HDMI out to four monitors (PC or MacMini)

[jonathanscary]

Hi,

Hope somebody can help. We have four monitors mounted on a wall in a reception area. The input to these monitors is fixed (i.e. we can't access the leads to change the connectors as they're behind the wall!). Each has its own HDMI cable connected.

Right now the signal displayed on the monitors comes from four DVD players which show a presentation.

I'm looking for a way of connecting a PC or Mac Mini so that we can display *different* internet video - streamed or downloaded (e.g. Tekzilla) on each of the four monitors, but can't figure out the cheapest way of doing so.

Would I need to connect four machines? Have four video cards?

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Many thanks in advance (love the show by the way - thanks Patrick and Veronica!!)

Jonathan

[therage800]

Well, that's an interesting one... 4 video cards may be possible but the system would have to be able to handle 4 videos at once... More trouble than it's worth, the only other way I can think to do it is with 4 machines or possibly 2 dual video card machines.

[tokenuser]

Displaying 1 the smae image on all screens is an easy solution - there are HDMI switches that will allow that (big $$$ though).

For this situation, the best I could come up with was:

4x Video Cards.
1x Server /w 4x Virtual machines

Video players typically like to only have a single instance of the app loaded at once for smooth fullscreen playback and is dependant upon both GPU and CPU to do nicely.

Suspect it is going to be more cost effective to get 4 smaller machines and run them independantly. Maybe have the video on a server somewhere in the office.

The new Dell Studio Hybrid (http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-studio-hybrid?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd)will cost you $499 per unit, but includes HDMI output. Its about the same footprint as a DVD player, and can playback DVD as well via itsa slot load DVD player.

You could home brew a solution together, but when it comes down to it this is for a business, and you might not be there forewver, you want something that just works and doesn't need to be tweaked and proded into submission on a daily basis.

[dark_shroud]

Macs do not have HDMI so Macmini is out of the question.

If you want a cheap video card for HDMI ATI HD3450 (http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/radeon_hd_3450.htm) does a very good job for the price.

[burkhartmj]

Am I missing something? ALL ATI cards from 3000 series on support HDMI out through an adapter on the DVI plug [yes, including audio] and most of them come with dual-DVI out. Get a machine with support for 2 graphics cards, get 2 3850's or 4850's, and then buy 2 more HDMI adapters for like 5 bucks each. Frankly, it wouldn't even need to be as powerful as 3850's or especially 4850's if the CPU was beefy enough to handle the web video.

[tokenuser]

Biggest problem is smooth playback at full screen with seperate videos on each screen. I am not sure how well that would be handled. Thats a lot of number crunching.

[therage800]

Biggest problem is smooth playback at full screen with seperate videos on each screen. I am not sure how well that would be handled. Thats a lot of number crunching.

A good quad core should be able to handle it...

[davmoo]

A good quad core should be able to handle it...

If he's only doing internet type video, and not full definition Bluray or something like that, a dual core should handle it with no problems too. Although I admit that if there is money in the budget for it, I'd probably go quad too.

[therage800]

If he's only doing internet type video, and not full definition Bluray or something like that, a dual core should handle it with no problems too. Although I admit that if there is money in the budget for it, I'd probably go quad too.

Good point on the high definition. But SD should be fine with a quad core because each video would have a dedicated core.

[gutserker]

you dont need to have a quad core processor to be able to run 4 outputs. the easiest way is to get a graphics card that has two dual link dvi-i connectors and use a dual link splitter so you have 4 dvi plugs. as for running video, you dont need a fast processor for that ether. as long as you get a graphics card with a good dedicated video decoder, it will run everything on the card.
if you plan on running 4 outputs at 1080p with high def videos, i believe your best bet is to get ether an ati 3850 or 4850. reason being ati does a very good job at decoding video, the 3000 and 4000 series cards support hdmi with audio output, and you want the xx50 cards cause they are designed to be used in HTPC's. the two problems i am not sure about with this is you would have to have 4 DVI to HDMI adapters and i have not confirmed if you can run that kind of setup, but i hear you can. second problem is if the graphics card actualy can run multiple sound outputs through one card.
if any of this does not work your second best bet is to get a motherboard with 4 pci-express X16 connectors and use 4 very cheap ati HD3450's ($30) not running in crossfire mode. these cards dont have the power of the higher end cards but i can run 1080p video using roughly 20%-30% of my amd x5000 X2 processor oc at 3Ghz, which only costs $60

be sure that whatever card you use MUST have a dedicated video decoder, if any HD video is going to be run for that config

[tokenuser]

gutserker brings up a very good point.

Audio.

Even with smooth, fourway video performance out to 4 HDMI monitors, unless those HDMI channels are also carrying audio (doubtful) then there will be issues with getting sound to the seperate screens.

Might not be an issue, but possibly will be.

I'll come back to the point that 4 discrete small form factor systems at $500 will be cheaper and easier to manage.

[gutserker]

i got an update on my last post.
i forgot the fact that each dvi dual link port can only support a max resolution of 4 MP. if you multiply 1920 * 1080 = 2.07 MP * 2 = 4.147 MP. clearly you can have one monitor running at 1920x1080 and another at 1280x720, or both running at 1280x720, but both at 1920x1080 is too high. there is no way to get around this other than having one monitor per dvi port. this would require 2 graphics cards.
this would also solve the problem with the hdmi sound because you would only have one hdmi output per port. i cant find anything saying you cant run sound out of two hdmi outputs, so i assume you can.

as per token's last post, that would cost a total of $2000 and at that point a single computer with multiple graphics cards would be cheaper. two HD4850's would not reach over $600 with no more than bare necessities and the cost of additional cards would raise the cost $150-$200 each.

its not hard to achieve 16 monitors in a multi-card computer, you just have to abide by the rule of 4MP per DVI-DL port.
sorry if i sound blunt.