Display image from 4v onto multiple analog tv boxes

vvvv beta general
1

hey,
I’d like to project single video stream from 4v onto multiple analog tv boxes:

should i use some special card with wultiple tv-out’s or there is another trick?
any hint how do i make it?
thanks,
jim

2

this is going to be very tricky, as you will need a lot of hardware .

basically you can watch out for a motherboard with four high speed PCI express slots and put four graphic cards in there. each of them will have two vga outs. this will give 8 outs per system, so you will need three of these. unfortunately a tv will not have a vga input, but more probably a composite video input. so you will need a lot of vga-composite converter boxes. really old tvs will only have an antenna (HF) input. so you might need some additional converter boxes.

there might be cards with TV out, but i havent seen one with two outputs. Also Matrox Triplehead is a quite helpful product for solutions with less graphic cards.

so you will need at least need three high end computer systems for playing back the material.
note that there is also a limitation in vvvv which will allow each videostream to be displayed only on one graphic adapter. So you might need quite fast machines (this applies only to video, generative stuff is no problem)

alternatively you could use a boygroup with 18 tiny pcs, which would simplify graphic adapter hassles and performance considerably.

even easier though would be renting for a professional video split processor, which is basically made for your application

3

or zooming scanconvertors, one for each TV

4

Well, how about a “low”-tech approach:

  • Remove all the inner parts of the tvs including the tubes and the back sides
  • put some fabric which can be backprojected on inside the tvs (instead of the tubes)
  • Use one (or maybe more) beamer to project from the back into the tubes on the fabric (you could use a mirror, too, and project from the side/top to save some space behind your installation)
  • Use an overlay on your video which hides those parts of the video which are not shown on one of the tvs
    …

Should be way cheaper :)

  • medienfuzzi
5

or use old microfiche magnifier displays or 35mm slide back projector boxes which already have a nice projection screen built in… :)