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One example was this, which just flat out says discontinued:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dprod...

Another is this, which mentions wireless but none of the models seem to support wireless:

http://www.bb-elec.com/Product...

For that last set, the manufacturer's page has no wireless ones either, except in the discontinued section:

http://www.icron.com/products/...

Yeah, I'm with all of you. If he's seeing symptoms for a long cable run, it's not any kind of "lag", it's flat out signaling loss and interference problems.

We should also point out that the physical specifications for some protocols and the high signaling rates may make it such that over a certain length, no type of cable will work.

For example - networking protocols and gear are designed for "not short distance" runs, but even they top out around 100m.

http://www.google.com/search?q...

A quick similar google for hdmi shows that beyond the 15 meters (50 feet) distance you need very good quality cable, and that much longer than 30m (100 ft) is not doable.

Solution? Fiber. http://www.gefen.com/kvm/ext-h... Not cheap though, $1700.

You can already buy a device that does this: Gefen HDMI Detective Plus

First of all, you need something to transfer the data over until it hits the air. For that you have a couple options as to the physical plant -- the stuff the data goes over: phone line wire (cat3), twisted pair (cat5), power lines (with 120VAC on them), fiber optic, and coaxial cable. CAT3 (phone wire) is cheapest, especially if you can reuse existing lines. Cat3 will support 10BASE-T Ethernet and DSL. Cat5 will support 100BASE-T Ethernet. Fiber Optic -- can be ATM or Ethernet. If coaxial cable (RG-59 as used in cable tv) can be used with no other signals on it (if you can), then 10BASE2 is a "simple" but obsolete and slow solution. Best forget about it. You'd much rather use something like Gefen TV Ethernet over Coax to push a 100Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet link over the coaxial cable. If you have to coexist (tap into) existing cable TV distribution plant, then use a DOCSIS-based solution.

I would not use 10BASE-T since a segment is limited to 100m in length, same for 10BASE-2, and it's really obsolete. So you are left with, most practically:
- Cat3: DSL
- Cat5: 100BASE-T Ethernet or DSL
- Fiber: 100BASE-FX Ethernet
- Coax: Gefen solution for dedicated run, DOCSIS solution for coexistence with cable tv distribution

That's just the first step, but a very important one. You have to inventory existing physical plants that are available, also inventory available power, and price all options out.

Nice examples, but there's no reason that audio won't work over DVI equally well as over HDMI.

I don't claim to be an expert, but to my knowledge the DVI spec doesn't include audio.

However, yes, its becoming common for PC video cards to provide it anyway. I'm not aware of anything else that can do it "natively".

Normally you need something like this...
http://www.gefen.com/kvm/include/prod_html/closeup/dviaudhdmiclose.shtml

Which takes separate dvi+spdif and outputs hdmi.

VGA degrades visibly after more than 20-30 meters. However, as with all analog signals, it degrades gracefully, just blurring out.

Digital video usually degrades later, but with a bang.

Anyway: digital video can be transferred pixel-perfect for maybe 300m or more using the right equipment.

Example: any of these, if you have doubts:
http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproductlisting.jsp?listingCategory=Extenders&productType=dvi

Be prepared to spend about 600 USD for flawless 1080p video over 30-50m or 1600 USD for the same - in fiber optics over 2km.

That is a steep price, but peanuts for a high class conference room, where the projector alone usually costs more than twenty grand.

I mean, who on Earth would equip a state-of-the-art meeting and conference room with a 20.000 USD projector, 5.000 USD remote-control system and 300 chairs costing upward of 100 bucks each and then chicken out on a digital video link to live with blurry VGA instead?

We've done that on our conference rooms: With a good VGA-DVI scaler and a cheap DVI switch, we can connect every laptop currently in existence. DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort laptops can connect directly, VGA laptops are connected by a 2m extreme-quality analog cable and then converted to digital. After that, it's all digital, running 30-50m through the conduits. We did fiber optics, because of all the high-voltage cables running along them. Was 2000 EUR per room including fiber optical cable, DVI switch remote and installation. With all active components inside grounded metal boxes by default and only fiber cabling outside, is also very resistant to video eavesdropping, even TEMPEST attacks, ground loops, lightning strikes etc. - and most of all 100% immune to cell phone interference.

Today, we would probably also do USB 2.0 and audio over the optic cabling along with the video, adding even more coolness to that solution.

As projectors came down in price, there's enough resources freed to do quality cabling. Small fonts and spreadsheet lines getting lost in fuzz are optional these days. I don't miss buzzing cellphone interference on video/audio presentations...

I need to find an HDMI-to-DVI cable for this thing...

The video signal is, for all intents, the same- just a different pinout/connector.. I assume the EVO will have a proprietary plug on it so their cable will have that on one end and HDMI on the other. If that's the case, you can use a simple dongle but DVI doesn't carry audio. Here's a rather unwieldy and way overpriced unit that gives you HDMI -> DVI + optical (toslink) audio

You might want to read a blog post I wrote about why nVidia rocks when x.org does not. It's likely to give you more reasons to move over to nVidia over ATi.

I don't find your arguments compelling.

For one thing, you assert that "because of vocal powers in the foundation that demand that things should stay compliant to a specification and they should work around the architecture rather than strip out certain pieces and implement them, add proper new features (memory management and API functions to go with it)" -- yet my reading of the Xorg mailing lists suggests that is exactly what is being done with the GEM memory manager and API's previously there was the TTM memory manager, but the APIs were not satisfactory, so they ripped it out and started again.

The bulk of your argument seems to be that Nvidia's got a much more complete OpenGL implementation than does anyone else. Nevermind that almost all of it is simply code duped from their MS Windows driver, your argument is really the ages-old "if it works, then who cares if it is closed source" argument we've heard time and time again.

Of course the fallacy of that approach becomes obvious the second it stops working and you are helpless to do anything about it.

That happened to a guy I know, he spent about $600 on a pair of top-end nvidia cards a few years back. All based on nvidia's highly touted support for linux. Except the cards did not work with his IBM T220 monitor. It wasn't anything to do with the ultra-high resolution. It was a trivial bug in the nvidia drivers - if the card could not read an EDID, the drivers assumed the card had a single-link DVI transmitter. A stupid, stupid bug because the actual nvidia chip had the DVI transmitters onboard and they were always dual-link, there was no way for any card in that generation to even be single link, and of course no matter what directives we specified in the config file, the driver "knew better."

He had to go out and spend another ~$150 for two Gefen DVI Detectives just to enable the nvidia card to see an edid so that the driver would correctly turn on the chip's DVI transmitter.

Nvidia's vaunted customer support? Totally clueless and useless, they completely dropped the ball, just ignoring the issue once they realized it was more than a "did you plug in the power cord" level issue.

And don't think that problem was unique to an odd-ball monitor - the same lack of edid is an issue for anyone using unidirectional fibre DVI extender cables.

So, while it is great for you personally that Nvidia's drivers work perfectly with the hardware you own, I'm pretty sure your tune would change right quick if you had to just bend over and take it due to such a trivial bug, the kind that could easily be fixed with a single line or two of code, if you just had the source.

zero diff between omega drivers and 'regular' vendor ones.

oh, there was one issue that omega helped solve (a little): and that's the cutting off of video if you hot plug (unplug) your dvi display.

it seems that our overly zealous friends in the entertainment industry forced the video card companies to turn off video if the tv/display shuts off. here's the use-case that annoys me; you have the tv connected to a htpc and you set a sleep timer to shut down the tv (and stereo) after an hour. but the htpc still stays on. what do you think happens when you wake up the next day and try to turn on the tv, leaving the pc still on?

you get NO VIDEO. and no way to force it, either. if you are LUCKY you can reboot your tv (bounce its power) and that might trigger a rehandshake. for me, it never did - except for the omega ati drivers. the omega nv drivers always timed out but the ati ones -mostly- would wake up the tv again without a full reboot of the pc. for more on this, see:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=1378

and especially this!

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/support/faq/#10

now, I've been using dvi since it first came out as a standard. I know full well that I was ALWAYS able to hot plug my matrox video cards to dvi displays. use kvm switches or just hand plug/unplug. never had to reboot a pc before due to a video cable! but now, the entertainment ASSHOLES forced the hdmi chipset companies to disable video 'if monkeybusiness' was sensed. "on noes! the user removed the video cable! pirate, pirate! turn off his video!"

anyway, there's that, that annoys the hell out of me with any modern (last 2 yrs or so) dvi/hdmi card.

so the drivers from 'real' vendors will always be WORSE since they're being forced to follow entertainment industry 'content protection' rules more than some rogue driver hacker. but anyway, the real drivers didn't help with video tearing, either.

as for the spdif dongle, you can't find a LOWER cpu sound card than usb-audio! its the best designed thing pc's have done in a long time. plug it in, EVERYONE sees it (linux, bsd, win, mac - EVERYONE). usb audio is driverless and bug-free. they make 5.1 versions and regular stereo but I'm using only a regular 2ch stereo spdif dongle. there is zero latency and this is not the source of my problems.

to verify, I installed another GOOD soundcard (my fave, the cmi8738, from cmedia). that one has a new 'user written' driver that is bit-perfect and does support 5.1 and dts over spdif. see this:

http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/

I have many of those soundcards (pci) and they rock! they are bit-perfect, they do NOT resample 44.1 to 48k (like creative JUNK does) and they have NO driver nonsense, since the driver is now user written and way better than the vendor's version ever was.

zero diff between omega drivers and 'regular' vendor ones.

oh, there was one issue that omega helped solve (a little): and that's the cutting off of video if you hot plug (unplug) your dvi display.

it seems that our overly zealous friends in the entertainment industry forced the video card companies to turn off video if the tv/display shuts off. here's the use-case that annoys me; you have the tv connected to a htpc and you set a sleep timer to shut down the tv (and stereo) after an hour. but the htpc still stays on. what do you think happens when you wake up the next day and try to turn on the tv, leaving the pc still on?

you get NO VIDEO. and no way to force it, either. if you are LUCKY you can reboot your tv (bounce its power) and that might trigger a rehandshake. for me, it never did - except for the omega ati drivers. the omega nv drivers always timed out but the ati ones -mostly- would wake up the tv again without a full reboot of the pc. for more on this, see:

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=1378

and especially this!

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/support/faq/#10

now, I've been using dvi since it first came out as a standard. I know full well that I was ALWAYS able to hot plug my matrox video cards to dvi displays. use kvm switches or just hand plug/unplug. never had to reboot a pc before due to a video cable! but now, the entertainment ASSHOLES forced the hdmi chipset companies to disable video 'if monkeybusiness' was sensed. "on noes! the user removed the video cable! pirate, pirate! turn off his video!"

anyway, there's that, that annoys the hell out of me with any modern (last 2 yrs or so) dvi/hdmi card.

so the drivers from 'real' vendors will always be WORSE since they're being forced to follow entertainment industry 'content protection' rules more than some rogue driver hacker. but anyway, the real drivers didn't help with video tearing, either.

as for the spdif dongle, you can't find a LOWER cpu sound card than usb-audio! its the best designed thing pc's have done in a long time. plug it in, EVERYONE sees it (linux, bsd, win, mac - EVERYONE). usb audio is driverless and bug-free. they make 5.1 versions and regular stereo but I'm using only a regular 2ch stereo spdif dongle. there is zero latency and this is not the source of my problems.

to verify, I installed another GOOD soundcard (my fave, the cmi8738, from cmedia). that one has a new 'user written' driver that is bit-perfect and does support 5.1 and dts over spdif. see this:

http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/

I have many of those soundcards (pci) and they rock! they are bit-perfect, they do NOT resample 44.1 to 48k (like creative JUNK does) and they have NO driver nonsense, since the driver is now user written and way better than the vendor's version ever was.

If the morons who designed it had any experience with actual AV equipment, they would have copied HD-SDI instead of DVI.

HD-SDI lets you have 100m runs over standard 75ohm cable, terminated in standard BNC connectors.

Compared to HDMI or DVI which can't be terminated, so it can't be run through walls, and running it through a wall would probably exceed the maximum run anyway. The only way to make a long DVI run is to use expensive extenders that require power on either side. And even then

If the guys who designed HDMI had copied HD-SDI instead, there would be no home theater installation issues.

dom

If you can live with an external box here's an 8 input HDMI switcher. Since many highend A/V-receivers (where have all the A/V preamps gone???) can execute commands over RS232 it should be breeze to make the units work together.

Like the title says. You connect everything with a HDMI switch. Or a DVI-I + HDCP switch...

I personally prefer Gefen, but there are others out there, although none as high quality. As you can see from the link, they make MANY different types. Everyone has different needs. Most of them are remote controllable (for all those with learning remotes, or home automating systems). Do you simply need multiple inputs? They even make ones with multiple outputs as well for controlling more then one TV with the same equipment (maybe you have a small LCD over/behind your bar, and have a big plasma across from the bar, but want to potentially display the BluRay-DVD player you just spent $1000 on both of them...)

You'd be surprised how few cables like this there are out there. I've found a few others that supposedly work through RCA video (the yellow RCA connector) and through S-Video from VGA, but I like this solution better. If you'd prefer the VGA-to-RCA/S-Video option, Gefen also sells a DVI-to-DVI-and-VGA splitter cable. As with the DVI-to-DVI-and-Component cable, this doesn't seem to be a common splitter cable.

You'd be surprised how few cables like this there are out there. I've found a few others that supposedly work through RCA video (the yellow RCA connector) and through S-Video from VGA, but I like this solution better. If you'd prefer the VGA-to-RCA/S-Video option, Gefen also sells a DVI-to-DVI-and-VGA splitter cable. As with the DVI-to-DVI-and-Component cable, this doesn't seem to be a common splitter cable.

I bought a HDTV in the last 6 months. It is a Panasonic 65LCX61 which is a recent model. It only has ONE HDMI input. I'm using that for my cable input. I'm not thrilled with the prospect of unplugging the cable and plugging in the HD DVD player (or BLU RAY). I looked for an HDMI switch box. As far as I can tell only one company makes them (Gefen http://www.gefen.com/) and they cost $300 or more!

What you need is an audio distribution amplifier (DA). They do exactly what the name suggests. This looks like it might do the trick, and it uses Cat-5 cable for the (analog) transmission, so you probably already have all the cable you'd need. Not exactly cheap, but they're certainly cheaper than pro-level DAs. Of course, you may want to go the squeezebox/digital route like many others are suggesting.

I know about HDMI. I also know about HDCP, which makes HDMI damn near useless to me.

Go have fun on google. The only problem being that not many TVs have more than one input for it, and I have yet to find a switch or reciever that will take more than one. If anyone finds one, let me know.

Oh. You should have taken your own advice.

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/hdmi-2x1-switch .htm
(2x1 HDMI)

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2758
(6 HDMI in, 2 HDMI out mirrored)

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2654 (HDMI in, DVI out)

I know about HDMI. I also know about HDCP, which makes HDMI damn near useless to me.

Go have fun on google. The only problem being that not many TVs have more than one input for it, and I have yet to find a switch or reciever that will take more than one. If anyone finds one, let me know.

Oh. You should have taken your own advice.

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/hdmi-2x1-switch .htm
(2x1 HDMI)

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2758
(6 HDMI in, 2 HDMI out mirrored)

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2654 (HDMI in, DVI out)

Or the Gefen ADC KVMs, that even include cables for your computers.

Or the Gefen ADC KVMs, that even include cables for your computers.

I current have a setup with a couple of Powermac G4 Cubes and a Vaio on a Gefen KVM connected to a 23" cinema display LCD and a Kennsignton wireless mouse.

Works great, they support ADC by providing ADC-to-DVI cables and the main box is DVI/USB/audio.

I have one major complaint - the switch they provides (ie, the UI) is via an IR remote control. Unfortunately it's hideously simple - my TiVo remote is constantly swtiching the KVM if I don't block it. And that's the only UI to the KVM. Otherwise, it's great.

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=1208

Works well. You just need an ADC to DVI converter (which I picked up at the Apple Store). I used this setup to share my 22" cinema display between my PC and my G4.

There are many standard sound effects libraries (Warner Bros, Lucas Film, etc.) that TV/game studios purchase for use, so don't be surprised if you keep hearing the same sounds.

I heard a camel in some Jackie Chan movie make the same sound that a Doom grunt makes. It freaked me out man.

1) DVI port.
I think its a good solution for Apple in the long run. I simply carry my DVI-2-VGA port in my Brenthaven bag made for my Powerbook. Its one extra thing to forget, so are the power supply, modem and ethernet cables... As a 3D visualization guy, I wish Apple sold their desktops with dual DVI instead of having the propietary ADC. If I where to use Macs to drive two displays or for stereo imaging I'd need one of those damn expensive DVI to ADC adapters(only $99.00). or ADC to DVI ($39.00). Depending on the invested display hardware and usage.

2) One button mouse trackpad
Although, I've complained to the Apple reps numerous times about the lack of substitution from the one button mouse for the desktop models when configuring machines from the online Apple Store, I can see why it isn't feasible to customize the Powerbook to be one, two or even three button trackpad. I simply bought an IBM optical mouse with a scroll wheel and leave that at work. Our chairman has the identical Powerbook I use, but he uses a smaller portable version. IBM optical mouse that works great. Just plugged it in and it works great

I would give Gefen a serious look. Their DVI to ADC Conversion Box is the only one on the market that I know of that claims support for the 23" HD Cinema Display. Apple's, Dr. Bott's, and the Formac converter boxes all disclaim use with the 23" HD display. If nothing else, they should be able to help you with selecting the right graphics card.

I would give Gefen a serious look. Their DVI to ADC Conversion Box is the only one on the market that I know of that claims support for the 23" HD Cinema Display. Apple's, Dr. Bott's, and the Formac converter boxes all disclaim use with the 23" HD display. If nothing else, they should be able to help you with selecting the right graphics card.

I'm sharing an HD Cinema Display with my G4 and my PC. I bought one of the Apple dvi -> ADC converters, which I assume you're using with your TiBook to drive the display. My PC has a gForce4Ti 4600 card in it, which worked just fine with no fiddling right out of the box. (I upgraded from a gForce2 that had no dvi out.) Now I just need a dvi switcher and I'll be living in luxury.

• Dr. Bott's DVIator is $149.00
• Gefen's DVI-to-ADC converter is $199.00 (and ugly)

With DVI (Digital Visual Interface) becoming more and more popular, and myself owning a LCD flat screen, I wanted a KVM that did DVI and USB. I looked forever!

I finally found one from Gefen. They charge $499 USD.

They also carry a lot of other unique and hard to find DVI products, such as splitters and long cables.

Then, you could keep the noisy disks in a utility room where they belong and the desktop would be a handful of small quiet cubes

There are some products out there which let you extend DVI using fiber optics (100 yards) or electronic repeaters (50 yards). Take a look at www.gefen.com. You could put your PC off in the closet and have just a perfectly silent monitor+keyboard in your office.

The fiber equipment is ridiculously expensive - about $3K, but the electrical repeaters are probably a bit more affordable.

You can't do this with VGA due to the distortion and ghosting, but it works flawlessly with DVI. Also the spec on DVI is an interesting read - it was actually designed with optical transmission in mind. The data rates are insane, so it's split across four channels (clock + 3 colors, IIRC) - the total data rate for a 1600x1024 display is something like 4Gbps.

Try "the DVI Switcher" . I've been looking for just this sort of thing. This is the only one I can find, it only handles two computers, it is expensive, and it looks like the resolution is not so great. I hope they come up with competing solutions soon, so I can build put the ugly "borg" of multiple computers into the basement and just have a keyboard/monitor/mouse upstairs in the living room.

Apple also makes some excellent flat panels (does anyone know whether there is an adapter to run them on PCs yet?)

• Dr. Bott's DVIator
  
• Gefen DVI to ADC
  

Some of the more valid reasons for not going with lcd that Eric didn't mention: some lcd's have issues displaying fast moving images (e.g. first-person shooter 3d games, dvds) and accurate/consistent color reproduction at all angles (even the Apple Cinema Display has some quibbles in that arena). A lot of the GeForce cards that sport DVI-out also don't really support 1600x1024/1200 via DVI (the Hercules GeForce2 Ultra and GeForce3 being notable exceptions). Not sure about the new Radeons. And getting above 1600x1200 via DVI isn't possible right now AFAIK. I think that's at least one reason why the super hi-res $15k IBM flat-panel needs that custom vid card.

Check out the coffeehaus wiki for more on getting wide screen lcd support on pc's.

Did you know that the Apple Cinema Display also works just fine on a PC, or with Linux?

The Hercules Prophet II adapter with DVI out and a DVI monitor are a great combination in Windows or your favorite free OS! Haven't tried a Prophet III yet, but it should work.

Even if you can only get the ADC version (current model) Dr.Bott have an adapter made for people with older G4 Macs that will turn it back into a DVI/USB/Power device. Or, Gefen have a DVI-ADC box that includes the power supply.