New in the Fleet: Theatrixx Totem 1.8
The sponsor lineup changes on Tuesday afternoon. The event is Thursday.
If the signage is printed, that is a reprint, a rush courier, and a foamcore panel in a dumpster. If the signage is an LED wall, that is a processor, a cable run back to a rack, and somebody on site who knows how to drive it.
The Theatrixx Totem 1.8 is the option in between.
Nothing behind it
Each Totem is its own everything. A NovaStar Taurus player lives inside the cabinet with a scheduler on it, so the unit holds its own content and runs its own day. Wi-Fi is built in, both as an access point and as a client, which means content loads from a laptop or a phone standing in front of it. Slides get built about the way a PowerPoint deck does. Power is one 120 V inlet.
There is no processor to rack, no data run to pull, and nothing for a tech to sit behind. Set it where the client wants it, plug it into the nearest edison, push the content, walk away.
If you need it to do more, it will. An auxiliary HDMI input takes a live source, and up to six units daisy-chain into one synchronized display.
Cooling is passive. No fans, nothing to hear, which is why one of these can sit outside a session room door while the session is running.
Build your artwork to 304 x 1026
Here is the part worth reading twice, because a fair number of listings online get it wrong.
The product is called the Totem 1.8. The actual pixel pitch is 1.895 mm. Divide the panel width by the name and you land on 320 x 1080, which is a tidy number, looks like portrait HD, and is not the resolution of this display. The panel is 304 x 1026.
That gap is small enough to sail through a design review and large enough to matter. Artwork built at 320 x 1080 gets resampled down to 304 x 1026 on the way to the wall, and because the ratio is not a clean fraction, the resampling lands between pixels. Thin logo strokes thicken unevenly. Body copy softens. Everything still looks fine on a laptop and slightly wrong in the room.
Which is the whole problem, because fine pitch is the reason to rent this thing. At 1.895 mm you can put real type on a display someone reads from four feet away, and the entire advantage evaporates if the file was built to the wrong grid.
So: 304 x 1026 for a single Totem. Six across, daisy-chained, is 1,824 x 1,026. The active image is 576 by 1,944 mm, roughly 22.7 by 76.5 inches, which puts the aspect ratio near 1:3.4 and makes vertical layouts the natural fit.
We own thirty of them, which is what makes the layout question interesting rather than academic. Thirty units is thirty separate signs, each running its own content on its own schedule, or it is five synchronized six-panel displays, or any split in between. Wayfinding on every corridor and a sponsor loop in the lobby comes out of the same inventory.
Send us the file at native and there is nothing to resample.
The specs that matter
- Pixel pitch: 1.895 mm, RGB SMD 3-in-1
- Resolution: 304 x 1026 px per unit
- Active image: 576 x 1,944 mm, about 22.7 x 76.5 in
- Brightness: >800 nits
- Color temperature: 6,500 K
- Viewing angle: 160° horizontal and vertical
- Refresh rate: up to 4,000 Hz, 60 Hz video
- Control system: NovaStar Taurus, onboard player with scheduler
- Connectivity: built-in Wi-Fi access point and client, auxiliary HDMI in, daisy-chain up to 6 units
- Cooling: passive, no fans
- Cabinet: 596 x 1,964 mm, 39 mm deep excluding control box and base
- Weight: 36 kg, 79 lb
- Mounting: free-standing, wheeled, wall hung, or suspended in any orientation
- Power: 600 W max, 210 W typical, single 100 to 240 V auto-ranging inlet
- Rating: IP40, 14°F to 122°F operating range
- LED life: 50,000 hours
We carry 30 units, available now, shipped two to a road case.
Why it’s in the fleet
The cabinet is 39 mm deep. An inch and a half. In a pre-function space where every square foot is already committed to registration tables and a coffee service, that number is the reason the thing gets to exist at all.
Mounting is wherever the room needs it. Free-standing on locking casters, hung on a wall, or suspended from the ceiling, portrait or landscape, all from the same unit. The casters earn their keep: a Totem gets repositioned mid-event when traffic flow turns out different from the floor plan, instead of being committed to one spot at load-in.
Viewing angle is 160° on both axes, which is what makes that placement freedom pay off. Content reads from down a corridor and from well off to the side, so a Totem holds its own in a hallway where nobody stops and stands square to it.
The power math is friendlier than the spec sheet suggests. Max draw is 600 W, but that figure assumes full white across every pixel, which no signage layout ever does. Typical is 210 W, so a six-unit daisy chain pulls around 10.5 A and sits comfortably on one 20 A circuit.
Sponsor lineup changed on Tuesday? Send us the new artwork at 304 x 1026 and it will be on the floor before doors open.
