Multiple displays on a pc?

Question

I have information that displays on my pc screen that i would like to display in other rooms. I am thinking about putting in a video card that has two s-video outputs and running two cables for the two tv's. Does this work?

Answer 1

I've managed to attach 1 TV to my TV-out which displays in full screen any video I'm watching on the monitor even if it's not zoomed on the monitor. I can even play DVDs through it.

I'm using a nVidia Geforce card which has excellent TV-out support.

Answer 2

You can probably make it to work up to a certain distance. I can't say because just how far it works will depend upon your tolerance of degraded display quality. I tried to do something similar but I tried using VGA instead of S-Video, and even a ten-foot run you could start to see shadowing from signal reflections and other effects degrading the image. You might have better luck with S-Video for the simple reason that the signal tends to be at a lower frequency than VGA due to the lower resolution and you have more options for high-end cabling available.

In general, you'll want to use as few links as possible, since every connection will provide an opportunity for signal reflection. The cable you use will have an impact as well, since really high-end cables will use materials in the wiring and plugs which will help preserve signal integrity, but even the best cable in the world will experience some loss.

An alternative approach is to use networking to convey the image where you want it to go. If you want to stick with a TV as your output device, it looks like Belkin makes a device that does exactly what you want wirelessly using a device called "RemoteTV", if it's within your budget.

If you have a computer at the other endpoint, you might try VNC (second link below). There are many clients and servers out there, with prices starting at free and going up. You'd make the screen you want to transmit a VNC server and set up a computer running as a VNC client at the point where you want to display to appear. You can set up VNC either as a single point-to-point system, or you can have a single server send the same display to many clients. VNC is sufficiently lightweight that you might be able to use a very old and small (and thus cheap) computer to do the job.

Answer 3

Without knowing the direct answer to your question, I would like to point out that there are now devices which will feed a TV that will collect video off your wireless network which will save wiring your house or office with S-video cable.
You might also check before buying the card whether S-video cable can be as long as you wish to run. and whether the 2 S-video outputs on the card show the same material. The purpose of the two outputs might be to create a two (or 3) screen panorama where Windows displays across several screen or a game shows you a wide view out a vehicle window.