Multimonitor PC

[CCS 0]

Due to the amount of system integration on a security system, I may have to go the IP CCTV route for the first time.

 

My spec is to have various monitoring locations around a complex with three screen consoles.

 

Has anyone built a PC with 3 viewing screens (and potentially a fourth configuration/contorl screen). Each screen will be viewing a 4SIF PAL mpeg stream.

 

Does anyone have some hard won experience regarding processsor / memory / chipset /videocard for this application.

 

XP is the clients preferred operating system.

 

TIA,

Col

[CollinR 0]

I have never done one with more then 2 displays and after doing that I would be reserved about doing it again. Granted this was much more complicated then a CCTV application, I wouldn't have had any issues with CCTV.

 

How is the user controlling this? Just keyboard and mouse? Touch? IR/RF?

 

Just keyboard and mouse makes it a boatload easier but you can still run into issues with focus and switching focus if the user uses KB commands or the application does. Also system messages can be a pain if you don't choose the correct default display and have it setup without modal stuff on it.

 

 

I only have experiece with dual display, span might be better but I kinda doubt it unless you train the people how to set it up everytime it gets rebooted.

 

 

What do they need to do with the info from the screen? Click a feed and it fullscreens or PTZ control based on it, lots of varables in the interfaces and functionality.

[CCS 0]

My spec is two have three displays at each console location.

 

I was thinking of having three ceiling mounted monitors meeting the spec and using a fourth monitor at the console for setup and control using keyboard and mouse, but not having done it, I do not know the full horrors of controlling this setup. This will be very much determined by my application vendor.

 

The spec is still fairly vauge at the moment, but I was wondering if there was any just dont think about it issues.

 

I may use three PCs and a keyboard /mouse switch. Anyone got anything to say about this approach?

[CollinR 0]

Nail them down to desktop style interaction through keyboard and mouse, it just makes everything easier. If your apps are good the whole thing will be intuitive so you don't need to do alot of training or bogus service calls.

 

I may use three PCs and a keyboard /mouse switch. Anyone got anything to say about this approach?

 

KVM works but is way more expensive because you triple your hardware and licensing costs.

 

I was going to say that using RDP (Windows terminal services) can make this an easier process by killing most of the focus and system message issues and forcing the seperate instances for each display. But it does require an extra PC back at the DVR with a hacked copy of XP Pro that allows multiple user RDP, or a Windows Server with terminal services installed. The applications you run will be the big factor here, if it's just HTTP stuff you probably have no problem but the apps that interact directly with the DVR hardware are probably not going to work with multiple users. You must have at least 2 boxes, you might need more depending on how resource dependent your apps are. The box\s running the terminal server needs to be stout, it will be doing all of the processing for everything you see on the screen. The PCs at the consoles can be pretty cheap, PDAs and smart cell phones can do the client side stuff but their screens are usually too small. You can also choose to run resource dependent stuff locally and just run the bulk on the server.

 

You can also RPD wirelessly from some portable devices, way cool for the bigwigs but adds a bunch of security concerns.

[McJannet 0]

Gents:

 

The problem with KVM is that it compresses the video, which recompresses the CCTV images, which sort of totally distorts them.

 

If you're going IP, best to stick with max two monitors per PC unless going for the really high end video wall. I think that most pc's now come with video cards that can handle dual monitors.

 

This way you get a bunch of processing power per screen, and pc's are relatively cheap.

 

Regards:

 

Dave

[aarons 0]

A couple of solutions:

 

Check out matrox.com they do a range of multi headed video cards.

 

or

 

You could build an SLI machine with dual output on each VGA card that would give quad display.

[kandcorp 0]

Or just get one of these

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50263621&cm_ven=Performics&cm_cat=Bookshopmaker+(formerly+Tool+Realm)&cm_pla=General&cm_ite=Domsys+DDI+Link&ref=performics

 

I would probably stick to at least a 128MB vid card (AGP or PCI-Ex)

With this you could get up to 5 monitors (4 form the vid splitter and one from the additional output (DVI or VGA) on the Vid card.

[CollinR 0]

Or just get one of these

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50263621&cm_ven=Performics&cm_cat=Bookshopmaker+(formerly+Tool+Realm)&cm_pla=General&cm_ite=Domsys+DDI+Link&ref=performics

 

I would probably stick to at least a 128MB vid card (AGP or PCI-Ex)

With this you could get up to 5 monitors (4 form the vid splitter and one from the additional output (DVI or VGA) on the Vid card.

 

I'm pretty sure he wants different stuff on the screens, that is more for computer stores to display the same image on multiple displays.

[mfennell 0]

a lot of video cards support mutiple displays. ATI and Nvidia most notibly. Our monitoring stations have at least 3 monitors each up to 8 depending on their duties. These are all off of one card per station. Look at the ATI video cards.

 

We are using windows XP SP2 / 2 GB Ram/ 3 Ghz P4 or better. These are NOT DVR stations just monitoring and dispatch.

[kandcorp 0]

Ahhh, well if he wants all the same image this is the way to go.

[mfennell 0]

umm no, these all have different views.

[TopGeek 0]

Don't know if this helps or not..

 

I'm running 3 screens on each of my PCs.. AND I've run them in combo seamlesssly as 6 screens...

 

Machine 1 is using a single Nvidia 6800 GT/OC card.

it has dual monitor output (one is 15 pin vga, one is digital (to which I hookedup up an adapter) so each is running a 21" crt at 2048... then the 3rd is a 61" LCD television hooked up through the SVIDEO output running in 1024 resolution..

 

Machine 2 has an ATI Radeon 9700XT Pro All in Wonder and an Rage TNT card in it. One 21" CRT on each of the vga outputs and then the svideo of the All in Wonder out to the second tuner in the 61" LCD for 1024x768 display.

 

Then.. to make a virtual machine which allows me to seamlessly take the mouse and keyboard all the way across all screens I run a program called Multiplicity by stardock. GREAT little program.. it is completely seamless except that I sometimes forget I'm leaving one PC and entering the other and try and drag the window across the three screens and onto the forth and its left stranded as the mouse continues along without it

 

As for using software across multiple screens.. it will depend on the software. Icatcher I've found works great with mutliscreen because each camera view in in fact an idependent movable window. Other applications that have very strict control over where their video output can go (like not being able to use reolsutions other than 1024) don't have any advantage to the other monitors other than being able to do other work in those windows like webbrowsing.

 

For some reason my girlfriend just didn't understand all the fuss when I started giggling like a little school girl as I scrolled my mouse from the right monitor to the second one to the LCD to the other side of the LCD (jumping computers) to the left monitor and on to the left most monitor all in one swoop of my wrist. I was high on technology for a week after accomplishing that

 

hope this helps in some way??

cheers.