Wireless Monitor: does it exist?

December 7, 2007 8:31 AM

HowTo Filter: add a second monitor that is wireless? I found this device, but the post is a year old and I was hoping for a solution that doesn't cost as much. this is even older and more expensive. There is also this, from DisplayLink, but I don't understand how it works - it is actually wireless? It looks like the monitors they make have a sub chip built in, but I don't get how it all connects back to the pc.

I want to add a second lcd monitor to a winxp desktop machine, but I want it to be wireless. It's going into a showroom down the hall, which is about 75 linear feet away. We have a clearwire router that my laptop finds just fine in the showroom. I'd rather do a wireless thing so we're not crawling around above the ceiling fishing cable around.

We'll be displaying a looped video and/or our website on the second monitor when we have open houses to show our products and design. So I was thinking just add a second monitor to our existing machine, set up what we want while at the machine and just have it display the same thing in the showroom.

I also don't completely understand how to set up two monitors from a single machine. I'm assuming I go to control panel and add a monitor, but how will we tell it to display the same thing as what's on the monitor at the machine?

Any suggestions?

posted by yoga to computers & internet (15 comments total)

uh... exchange "usb" for "sub".
posted by yoga at 8:39 AM on December 7, 2007

I suggest burning a DVD of what you want looping and using a DVD player. Any wireless display solution isn't going to be suitable for real-time video streaming. Also: cheap.
posted by kindall at 8:41 AM on December 7, 2007

The wireless signal commonly used for networking has nowhere near the bandwidth to drive a display. It might be easier to consider a used iMac or other one piece computer.

Or on preivew, a DVD like kindall suggests... Yeah. I nth that.
posted by advicepig at 8:42 AM on December 7, 2007

What about getting a cheap computer with a wireless card and putting MaxiVista on it? That will let you use the cheap computer's monitor as a second monitor for your existing computer.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:55 AM on December 7, 2007

Hmm. what if I broke down and went with a cable above the ceiling? How do people hook up dual monitors?
posted by yoga at 9:26 AM on December 7, 2007

People hook up dual monitors with a seperate video card, or a video card that supports multiple video outputs.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:28 AM on December 7, 2007

75 feet is pushing it a bit for VGA or DVI, I'd nth the recommendation to loop the video and show it "locally" on the showroom floor. If you've not already bought a monitor for that purpose, look for an LCD TV with built-in DVD Player.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 9:31 AM on December 7, 2007

Hmm. what if I broke down and went with a cable above the ceiling?

Keep in mind that a decent quailty 75 ft VGA cable will probably cost you $100+.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:36 AM on December 7, 2007

We may be able to cut the distance a bit going above the ceiling as the crow flies. I paced the distance going around corners, etc.

The lcd/dvd tv combo might be a good option.

What about this vga splitter doodad and a 50 ft cable?

I would still have to check the video card to see if it supports 2 monitors, correct?
posted by yoga at 9:48 AM on December 7, 2007

Looks like your link is borked.

If you use a splitter, you can have the computer display the same thing on two displays at the same time with any video card. You only need a video card with dual display support if you want different things on both displays.

That said, the splitter and a long cable tends to give a poor image.
posted by advicepig at 9:58 AM on December 7, 2007

Whoops. Here's the link. It says it's an amplifier, so I'm guessing it'd boost the signal.
posted by yoga at 10:48 AM on December 7, 2007

Well, for whatever it's worth, I'd use that splitter thing you linked. Hell, at that price I may buy one just in case I ever need it.
posted by aramaic at 11:22 AM on December 7, 2007

I've never used that one. The one we have at work is an iogear and it had serious ghosting issues in runs over ten feet. If you do try a long run, get a display cable that has those ferrite cores on it. Those are the lumps on the cable near the connector. They cut down on interference. You can see them in the picture here.
posted by advicepig at 12:52 PM on December 7, 2007

It wouldn't take much of a PC at your remote location to run a freeware VNC client (although it should have a decent video capability), and connect to a freeware version of a VNC server running on your WinXP desktop machine, over standard 100 MB Cat 5 Ethernet. It's reliable, and over 100 MB wired Ethernet, can display anything you can show on your WinXP machine, at high resolution. A simple 100 Mb Ethernet 5 port switch can be had for about $15, and a 75 foot Cat 5 cable is about $30.
posted by paulsc at 2:54 PM on December 7, 2007

VNC simply is not suitable for video.
posted by kindall at 10:02 PM on December 7, 2007