Using two displays

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Using two displays

Postby davepartridge » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:40 pm

Hi everyone.

This question is partially related to ZionWorx but more about the whole presentation system in use at my Church so if the moderators decide it's inappropariate then go ahead and remove it.

We've been using ZionWorx at my Church for some time now and we're really pleased with it - it does exactly what we need it to do.

However, we now want to run a link to a room out the back of the Church for special occasions when the main Church building isn't big enough, and for use in a creche, should the need arise. I think I've worked out how we could do this but any input from others would be greatly appreciated! As well as running ZionWorx on the remote screen, we'd like to be able to show a video camera and possibly a DVD player, but it needs to be controlled separately from the main projector as we wouldn't want the video camera shown on the projector, except in exceptional circumstances.

In terms of audio, we already have a mixer etc. and the room out the back can just have an identical output to that which is in the main Church building.

So, we have three inputs:
Computer (fairly new with XP and ZionWorx)
DVD Player
Video Camera (yet to be obtained)

Two outputs:
Projector
Monitor or TV (yet to be obtained) - I guess we would also want a monitor/TV where the projectionist is situated so that they could monitor what was on the screen out the back.

I envisage it looking something like this:

Image

Am I along the right lines? It needs to be fairly low-cost as we're not a particularly big Church and budget is important. Any suggestions of particular items would be appreciated too!

Thanks very much :)
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Postby davepartridge » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:07 pm

I may have actually stumbled across something on the internet which could be a better solution.

It's called the VS-0404 from Aten, and their website is here. I've found it on the internet for about £250 which is a little higher than I was hoping to pay but we can probably stretch to that. I suppose the only issue will be getting the camera/DVD player to output a VGA signal to plug into this.

Comments?

(Sorry for replying to my own post, but I figured my original post was getting long enough already!)
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Postby webmaster » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:25 pm

We use thus to convert and scale video sources to VGA and it will also do video overlay.

We purchased a multimedia scaler from CYP

here http://www.lektropacks.com/view_item.ph ... category=8

about £175 ex vat. I think it is cheaper now.....we project onto a screen around 7ft wide

We use this into a set of extenders and then use cat5 connections as we have 22Meters to the projecot from the media desk.

This we have found really helpful.

If you need further help feel free to email me direct.

Regards
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Postby davepartridge » Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:14 am

Cheers for the info - while that looks interesting, I don't think it would allow me to control the projector and other display separately. The only way we could do this is if we ran all of the cables to the projector, and output from the scaler unit out the back, and controlled the projector with the remote, which is problematic due to the distance.

I was looking around and it's possible we could use S-Video as we can output from all three sources to S-Video. It should then be fairly easy to set up an S-video switch and extender. However, I'm not at the Church for a couple of weeks to test it and am unsure of what the quality of the S-video output from the computer to projector is likely to be for ZionWorx. Does anyone else use S-video for this?

I found this on Amazon which I think would let us switch between different S-Video sources to two different outputs.

Thanks,
Dave[/url]
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Postby danparkes » Mon Jan 08, 2007 2:21 pm

The set up at our church seems to be along similar lines to what you are proposing. Hopefully this info will help you (and anyone else who wants to make use of it).

Our main aim was to make the system as easy to use as possible by "non-techies" which mean't putting in a system similar to that found in a home. The other pre-requisite was cost (or rather lack of it)!

The first decision we made was to do with cabling, what type and where it would connect to. We chose to go with a combination of SCART, composite video and S-Video as they are all compatible. We even use this for the computer running ZionWorx. This has allowed us to have three TV's in various parts of the church (two upstairs in the junior church and youth meeting rooms and one in the downstairs room for creche. This also allows us to use these rooms as overflow rooms at other times. As we use TV's with SCART and phono connectors we can also connect video or DVD players to them rather than going throught the main system. this is great for smaller gatherings using these rooms. We also have a TV with the AV desk so that we can cue-up video/DVD clips and monitor what is being sent to the other rooms.

To enable the computer to be compatible we degrade the VGA output using a conversion box made by AVERMEDIA. This takes the VGA signal and outputs it as composite video or S-video. The downside to this is that the computer image on the projection screen and TVs is not as good quality as using VGA but we were willing to sacrifice this as anything being projected is in a TV friendly format anyway or needs to be big anyway to enable it to be read (i.e the song words).

With all of the signals now compatible we send them all to a single video switch unit which allows fous inputs and two outputs. It is similar to the one you found on Amazon but has digital display to show which "channel" is currently being used as well as a remote control. We got ours from Maplin's and it cost around 60GBP though I have since seen it cheaper.

This switch unit allows us to have the computer and DVD/video player (a combined unit) connected to it as well as having the option for a video camera, which we use for baptismal services. We tend to keep one "channel" free to enable us to have a blanking option. We will soon also have an input at the front of the church to enable another device (i.e. a computer (with appropriate signal converter) or a DVD player) to also be used and therefore controlled from the front. This will be great for alllowing the minister to use his own laptop and control his own PowerPoints. The main control of it will still be with the tecchies though through the switch box. We will also have the cabling to send the output signal to a stage monitor (TV) so that the minister and musicians can see what is going on the screen behind them with turning round. I should say that the cabling from the AV desk to the TVs in the other rooms and to the front of the church is all SCART as this allows us to have video and audio going both ways in a single cable. Having said that there is a separate SCART cable for each feed.

To ensure that the signal is not degraded over the distances it travels we use an AV amplifier (again from Maplins - as are the reels of cable we used!). This has one input (taken from the first output on the switch box mentioned above) and splits the signal into four outputs. These four outputs than take the signal to the TV's around the church and the projector in the main worship area. The second output from the switch box is taken to a small TV on the AV desk to monitor what is available from each input. This means that while a song or PowerPoint is being projected we can cue up a video clip to play straight afterwards.

Of course this is just one way of doing it and we have replugged it for special events. The good thing is we only have to change the connectors at the AV desk end which is easy to do.

I hope that the above info helps but feel free to email me if you want to discuss our set-up in more detail.

Blessings,

Dan
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Postby davepartridge » Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:16 pm

Cheers, your setup seems relatively similar to ours. The thing I now need to check is whether the quality reduction on the main projector (which has a native resolution of 1024 x 768) to S-Video is acceptable - our main Church building is quite small so it might be quite noticeable.

I'm a student so I won't be home for a few weeks to have a look but thanks for your advice.

It's a shame I can't really upscale everything up to XGA simply and cheaply!
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Postby davepartridge » Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:18 pm

I popped home over the weekend and had a play with the projector. I wanted to see if outputting S-video from the computer was viable with regards to quality.

Because the Church is quite small, the reduced quality you get with S-video as opposed to the XGA (1024x768) we can get from the computer is really noticeable. It's fine for DVDs and things because they're moving but because the computer picture is often static it just looks washed out and the resolution really looks rubbish.

I'm back to the drawing board again now. I think I'll have to have a switch box for the second display running on S-video and just control the projector using the remote. Not ideal but I think it'll have to do.
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