VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[SoundsGreat-Elaine Singer]

I just inherited a second LCD monitor which I thought I'd put in my booth. Can I just use a simple a-b switch box to switch from one monitor to the other?
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Elaine
The Youthful Mature Voice (Emeritus)
Senectitude is not for the faint of heart.

[JBarrett]

Sounds like it should work as far as I know, assuming that both monitors have the same type of plug. You could probably find adaptors pretty easily if they don't.
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Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

[TheVoiceOfBob]

Elaine,
You certainly can use a monitor switch to go between them.

Depending on your system, it might also be possible to have both monitors up at the same time, so no switch would be needed. This way you don't have that extra gear in the middle.

Tell me what you are using for a computer, and I should be able to help you out. (my 9-5 is IT support on a University campus)
I have two monitors on the system I'm typing now, two completely different pieces of hardware (one 19" tube, one 17" LCD) and have the image spread across them with two different resolutions. I could easily just have them both see the same thing.
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Try to imagine a world where there is no such thing as hypothetical situations.

The Voice of Bob

[richgates]

Depending on your video card, you can do it without a switchbox. A lot of the newer cards support two displays. I would have to know what card you have though to tell you.

What you can do with many video cards is either extend your desktop across both screens or mirror what you have on the second LCD. That would be the setting you would want to use.

If your card supports it, all you would need is a DVI or VGA splitter cable depending on how you have your displays connected.

[SoundsGreat-Elaine Singer]

I have an older computer that has been upgraded a number of times - including the video card which is NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64. It runs on XP Pro (SP1) with 768 MB of RAM.

My original monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 712N and the one I just got is a Samsung SyncMaster 730B. My understanding is that these are analog monitors.

Need any other info?
_________________
Elaine
The Youthful Mature Voice (Emeritus)
Senectitude is not for the faint of heart.

[John M]

I would either upgrade to a dual output video card or add a second PCI video card and run two monitors directly out of the computer. However if you're only going to watch the same display on both screens, you can probably get away with just using an SVGA Y-Splitter and plug both monitors into that. How far is your booth from your PC?

[TheVoiceOfBob]

[TheVoiceOfBob]

Elaine,
Here's an example of what we are describing with the Y-Cable.

CompUSA VGA Y cable
_________________
Try to imagine a world where there is no such thing as hypothetical situations.

The Voice of Bob

[Donovan]

I'm actually going to do the same thing once I have the booth set up. I want to have a second monitor, keyboard and mouse in there so I can edit and everything without leaving the booth. To do this, you need a reverse KVM switch. I've found some online from $59 to $99 and up. Here's an example: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=87647

Another really cool thing is that it switches back and forth automatically based on which mouse or keyboard you start using. Hope that helps.
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Donovan

www.DonovanVO.com

[SoundsGreat-Elaine Singer]

Thanks for all the advice. Looks like I'll be going with the switch box for the time being. The booth isn't very far from the computer so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm hoping to get a new computer in the next few months so I'll look at the other options at that time.
_________________
Elaine
The Youthful Mature Voice (Emeritus)
Senectitude is not for the faint of heart.