Multiple Video Sources - Page 2

turbocad6 · 08-14-2006, 12:07 AM

hey man I'm kinda in the same situation as you, wanting multiple screens with multiple sources & extremely versitile.....

I have considered all of the alternatives,.....to do this all on one pc would be a monumental task, & control can be an issue that's extremly hard to tame, power requirements will be high... inverters will be sloppy & inefficent... I don't want some fire breathing powerhouse desktop setup in the car, been there/done that & it sucks.... you need a low power low heat efficient solution...

my solution is a bit different.... I'm using 2 pc's... there both pentium m 1.8's low power but fast, they are networked & share resources... I'm using a netgear network enclosure to house 2 large drives for media that either can access independantly... I also use a kr1 mobile wireless router that ties everything togeather ....they both are tablet motherboards & I am using the lvds output from each, as well as the vga outputs for extended desktops.....

the whole key to my setup is a 4 way lvds multiplexer that I developed for this install... upon system bootup each of 4 screens default to there predetermined output, front main as pc1 primary... front aux screen defaults to extended desktop of pc1. in the rear I have both screens default to pc2 primary, but I can switch anything at any time, & 1 button tap switches one rear screen to pc2 secondary extended desktop..... the main difference is all the control is through hardware, so it just works each & every time... even before the pc's boot & there can be no software or configuration issues

control will be easy because I can switch my front aux display to pc2 temporarily to control it... of course each seat will also be able to control it's screen too through a combo of buttons & touchscreen... finally I have the option of feeding the output from my alpine multimedia system to any screen at any time, so I have real anything anywhere anytime setup with easy control throughout...

I'm not saying you should do what I did, I just wanted to show you one approach to your desired results.... if you wanted to go with a few commells then this exact setup could also work for you... but this is a bit over the top & takes a lot of effort.... but this is the absolute best ultimate solution to me....

good luck with yours

turbocad6 · 08-14-2006, 02:02 AM

... I also have an interupt set up for the aux front screen, which is an 8.4" overhead... when ever I go in reverse it automaticaly switches to the rear view camera, then reverts to whatever was displayed when return to drive/park...

I can also manually overide the screen to camera view at any time by throwing a switch... these are things that should all be thought out in the design because can be a pain to add afterwards

YESindeed · 08-14-2006, 02:31 AM

turbocad -dispite me being a newb- thats definately one of the coolest things iv ever seen on this website

Vinister · 08-14-2006, 03:45 AM

wow sick setup. according to my last post you must really not value your time

jammy_basturd · 08-14-2006, 05:39 AM

In my day we just had a map of London and my mums 'Cosmopolitan' magazine to keep us occupied on the back seat...

blessani · 08-14-2006, 06:40 AM

You don't need multiple video cards to play full screen video on two screens. I do this all the time on my laptop. I use the o/b laptop screen to show 1 video and the monitor out to another screen to show another video, and I am only running an ATi Radeon 9700.

I've done this with loads of crap video cards too, like my old Radeon 9000 and my GeForce MX440, they are all capable of doing it just fine. I just used VLC to run the video, and that was it.

Jahntassa · 08-14-2006, 09:27 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by blessani

You don't need multiple video cards to play full screen video on two screens. I do this all the time on my laptop. I use the o/b laptop screen to show 1 video and the monitor out to another screen to show another video, and I am only running an ATi Radeon 9700.

I've done this with loads of crap video cards too, like my old Radeon 9000 and my GeForce MX440, they are all capable of doing it just fine. I just used VLC to run the video, and that was it.

Laptop cards are different. They can support playing video overlays on both the LCD and VGA or LCD / TV outputs simultaneously. Most desktop cards with multiple video outputs cannot do the same unless you have a DVI / VGA setup (meaning using a DVI monitor and a VGA monitor). The fact that you used VLC to run the video successfully leads me to believe that it does not use the video overlay to actually display video.

turbocad6 · 08-14-2006, 12:37 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Vinister

wow sick setup. according to my last post you must really not value your time

no, see the oposite is true... I do value my time, so much so, that I refuse to do it half assed & then have to think about doing it over again, or spend a lot of money & effort to get something less than satisfactory...

as far as weather it's worth it or not.... to me it is... I mean this is what I want from my install, which I also value highly... many will say that it's a waste of money, but then again there are many things that others will consider a waste of money, while someone else is perfectly happy to pay for it... that's just an opinion, but to me, to develop something that is exactly how I want it, & to have it also be the only one like it in existance, to me it's worth it..., that's the ONLY way to have it, it's either pay up, or do without it...

the only time I would agree that it's a waste of money would be if there was a better way to do it cheaper, THEN it could be considered a waste of money, but if this is the only way to achieve what I want, then it costs what it costs... it's worth it because that's the ONLY way to do what I want...

blindraccoon · 08-14-2006, 12:55 PM

Has anyone tried VideoLan's VLC player? I know that you can assign what video and audio device output goes to. I use this to play all of my media but have not tried it in a multi-headed environment (but I will once I start working on my suburban). If you have a dual-head vga card you should be able to start 2 instances of VLC and 'point' each at a different head.

wicket · 08-14-2006, 01:10 PM

In hindsight, i am definitely not understanding something here. I was at a LAN party recently and a gut who said he a a geforce 7600GT no sli was playing command and conquer on one screen and watching LOTR on the other. So there must be a way to do it from one video card

pepsibobby · 08-14-2006, 02:35 PM

you can get cards that have a DVI and VGA connection and you can use both with this. That is one card, but with two outputs on it. very pricey

wicket · 08-14-2006, 02:38 PM

Both my 7800Gt's from my sli system have dual dvi on them, I just never bothered to try them with 2 monitors, and they also both came with dvi to vga adapters

On a side note I think I just may go with 2 ipod videos, alpine has a interface for the video ipod now, and that may be the simplest solution for what i want

turbocad6 · 08-14-2006, 02:47 PM

if you do this with one pc, check out a program called ultramon... it's really cool for multiple displays, & you can set what you want to open on each screen..

wicket · 08-14-2006, 03:09 PM

How many monitors are supported when running in SLI mode?
When in multi-GPU mode, SLI currently supports one monitor. When in single-GPU mode, users have the ability to use up to four monitors using NVIDIA® nView® multi-display technology and Windows XP Dualview.

Windows XP already has dual monitor support so our video dilemna is solved, now sound is an issue.

and before anyone harps on expense, I just found 2 geforce 6600GT's on ebay for $40 each, add in the motherboard $70, and a decent chip $100, it has a comparable price to a mini itx carpc system, keep in mind the inital size of the vehicle were talking about for my application, a 2004 suburban. I have been looking at some intel based mini itx boards and they run in the 3-400$ range before chip, ram, HDD, etc etc.. it may not be the most convenient size, or even practical, but i have seen some very intense things in computers and custom cars.

blessani · 08-14-2006, 04:11 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Jahntassa

Laptop cards are different. They can support playing video overlays on both the LCD and VGA or LCD / TV outputs simultaneously. Most desktop cards with multiple video outputs cannot do the same unless you have a DVI / VGA setup (meaning using a DVI monitor and a VGA monitor). The fact that you used VLC to run the video successfully leads me to believe that it does not use the video overlay to actually display video.

The last two quoted cards were on a desktop, not laptop. You DO NOT need a super fancy video card to pull this off. I have done it many a way easily using cards with dual outputs and multiple video cards.

I always play games and watch films on the other screen. Do you work for matrox or summet