4 TV Displays from 1 PC

amallon

Hi,

I want to run 4 TV's displaying slides from the one PC. Each display will be showing something different. 2 will be showing a menu. 1 will be a slideshow, the other will be a slideshow or TV.

If I put in a PC with a graphics card with 4 outputs can each screen show something different. I'd like the system to be fairly automated in that when the PC is turned on it loads all the screens up automatically in the correct position?

Also the TV's will be a fair distance from the PC. What are the options for getting the video out to the TV's in terms of cabling?

srsly78

You will likely need a specialist graphics card with many outputs. Also will probably need lots of adapters.

Khannie

2 graphics cards with 2 outputs each and a bunch of configuration should cover that.

Patrick 1

You'll need either multiple cards not running SLI, or one card that supports Display port stuff. A HD79XX series card should do, with one monitor on HDMI, one DVI and the next two direct display port.

srsly78

Then you realise the monitors only have hdmi inputs and have to get loads of adapters.

amallon

After a bit of searching I have found this piece of kit from Matrox which comes with its own software for controlling the displays. It outputs DVI but comes with VGA adapters. I was going to use a VGA over Ethernet adapter (£5 on ebay) to run the signal out to the TV's.

What do you guys think
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_series/m9140lppciex16/

gctest50

This sort of thing ? :

http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/minicom-cat5-video-display-system.html

If its just for yourself you could

- get a few rasperberry pi's ( since they are gone cheap) or similar, put one behind each screen
- install chromium on them - set it to autostart on boot in full screen mode
- enable watchdog etc
- put a little webserver on something with a tidy CMS , and point each chromium on each pi to the appropriate page on the webserver




apt-get install chromium x11-xserver-utils unclutter

edit this file :

/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@chromium --kiosk --incognito http://your_little_webserver/

will work away till the SD card gets corrupted from dodgy power offs or similar

ZENER

It might even be possible to power them from the TV's USB ports too ! Brilliant idea !

Ken

amallon

I have a RasPi here and its great. The guy thats going to be using this isn't that tech savy and he would need a far simpler solution

gctest50

amallon wrote: »

The guy thats going to be using this isn't that tech savy and he would need a far simpler solution

You could make the pi s pull the menus from a Facebook or whatever account - nice n easy to update from anything and everyone knows how to do it
- you may or may not want everyone to see your menus from the internet


You could install samba on the each of the pi s :
- share a folder and get it to display whatever is in the folder
- get it to watch the folder for changes

then put shortcuts to each shared folder on the desktop of whatever he uses already

- all he would have to do is drag n drop the file he wants to display into the folder of the appropriate screen

and/or if he makes the menus up in excel, you could have the screens that display the menus horse the data out of that and display it as a webpage

if the menus are made up at the start of the week you could just have worksheets for Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday etc and make it pick the worksheet for "today"

then you could make it email "todays" menu back to him - handy for error checking - or to look back over in coming months

or make them pull the menus from a Facebook or whatever account

ZENER wrote: »

It might even be possible to power them from the TV's USB ports too !

Ken

Savage idea !

I spose you could make them wireless if you wrote a little script that waited for the wireless connection to sort itself out before it started chromium up ?

ZENER

gctest50 wrote: »

. . . horse the data out of that . . .

So it'll be horse on the menu again then . . .

. . . sorry . . .

Ken

ZENER

amallon wrote: »

I have a RasPi here and its great. The guy thats going to be using this isn't that tech savy and he would need a far simpler solution

What he saves on the hardware and software (those Matrox cards aren't cheap ! And that's before you configure and design the menus etc.) would more than pay for someone to set it up.

It's a very clever use of the Pi I have to say and kudos to gctest50 for coming up with it.

Ken

gctest50

ZENER wrote: »

It's a very clever use of the Pi I have to say and kudos to gctest50 for coming up with it.

Far from coming up with it - had a screen with nothing to drive it and a pi in my pocket
So thought "thats a little debian box with hdmi out - happy days"

In a hurry so a bit of googling to save needlessly re-inventing the wheel :
"chrome on r pi " - ah chromium - tested - grand
"chromium fullscreen incognito" chromium --kiosk --incognito - lovely
auto start is in autostart - have to hug linux sometimes
samba and a little webserver so it was self contained and wouldn't die if it couldn't see the network - plenty of other ways of doing it but allows embedding of twitter feeds n stuff