A gigabit ethernet port from an LED processor carries a fixed number of pixels, and everything about how you break a wall into data runs follows from that one number.
A 1G port carries roughly 650,000 pixels at 60 Hz and 8-bit processing — the figure NovaStar rates its gigabit ports at on its own spec sheets (Brompton rates 525,000 for its protocol). It is a ceiling, not a target.
Divide it by the pixels in one cabinet to get panels per port. A 176 × 176 pixel cabinet holds 30,976 pixels, so a port theoretically carries 21 of them. A coarser 104 × 208 cabinet holds 21,632 pixels, so a port carries 30.
The published pixel figure assumes 60 Hz at 8-bit. Both assumptions cost you capacity when you change them, because the constraint is bandwidth.
Run the system at 120 Hz — common for broadcast and anything shot on camera — and the per-port pixel budget roughly halves. Move to 10-bit processing for smoother gradients and you lose capacity again in proportion to the extra bits. A wall that fits comfortably on eight ports at 60 Hz 8-bit can need sixteen at 120 Hz, which is the kind of discovery nobody wants on site.
Most crews do not fill ports to the theoretical maximum. Loading to around 80% of the pixel budget leaves room for a panel swap, a slightly larger wall than planned, or a late change from 8-bit to 10-bit, without re-patching the whole rig.
At 80% of 650,000 pixels, that 176 × 176 cabinet gives 16 panels per port rather than 20. On a six-row wall that means two whole columns per run instead of three — a real difference in cable count and processor choice.
Data runs normally follow whole columns, snaking up and down, because that matches how panels connect when hung and keeps the patch legible when something fails at 2 am. Fit as many whole columns onto a run as the pixel budget allows; on a tall wall where a single column exceeds the budget, split that column across two runs.
Then check the plan against the processor twice: once for port count, and once for total pixel capacity, since a processor can run out of pixels while still having spare ports.
Looped A/B redundancy — running a second data path so a failed cable does not black the wall — doubles the run count and the cable order. It is standard on critical fixed installations.
It is not the norm on rental shows. Most rental rigs run single-path data and carry spare cable instead, which is why redundancy should be an explicit choice rather than a default assumption in any calculation.
RigPlan does this arithmetic for you. Enter the wall once and it derives panels and spares, rigging from your own stock, circuits, the data wiring plan and the full pack list — free, no sign-up.
Open the calculatorNovaStar rates a gigabit port at 650,000 pixels at 60 Hz with 8-bit processing; Brompton rates 525,000. Higher refresh rates and deeper bit depths reduce that figure proportionally — NovaStar’s own sheets halve it at 10/12-bit.
Approximately, yes. Doubling refresh rate roughly doubles the bandwidth per pixel, so the number of panels a single port can carry drops by about half.
Loading to around 80% is the safer convention. It leaves headroom for wall size changes, a switch to 10-bit, or a panel swap without repatching the entire wall.