Multiple Monitors (kind of)

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Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby Gunny04 » Wed Feb 07, 2007 4:58 pm

alright... I have a 19 inch Widescreen LCD monitor as my main.... now I just bought 25ft of RCA (Red, white, and yellow) cable and am running my tv as a secondary monitor (So I can listen to my music on my Stereo, but with the added bonus of hooking the tv up to computer) Is there a way to get the same thing that displays on my main monitor to show up on the tv? So when I am too lazy to get out of bed I can still play a game etc? I don't think there is a way UNLESS I make the tv the primary display and that doesn't work very well, I know I can drag stuff to the TV and view it if I want.... but that doesnt work with games unless not in full display mode. Anyways any help on this would be greatly appreciated, in a few weeks I should be able to fly FSX with a 250 watt stereo system.... Fun!

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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby beaky » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:43 pm

You should be able to set up two monitors (of any kind) in "Clone" mode, that is with the same output split between the two ports.
You can leave your VGA monitor as the primary if you like. Not possible with your system?

BTW, if the "yellow" in that cable is a composite video connector, invest in an S-video cable if your graphics card has such an output and your TV has an s-vid input. It'll look a little better, although even S-video is lousy for showing digital graphics at any resolution.
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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby Gunny04 » Wed Feb 07, 2007 10:43 pm

Alright I'll look into the cloning thing. I am using a composite cable thing yes (Hooks into the S-Video port on GPU and then you run a yellow cable to the VCR with the sound cables... which I have to do yet) Looks fine other than the fact that the titles and stuff on applications are blury, nothing major. VCR has an S-Video thing but I couldn't make it work so I got the old 3 way cable to do the job. Thanks for the tips

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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby beaky » Thu Feb 08, 2007 8:13 am

Alright I'll look into the cloning thing. I am using a composite cable thing yes (Hooks into the S-Video port on GPU and then you run a yellow cable to the VCR with the sound cables... which I have to do yet) Looks fine other than the fact that the titles and stuff on applications are blury, nothing major. VCR has an S-Video thing but I couldn't make it work so I got the old 3 way cable to do the job. Thanks for the tips

Gunny

Oh, you're going to a VCR then using the RF input on the TV... that's not too bad, but yes, text, etc will not display well that way.
My new TV has all the right A/V inputs but even on the S-video port straight out of my video card it doesn't look so hot. Eventually I'll try using a component signal (red, green and blue separated, with sync on green)... should look better.

If and when I finally get my new PC up and running, I'll probably dedicate this old box to entertainment duty: TV, movies and music.
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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby Gunny04 » Thu Feb 08, 2007 1:20 pm

Ok this is how I have it run, (Well it is a little confusing) From the Graphics card on my PC the S-vid port to a nice cable thing you can run out the back, hook a 25ft compositve cable up to that, run it into a VCR and then run the VCR via another composite to the TV... works a charm. No RF input at all  just composite cables. I may try messing with it more, I was originally only going to have sound from my PC to stereo but the cable had an extra use so... why not try video? I had a S-Video thing from my old 6200 so I used it, now I have the ability to lay on my bed when I feel lazy and mess around with my computer... just gotta work some bugs out.

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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby Viper22 » Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:52 pm

Multiple monitors are great, im running my 19" LCD and my old 17" CRT off my computer, and its great to be able to game and chat on msn and stuff at the same time....i was considering hooking the system up to my 50" plasma in the basement, but its not very convenient.  sounds like a cool setup you have there gunny.  i had problems trying to hook up to my old tv before i got my new one, but my new one has a direct dvi input, which is easier than having to run through the vcr and stuff.
Last edited by Viper22 on Thu Feb 08, 2007 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Multiple Monitors (kind of)

Postby Gunny04 » Thu Feb 08, 2007 8:17 pm

Okay this is my setup

You see a 250 watt marantz stereo receiver, my TV, VCR and some 300 records. Now the computer is hooked up via display only to the setup, but eventually I'll have the sound hooked up (when I can buy a splitter piece to split the left and right channels) Then its FSX with 250 watts.... drive my mother nuts! That black thing is my satelite receiver...
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As you can see the same thing is displayed on the TV as the monitor, and they are 5-8 feet apart....
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My objective? Get the 250 watt stereo rigged up to computer through the VCR so I can have all my music played on it! FSX with 4 speakers running around 60 watts a piece, I cant wait!

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