Multiple screens question

Sid1968 · 23 Mar 2018

Need some advice please

In my area a state of the art community centre has been built. It has 28 screens scattered arround the centre with different outputs to each screen ie advertisin on one a clock face on the other and future events on the other etc etc

My question how is that done that you can different things on different screens.

Much appreciated

Lucid · 23 Mar 2018

What you're describing is a multiple Point of Information (PoI) system. There are a couple of ways these can be managed. It starts with the connection which is Ethernet rather than video. Each screen has a unique IP address which makes it individually addressable. Next, it's whether the data streamed live or downloaded to a small processor with local storage. That's a minor thing though TBH as the data overhead for PoI isn't huge.

Sid1968 · 23 Mar 2018

So its all done via a computer
Settin IP addresses etc etc??

And all the programs for each screen are edited via computer??

Sorry just gettin my head around this

Lucid · 23 Mar 2018

That's the most likely scenario.

This has all got considerably easier since the advent of flatscreen TV technology and the sort of single chip computing solutions that spawned devices such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

Back in the 90's Barco did something along similar lines with CRT-based monitors each running from a small form factor PC embedded in the chassis. The last one of those I saw was in Herriot-Watt University. The tech was big, heavy and relatively slow by current standards, not to mention expensive, but it worked.

Plasma offered a potential solution back in the late 90s/early 00s, but although the screens were larger (42") they were also low resolution (WVGA - 848x640 pixels) and more suited to video rather than text. The other issue was rapid screen burn when displaying a series of static images at a brightness level typically required for display in brightly lit retail stores or trading floors/call centres.

The whole thing really took off when LCD achieved 1080p resolution and the price of panel production fell through the floor.

LED backlit LCD screens can do the brightness without the power consumption and heat issues of plasma. The screens are lighter and thinner than florescent tube-lit LCD screens, though that's less of a consideration in commercial applications. There's no image retention issue to speak of, and at 1920x1080p resolution combined with anti-aliasing then text legibility is good even when the screen is displaying say train times or a menu list.

Why, how did you think it was done?

Sid1968 · 23 Mar 2018

Thanx for the knowledge Lucid

I had a idea different recorders for different screen displays like the olden days

Sid1968 · 26 Mar 2018

Hi Lucid

Right ok!!
I have 1 tv in my lounge hard wired ethernet connected.
So for example i want a 24hr clock face running on the tv
How would i go about it

Sandtree · 6 Apr 2018

Sid1968 said:
So for example i want a 24hr clock face running on the tv
How would i go about it

Which make/model of TV? Are there any other smart devices (eg AppleTV, Google Chromecast) attached?

Sid1968 · 6 Apr 2018

Tv is a panasonic smart tv
No other devices attached

Tigercubrider · 6 Apr 2018

At work we have some Samsung based TVs that have the digital signage mods, but we tend to run them off a USB stick as it is easier. They will run a PowerPoint show ( we can make it on a Mac but have to open and save it on a pic) and you can schedule over 7 days so they turn on/off

We had a conference and I connected an iPad to an hdmi 7" monitor so that the chair could run a timer countdown for presenters. Sadly Apple changed the timer app from the "countdown" circle to a less useful one

Sid1968 · 6 Apr 2018

Thanx
Can i run a powerpoint presentation to tv from my pc via ethernet???

Tigercubrider · 6 Apr 2018

most tv's (all domestic?) won't play PP but will accept hdmi sent down cat 5
So in theory you could use an hdmi output to cat 5 and house cat 5 to hdmi again but the only ones I have used (few years ago) needed 2 cat 5 cables and were flakey
Maybe modern ones are better?

Sid1968 · 6 Apr 2018

Hmmm thanx for the info

Il try that see what happens

Lucid · 6 Apr 2018

Sending HDMI down some Cat cable usually means using HDMI Extenders (baluns) or using something to IP-ise the signal so it can travel with network traffic via a router before it is converted back to standard HDMI.

The balun system uses network cable, but it doesn't make the signals compatible with network traffic. As @Tigercubrider said, some of the extenders use two Cat5, and that's because they use more than the 8 cores of a single Cat5 cable to transmit the encoded/converted HDMI signal.

If anyone is planning to send HDMI through a house network system that has a router then baluns are not the solution. They're not compatible with each other.

Sid1968 · 7 Apr 2018

So whats is the option then??

Lucid · 7 Apr 2018

It depends what you want.

Look, you started this thread asking a question about Point of Information systems. That's a commercial type of product. Now suddenly you want to run PowerPoint on your domestic TV?!?

Are you familiar with the story of the blind men and the elephant? Here's a link if you're not. How the story applies here is that you're only giving us a small part of the whole picture. No-one can properly advise you until you decide to lay out the the big picture of what you want to achieve. You see, it might not have occurred to you, but by drip-feeding your requirements you run the risk of laying the wrong foundations for the system's eventual purpose.

If you have a router and an internet connection via a modem then your network is designed to transmit IP data packets rather than simply using Cat as a way to run longer cable lengths. It's possible that you can integrate HDMI send/receive gear in the network, but you won't do it on the cheap. Not only will you need something that converts and transmits HDMI as IP (and we haven't even touched on the complications that you get if trying to run 4K UHD @ 60Hz 4:4:4), but that something has to play nice with the data traffic on the network as well. That's not going to be a cheap solution. But it may well be that that isn't the right solution for you at all, so before I waste any time dealing with the ins and outs of this, let's hear from you about what the grand plan is.

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Multiple screens question

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