dual monitors for a geovision system?

[00goat 0]

Greetings, first visit/post here, I hope someone has had this experience.

 

I'm a computer tech who keeps stumbling into computer based surveillance systems, so I've had some experience with geovision setups in the past, but this isn't entirely specific to the card.

 

A client with an existing 4 cam system (circa 2004 perhaps?) is moving to a new location. They have a geovision card camped out quite happily in a Dell, and the 4 cameras will work well in the new location.

 

The question is having multiple monitors to watch the cams from. The new location will have a basement workshop area, and they'd like to be able to monitor the cameras on two levels. On the surface of it this would appear to be fairly simple, as I could easily add a cheap dual output video card and run DVI to the downstairs location. Clone the displays in windows and it *should* work.

 

However, I know that video drivers often do strange things with overlay video (which I presume is how the geovision software displays the cams). I could see throwing it together and getting cloned gui with black video boxes on the second display.

 

So I'm wondering if anyone here has ever implemented something like this. Will it work as I'm thinking? I have a vague concept of alternatives involving some sort of hardware display cloning device, but I'm guessing such a device would be VGA if it exists at all. The distances involved here would make that somewhat feasible, but I would feel more comfortable about the quality of the 2nd monitor feed if it was over DVI.

 

There may also be the option of viewing it over the network I suppose, as there will be a computer in the area, but I'm fairly sure their intention is to have another dedicated screen as they do now. I'm also not positive offhand as to what software version they are running, so I'm not sure the option is there.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas on this topic!

[402vette 0]

Greetings, first visit/post here, I hope someone has had this experience.

 

I'm a computer tech who keeps stumbling into computer based surveillance systems, so I've had some experience with geovision setups in the past, but this isn't entirely specific to the card.

 

A client with an existing 4 cam system (circa 2004 perhaps?) is moving to a new location. They have a geovision card camped out quite happily in a Dell, and the 4 cameras will work well in the new location.

 

The question is having multiple monitors to watch the cams from. The new location will have a basement workshop area, and they'd like to be able to monitor the cameras on two levels. On the surface of it this would appear to be fairly simple, as I could easily add a cheap dual output video card and run DVI to the downstairs location. Clone the displays in windows and it *should* work.

 

However, I know that video drivers often do strange things with overlay video (which I presume is how the geovision software displays the cams). I could see throwing it together and getting cloned gui with black video boxes on the second display.

 

So I'm wondering if anyone here has ever implemented something like this. Will it work as I'm thinking? I have a vague concept of alternatives involving some sort of hardware display cloning device, but I'm guessing such a device would be VGA if it exists at all. The distances involved here would make that somewhat feasible, but I would feel more comfortable about the quality of the 2nd monitor feed if it was over DVI.

 

There may also be the option of viewing it over the network I suppose, as there will be a computer in the area, but I'm fairly sure their intention is to have another dedicated screen as they do now. I'm also not positive offhand as to what software version they are running, so I'm not sure the option is there.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas on this topic!

 

You have a number of options. You can use the spot monitor out to display the 4 cameras if they just want to be able to see the video, or you could put in a vid card with hdmi out and run it to a tv or you can run dvi to a seperate monitor. I have noticed that some drivers/cards don't allow the video to be shown through the overlay on one monitor. I have the most success out of ATI cards and not nvidia.

[olafak 0]

If not using the remote access, which would be easiest, I would suggest a CAT5 KVM. I have used a CAT5 KVM setup before and liked it because you can fully configure the DVR and use all of its functions remotely.