[Sussex] 2 monitors, one machine

[Paul Tansom]

** Rob Malpass <rob at malpass133.fsnet.co.uk> [2005-10-06 17:33]:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Harrison (Groups)" <mph at ascentium.co.uk>
> To: "LUG email list for the Sussex Counties" <sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:09 AM
> Subject: Re: [Sussex] 2 monitors, one machine
> 
> >On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 20:57 +0100, Rob Malpass wrote:
> >>
> >>So assuming whatever driver supports simultaneous monitors (Dualview
> >>for
> >>example on XP, Xinerama (I believe) on Linux) I need a cable / adaptor
> >>to
> >>connect an S video to a standard VGA (because the only spare 19"
> >>monitor I
> >>have only supports 15 pin VGA).
> >
> >Rather depends on the card. Most of the "S-Video out" cards only support
> >TV resolution - 625 vertical lines of which 576 are visible and the rest
> >reserved for data - teletext.
> >
> >The bad news is that this interpolation is likely to be done BEFORE you
> >feed to the S-Video hardware, so you'll have the bizarre situation of a
> >VGA re-sampled to PAL for the output, then fed to VGA for the display.
> >I'd be VERY surprised if it looks any better on a VGA monitor as it did
> >on a telly, and possibly worse!
> >
> >The other thing to be wary of is that the card may only support the SAME
> >picture on both outputs, rather than different areas of screen.
> 
> OK - looks like a two VGA connection card is the way to go.   I've hunted 
> around on Novatech and Maplin for cards with two connections, but some are 
> suggesting that one VGA and one DVI will support two monitors.   As I say, 
> my monitors are standard VGA so the safest, but by no means the cheapest 
> from my research, solution is to get one with 2 VGAs.
> 
> However can anyone enlighten me as to whether one with a DVI can be 
> connected easily to a standard monitor?
> 
> Sorry for all these questions, it seems VGA is VGA, S-Video is also S-VHS 
> and unsuitable for monitors, but what is DVI, is this the new HDTV 
> connection?
** end quote [Rob Malpass]

You can get adaptors to plug a standard VGA monitor into a DVI port. I
can't quote off hand where from though (apart from the fact that the Mac
Mini comes with one - which is of no practical use unless you know
someone with one who doesn't need it!).

I'm interested in a cheap twin monitor card myself. At the moment I have
a Windows box with a 64M AGP Nvidia and a 4M PCI Matrox Millenium using
twin screens and a Linux box with another 64M AGP Nvidia and a 8M PCI
Matrox Millenium II waiting to have twin screens configured (and a
second one connected). Desk space is my issue and I keep looking at the
Belkin KVM that supports USB keyboard and mouse with twin screens. The
trouble is that with cables it will set you back close to £200!

Currently the screen in front of me is my 17" Linux one, to the left
there is a 17" Windows one and to the right a 15" second Windows one.
The on on the right is in the middle of a racking shelf. This isn't too
good either on space usage or comfortable viewing!!

I need a new graphics card though as my family Windows box looks as
though it will have to loose its Matrox Marvel (32M iirc) and get one of
the 64M Nvidia ones. Sadly the newly built machine has decided that it
doesn't like the card (although I'm sure this is the motherboard it was
originally with). This is doubly sad as I now have to sort out another
machine to put it in so I can use the analogue video capture to grab
some old Hi8 film.

Anyway, got on to a ramble there so I'll stop :)

Oh, last thing Rob, your name seems very familiar for some reason. Were
you on HantsLUG at some point? Perhaps another Linux related list I've
been on?

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com