Tv Display Help For Bar

[cdbrown]

Hopefully this will make sense to someone and be able to help, but as I don't know what I'm after this might be a bit of a mess.....

Will have a 42" (or+) flat screen wall mounted in the bar. This is connected to an amp which in turn has foxtel, gaming machine and planning on connecting a video out of the mame arcade machine.

I'd like to be able to output music videos, sports/news ticker and maybe some info about the beers on tap to the screen. A lot like you see in pubs which show the current specials and upcoming events. Anybody come across a program for doing this.

Hoping to be able to output bar stuff on one video card while the other will run the mame games on the arcade machine screen. Will also need to be able to output separate audio - to the amp and to the arcade speakers.

Any ideas where to look, or what to look for?

Cheers
-cdbrown

 

[1975sandman]

If you are keen, you can put whatever into Powerpoint and have it rotate through on your screen.

 

[Mearesy]

http://www.visualfocus.com.au/

 

[Silo Ted]

If you are keen, you can put whatever into Powerpoint and have it rotate through on your screen.

I was thinking of that, but having not used powerpoint for years, can you load live interactive segments from another feed? Such as nominated 'x' pixels by 'y' pixels a the bottom of the screen to feed news tickers ?

 

[Logman]

My setup is pretty simialar so I'll just explain it and maybe it will help, has Foxtel on both TV's. I've got a 22' and 24' monitor for computing, a 22' LCD TV and a 57" LCD TV all hooked up to my PC.

The video Cards are a Nvidia 8600gt and a cheap Nvidia 8400gt - cost bugger all to set up. My motherboard only had one PCI Express slot so I got the 8400gt which runs from PCI. I hooked them up and it worked first go. I already had Ultramon and it puts a button on any window which allows me to send any window to any monitor or TV.

The 57" is rigged to an LG Home Theater - when I want to watch a movie or whatever that is on my PC, I switch the Home Theater to auxiliary and the audio from my PC comes through in Stereo.

The cord out of my PC to the 57' is DVI to HDMI - for the audio a simple 3.5 mm 'headphone style' cord goes from the PC to the Home Theater. If your PC only has one 3.5 audio jack, you can get a cheap set of USB speakers for the PC's audio and then run the 3.5 to the Home Theater. The 22" sits above the dual monitors for watching footy etc and I use the remote for that TV to adjust audio. The Foxtel has a 'piggy back' cord so both TV's can be hooked up.

It's a really cheap way to go and great results. Depending on the age of your PC and Monitors, if they have 'display port' there are Sapphire ATI cards that will take 6 displays on one card, they are around 400 bux but are great for gaming if you do any, I don't so it wasn't an issue.

 

[glaab]

you mightn't be able to run 2 cards depending on your motherboard/ cmos. Any old dual output card will do what you want, depending on how fussy you are about the gaming graphics. I have an old GeForce 5600 card that does what your'e after perfectly but I don't use it for gaming. One vga cable to the usual 24" monitor and the other to the 42" LCD vga/ d-sub input. I needed a DVI to VGA adaptor on the back of the pc for that, $20 at DSE or Jaycar. The foxtel goes to the HDMI in on the big LCD so I need to change the input select/ source for that. Hope that helps, Cheers

 

[cdbrown]

Don't have the pc yet so room to move there. Currently the arcade has an old 27" fat back which I'm considering swapping out for a 32" or so LCD. The screen on the wall will be a cheapy 42" plasma. Arcade has it's own 4.1 logitech speaker system (plan to have it running either games or as a jukebox).

Good to know I can run completely different things to separate screens - I'm just used to the old extended or copied desktop view.

 

[keifer33]

Got a few ideas on what you could do so will have a muck around tonight. If your willing to make a new pc to suit its got a good chance of working.

 

[cdbrown]

Excellent keifer.

Powerpoint is hard enough to use for just doing simple presentations! Might search around for a jukebox front end which does videos

 

[keifer33]

Ok so my basic start to the idea after some fiddling around would be to run something called rainmeter on the desktop. Basically you can customize some 'gadgets' to run on the desktop of the computer hooked up to the tv. This would include a news/sport module, a link to a media player such as itunes or winamp and a slide show gadget. You can then simply create an image which will be looped over or changed with info about the beers etc on tap with some pretty pictures of ingredients etc. Some of these would need to be created to suit but there is an endless resource out there so something we can work on.

You can get a keyboard/touch pad to control things with if need be or hook up a remote to control anything on the computer. For the idea it wouldn't need to be a super computer just enough to do what you want as easily as possible.

Will think about a few more steps over the next few days. Also I am a bit confused as where the MAME machine fits in to the whole deal? Do you have this already or looking to build one?

 

[cdbrown]

I have already built a 4-player mame machine. It's sitting in the corner on the same wall as the tv. You can just see it in the 3rd pic of this http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=798115

Rainmeter looks cool.

 

[cdbrown]

Been a while since I started this thread - but I've now decided on a Samsung PS51D8000 plasma for the bar wall and a LA32D550 LCD for the cabinet. Currently looking at a pc which has a Asus P8H61-MX/SI motherboard which has 3 audio ports on the back and has 8-channel audio output when combined with a front panel chasis (guessing that's part of the case?). Has a Asus EAH 5450 PCI-E video card which has DVI, VGA and HDMI connectors on it.

Plan to hook up the LCD to the DVI port using DVI to HDMI converter and HDMI cable, Plasma to HDMI port. This should work ok? Can't find any more details on the card to work out if it's capable of outputting to two devices at the same time.

Would I be able to control what sound goes to what audio port? Audio ports at the back to do audio for what's on the LCD (audio from mame) and 8-channel audio for the plasma (audio from a video)?

 

[kelbygreen]

ok I am not sure if this will work!!

With linux and windows I can set the screen to be on 2 screens and just drag the programs/windows across. Although the video card has 2 DVI out puts. I think you will find that the DVI and HDMI will send the same signal out of both so you cannot have dual displays.

I got a Nvidia 9800 gtx+ video card.

for audio I can only do this in linux (may be able to do it in windows). I have a audio card (creative sound blaster xtreme gamer) and the onboard audio card. I set the default to the onboard card (as it has spdif out put to goto the amp) and then if I want to watch anything at the same time with head phones I use VLC player (may work in windows) and set the out put threw VLC player to the sound card. I can watch or listen to music on the default programs and it will go threw the default audio.

For music same as above but I use amarok and set the audio output threw amarok to the sound card and never change the default unless I want to listen to stuff on webpages then will have to change the default main audio to the sound card.

If that makes sence.

Edit: Ok the out put on the front will use the same audio card as the pack panel. The back panel will have prob geen pink and black from memory?? my ones have the outputs for 5.1 audio and digital so has heaps more outputs Not sure what you mean about 8 channel when combined with the front. The front will have a head phone jack and microphone jack. Maybe the others are the 5.1 channel?

 

[keifer33]

Unfortunately having dual audio outputs in Windows isn't technically possible, there are only hacks and band-aid fixes. The front and back panel audio ports will be hooked up to the same audio chip on the motherboard so its not really able to be split. If you got a second sound card - el cheapos are fine you could switch the audio device between them via an application such as Soundswitch but only one could be playing output at a time.

I think kelby is on the money as far as the video output goes as the card is quite cheap and probably unable to handle dual video output. I have a 9600gt here that is silent and has dual dvi outputs if you need it mate.

 

[kelbygreen]

yeah only way to get duel audio is to use linux even then it can be a pain. As said you will need to use the onboard and a audio card but you will have to play one threw a program that can over ride the default audio like VLC or Amarok (sure there is more) I found it a bit of a pain to set up (same with the video) but I am a linux nob.

have you thought of using a media player on one screen?? it could solve your problems depending on what you really want to do. Or if one is only doing simple tasks then maybe a old computer or a cheap one?? I have built very basic computers for $200+ but uses some stuff I had laying about so wasnt all new parts

 

[krusty_oz]

If one of your screens have a DVI port you will not need a hdmi converter.

According to AMD (and people confirming DVI-HDMI config on forums when googled), dual screen at different resolution with the 5450 should not be a problem.
According to AMD
"ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology17,1
* Three independent display controllers
o Drive up to three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays"

 

[cdbrown]

I have overlooked something which will make this problem go away. Both screens have LAN ports and support streaming over the network. So I don't actually need the mame pc to drive mame on the lcd and a movie on the plasma. I'll just open the movie from the plasma and let mame pc play the mame games.

Thanks for looking into it guys.