[dochlywd]

I purchased a video wall from a music store going out of business for $150.00. It consists of the 9, 27" monitors, frame and VGA cables. However, the video wall controller box was sent for repair about a year ago and the manager said it never came back. Does anyone know if a HTPC can be used to split a video signal up into 9 different monitors as separate pictures or one combined picture? As you can see by the price I paid, I am looking for the most cost efficient way to do this. Any help and information would be greatly appreciated!!!!!! Thanks!!!!!!!!!


Mike

 

[dochlywd]

Also,


Any ideas on who might be able to build me one?

 

[Chris Williams]

It can be done in Linux with a combination of Gstreamer and Xinerama. The hard part is getting ahold of enough matching PCI video cards. See photos of a functioning example at the Video Whale page . Read the How-To here . There are also many interesting posts about this project in a discussion at Slashdot . In a nutshell, they used 4 cards per PC, and 4 PCs networked together to make a 4 x 4 set of images.


This is all I know about it...just that it has been done cheaply. I've not tried it myself.

 

[Gertjan]

On eBay i've seen devices that can do this for you. They take a signal from a computer or video source, and then split it out for you. I don't remember brands (i -think- Extron has some) or what prices these things went for, so this post is limited in usefulness unfortunately, but hopefully this will help you somehow.

 

[mjones]

There is also VideoLan


I've never tried it, but I think it involves using a server to dish the full image out into respective streams of each monitor in the grid. Then PCs are used to display a particular chunk to a particular monitor.


It doesn't seem clear if you need 16 PCs for a 4x4 wall or if maybe you could use 4 PCs each with 4 video cards...


Mike

 

[dochlywd]

Thanks for all the great info. Looks like I have some more homework to do!


Mike

 

[dandrewk]

Go to a Best Buy and ask them how they run theirs.