A PCI Dual TV Display card?

[SilentPanda]

I am looking to buy a few (2-3) dual display PCI cards that would hopefully be able to go direct to TV instead of having to buy some sort of VGA/DVI to S-Video/RCA converter. Are there any out there that are on the cheap? I'd like to be able to hook 4-6 TV's up to one computer, having 4-6 desktops (i.e. I can just split the signal 6 ways). Please ask questions as needed. Thanks a lot!

 

[cleeve]

You should be able to pick up a Radeon 7000 multi display edition for around $40 each.

It won't play games worth a damn but it has a great quality TV-out built in.

Here's a link:
<A HREF="http://www.ateck.com/viewItem.asp?idProduct=453055018" target="_new">http://www.ateck.com/viewItem.asp?idProduct=453055018</A>

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Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529

 

[SilentPanda]

That one will work except I'd much prefer to have a video card that has two composite out's (or one composite and one s-video, or two s-video). Playing games is the least of my worries... no spiffy graphics needed... are there any video cards that have two outs like that? Or a cheap converter from VGA to RCA/s-video?

Thanks again!

 

[cleeve]

You're not going to find a TV out card with multiple TV outs.

If you want multiple TV outs of the same signal, go to Radio shack and get a cable splitter. You can split the signal as many tines as you like. They should have splitters for both composite and svideo.

There will be a bt of a signal quality loss each time you split it, however.

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Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529

 

[SilentPanda]

A splitter won't work for my purposes... I'll actually need 4-6 separate displays... I'll have to poke around to find a cheap VGA to RCA convertor...

I didn't figure I'd find a dual tv out video card... but I figured you guys would be the best to ask.

Thanks for your help!

 

[cleeve]

Let me get this straight;

You need one computer to output 4 to 6 separate TV signals? Each TV displaying soething different?

May I ask what you need this for?

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Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529

 

[SilentPanda]

That's exactly what I need...

And yes I have no idea what I'm doing either... which is why I want to try it on the cheap.

Here's the skinny:

I'm making an interactive display. The TV's will be arranged in a "face" pattern with possibly some other informational displays. Two tvs are needed for eyes, one for the mouth, maybe a nose, then maybe two informational displays. Using a Logitech QuickCam the computer will know when there is motion in front of the display and will also be able to tell where the person is standing by computing the difference between frames. Then the screens can wake up when the person walks into view and look at that person. I'm not 100% certain that it'll work but logitech does offer a QuickCam SDK and it sounds like it just might. I'm doing it for an actual public display too which should be cool. The computer may or may not be able to process all that but if it can't then I'll hook up another computer and send information from one program to the other. It's crazy and it probably won't work but it certainly can't hurt to try.

 

[cleeve]

Hmmmmmmm.

Well, you shouldn't get married to the idea of using TVs.

You should be able to pick up 4 cheap used 15" monitors for about the same price as 4 TVs... and video cards with Dual VGA out are cheap & easy to come by... you should be able to use two dual-out video cards unless Windows won't let you.

I know Matrox now offers a Parhelia with 4 VGA outputs on one card, but it costs over $1000...

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Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529

 

[SilentPanda]

Windows 2000 will support up to 8 monitors on multiple video cards.

I don't know if we'll be using TV's or monitors. Right now I'm just doing research on it. I'm going to try to get it working with one display for now and then once I get a proof of concept, move onto more displays. I'm pretty impartial to TV or monitor. I think we know a guy who can get us 27" or 32" for $100 a piece so I think that's why we're going that route. It's a big display. I'm not sure 15" and 17" monitors would cut it. But I'm going to look at the location tonight so I'll have a better understanding of it. It'll be behind glass so I'm looking into seeing how well a "SoundBug" will turn the glass into a speaker. I have very little hopes for that but it's worth a try.

They initially wanted to just put an informational power point display behind a window, hoping it would grab people's attention. It grabs peoples attention about as much as public access television... none... that's why I asked them if we could go this route.