video wall....from single desktop

[london-electric]

Hi , have mentioned this in another thread

Client of mine wants a 2/3 screen video wall , displaying data from an excel spreadsheet at a single desktop , with the user at that desktop being able to use other applications whilst the spreadsheet is still displayed on the video wall ??

Have seen a few video wall controllers/matrix on the Web .....Donald trump - expensive though , is there a cheaper way to achieve this

Thanks

 

[Rockingit]

Welcome to the world of vidiots! So many variables here, hard to know where to start. If they just want a big display, consider using a projector instead and just using standard Windows dual outputs.

 

[davesparks]

I believe wandering around like headless chicken whilst the screens show wonky disjointed test-cards is an essential part of the process for setting up video walls.

Also you need to install them with fixings which are only rated to half of the actual load and use half as many as you need.

I think a highly strung bloke who doesn't speak English is required at some point in the process too.

 

[Octopus]

Isn't dual screens supported by Windows? Just plug a second monitor in!

 

[Rockingit]

Isn't dual screens supported by Windows? Just plug a second monitor in!

Dual screens, yes. But doing a 'wall' requires external signal processing to divide one image up into separate chunks, and then to re-sample each of those chunks back up to a usable resolution. And that's where it starts to get awkward.

 

[shanky887614]

have a look at eyefinity etc. if you can find one that does 3 outouts your away.

its easy enough for them to snap more than one window on large projected screen or multiple monitors (for example i dont have to configure mine for two)

plug it in and it works with the mouse shifting from one to the other, its hardware dependent a lot of the time


the only reason i can do it easily is motherboard supports using the cpu's onboard graphics for one screen and discreet for at least one

(look at dvi spec)

 

[Rockingit]

This is the kit for the job, and it's not half as expensive as I'd imagined it would be!

Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition - cable interface/gender adapters - Computer cables - Installation accessories

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Agreed, probably the simplest and most cost effective choice if you don't need scaling etc and you want to use consumer-grade monitors. Ensure the graphics card is happy with a display horizontal resolution of 3x screen res.

For continuous operation, I would recommend a proper digital signage / videowall display, these are much more expensive but are built to last and have more even backlighting and slim bezels so the 'seams' are less visible. They usually offer basic wall-mode slicing built in, e.g. you loop a single HD source through and tell the screen which part of the image to display, and it does the scaling on-board.

Davesparks paints a rather unfair picture of videowall installers. When our guys put them up, they do not run around like headless chickens, they use plenty of suitable fixings and speak very good english. Wonky, disjointed test patterns are part of the territory though.