Secondary display in the kitchen (2 Viewers)

[first407]

I have a HTPC installed with MP in my living room. It is functioning well and we are using it for watching TV, music, photos, news, etc. I like to have the same possibilities available in my kitchen without a new HTPC. My thought is to just have a 17" LCD display with touch screen and speakers as a secondary display. Do you know if it's possible to have such a display connected to a PC without using wires for VGA, etc??

I am very thankful for any ideas to solve my problem.

 

[wewe]

hi first407,

I was also thinking of doing that - that would be a great thing!

Unfortunately I don't have a solution but at least we can share thoughts ...

I see three solutions:

1. second PC. It could be a real small one, for example there are screens that contain a PC in their case. And then use VNC to transmit the video. But:
- VNC is much to slow to transport video (at least in my 100MB LAN)
- if a second PC - why not running MP in the second PC?

2. using a "transmit TV through the air" or however these solutions are called. But the quality of that seems to be very poor as you see here: http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12352&highlight=china

3. using cables. That seems to be the only senseful way to me. You can buy 25 meter VGA cable in good quality. Also sound should be no problem. But how to transport the signals from the touch screen? Does anybody know how that works?

thanks+regards
WeWe

 

[first407]

Hi Wewe

1.
a) What is VNC?
b) If a second PC - I won't have any TV because all DVB-S cards and satelites cables are in my living room. I also don't want to use a new install of MP because then I have two configurations to update.

2. I am agree - bad quality

3. Hmmm, cables? I have no way to hide the cables.

 

[Nemulate]

Touchscreens usually have a serial or usb connection on them.

 

[first407]

What about using a KVM extender like this? http://www.kvms.com/products/CE-700.asp If I my understanding is right there is need for one tiny cable between the master and the slave. Anyone having experiences or having knowledge about this?

 

[Marcusb]

The KVM extender is a good idea, but pretty expensive. It lets you send the display and mouse/keyboard (or touchscreen) via a Cat5 (network)Cable. This is probably the neatest way to do what you want.

A much cheaper solution would simply be VGA and Serial extension cables and a little bit of hard work to conceal the cables.

For a little less quality but smaller cables, you could use the TV output from your VGA card and send the signals via SVHS.

To go truly cordless, use the TV out via a transmitter, as someone else has already suggested. You will need an LCD which supports AV inputs.
You could also have cordless control by getting an MCE remote and mounting it somehow.

There are a number of options, all ranging from cost, complexity and cabling depending on how serious you are...

Good Luck.

 

[wewe]

to first407:
VNC is a software that transmits the Desktop of the server (video, mouse, keyboard) over the network to a client. I am using it to work remote from my other PC when I have to do setup stuff. I am using an old TV as MP's display and there you hardly can read Windows texts. I am using "TightVNC" ( http://www.tightvnc.com/ )

KVM Extender: I don't know about the performance for transporting streaming video. And it only transports mouse, keyboard and VGA - no sound.

So I am still stuck with a BUNCH of cables (in the truest sense of the word) ...

thanks+regards
WeWe

 

[trailboy]

wewe, try this one instead... it has a lot more features and it is free as well!
http://www.ultravnc.com/

what you could do is the following...

if you want to send audio and video signal to a TV in the kitchen from the living room wirelessly, your only option is to go for one of those video sender (google that). they are able to send video and audio signal (from your TV out graphic card and soundcard output) from a source to a destination as well as remote control strokes towards the source. you could for example watch and control your MP on a normal TV in the kitchen and control it with your remote control!

the other option is to have a simple computer in the kitchen with a VNC viewer and a wireless network card. setup VNC server on your MP computer with wireless card as well. you can then VNC from the kitchen into the living room. VNC viewers can be set to run full screen and you could then use your computer in the kitchen as if it was your MP computer.

hope you understand all that. it is not to compicated. read again just in case...

good luck!

 

[Tech Geek]

UltraVNC is great... but it's multi-monitor support isn't as good as RealVNC even though I like it better in every other category.

The worst part of a multi-monitor setup is getting software to work from both unless you just plan on duplicating the output from the main display.
In that case you will have the same resolution on both.

 

[trailboy]

If I am right, there is a MP plugin that is able to change the system resolution on MP startup. You can then adjut it to have the correct resolution for the kitchen's TV... It should work!