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Replace Your Windows With LCD Panels
hoagaboom writes "I had particularly ugly neighbors and a lot of LCD panels laying around, so why not build a
Virtual Window? I really wanted to do full motion video, but PCI bandwidth is standing in my way. So with multiple PCIE vid cards, any suggestions on how to split a full motion video stream in Linux?"
Seeing as this was slow to load in the mysterious future, here's a coral cache of the link...
If you simply have multiple PCIE cards in the same system, X.ORG and Xinerama will allow you to do this by building a 'desktop' of four screens - you can then playback 'fullscreen' video across all four.
The dual-head functionality of some cards could let you get away with just 2 cards as well.
One drawback is that as far as I know, OpenGL is not implemented in Xinerama yet (not such a worry for video tho).
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Dont burn your house down by rigging this up in a way where 120V power cords are running inside your walls. (I realize the page author does not have this.) If you use 120V wiring inside a wall that is not in an NEC approved manner, and your house burns down, you might be liable.
This includes not being able to have an outlet mounted inside a wall nearby the frame, in a permanently inaccessible location. No, the fact that you can remove drywall to access it does not make it accessible. Now, maybe if the entire frame swung open on recessed hinges to a finished space with a normally mounted outlet, OK. But best ask the inspector.
Many people will say "Ahh but this is low voltage power wiring" so, there isn't much danger. True, for DVI video signalling, but what about powering the backlighting?
But when the voltage is low, the current is high, and the potential is still there to create heat.
For example. You've probably got some big-ass wires carrying 100 amp or 200 amp service into your house. But if you go out to the power pole, you'll see the transformer which feeds your big wires has a extremely tiny wire getting it's power from the overhead lines. At the high voltages of transmission lines, small wires easily carry the small currents. At the low voltages going into your house, big wires carry the larger currents. Whats the same? The amount of power being carried.
So never assume stuffing 12V cords through a wall is safe just because the voltage is so low. How much power is involved?
I was playing with VideoLAN a week ago, and noticed it has a video filter module called "wall" (this is under WinXP, FWIW) which will split your stream into as many multiple windows as your machine can handle. So, split your video stream into four windows, move each one to its own display, and full-screen them. I haven't played with VLC under Linux, but I'm guessing it has the same options.
Great project, BTW! I've been thinking of doing something like this for a while. Good luck!
Expensive Solution
Cheap Solution.
It's more like this:
15" LCD monitors (8x$0) - $0 Nvidia Quadro4 PCI video cards (2x$102.00) - $204.00 Windows frames (2x$20max) - $40.00 Decent computer - $600.00 Misc. Parts(wires, brackets, etc) - $250.00 Grand estimated total - $1094.00
Even cheaper if he had the computer laying around. The window frames were just custom wood frames. Dirt cheap for materials.
-Randy
Yes it's a good idea. And it's called MOCOVE.
"Other Days, Other Eyes" (1972) is based on his earlier short story "Light of Other Days" (1966).
I just found out that LCDs are capable of burn-in (the hard way). If you plan on displaying a static image on the window for long periods of time, you might want to blank the screen every so often.
Heh. I wish. The hardware is from dumpster diving.