly. The presets can also be changed on the spot with a click of a button.
The multi window feature allows the user to show one or more content sources in one monitor
or display. The interactive viewer of the device can be used on any device as long as it can open
the control browser. The user only needs to log in on a smartphone, tablet, laptop etc. in order
to interact with the display zones.
Userful’s REST API can provide more dynamic interactions by allowing the operator to connect
the video walls with external devices or third party applications.
The Automatic Failover feature of the Userful Video Wall allows users to connect another PC as
a backup when the primary PC fails. The backup PC will automatically take over when the
primary PC fails.

Screenshots of tour highlights

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Personal insights
This virtual field trip taught me the fundamental process of how a video wall works. I learned
that Computers play a big role in this kind of devices. The computations and processing are
done by the processors and memory in PC itself. Programming of the different features in the
control browser is also important in the making of the software. The different features
improved data visualization, interactivity, multitasking and ease of access for the operators in a
control room. This type of software can be beneficial in control towers that I’ve seen in the
previous virtual fieldtrips. This software will allow the control operators to visualize data and
interact with it, making their work easier and efficient. Video walls are important in control
towers because it helps them monitor, visualize, interact, manipulate, save and backup data
that they are concerned with. The additional features of the Userful video wall software also
have an Automatic Failover feature which is a feature that is often overlooked in some video
wall software. In my opinion emergency features are very important especially in control rooms
and command centers. Ensuring backup of data and continuous operation when emergency
occurs such as power outage will allow the operators to monitor or guide what they are
controlling during the emergency.

References
Crunchbase. (n.d.). Userful Company Profile. Retrieved from Crunchbase website:
[Link]
Useful Corporation. (2018, July 16). Userful video wall in Control Rooms, Command Centers and
NOCs. Retrieved from YouTube: [Link]
Userful Corporation. (n.d.). Board of Directors. Retrieved from Userful Website:
[Link]