Dual Monitoring Setup

HiddenTalent

Baseband Member
Messages
38
I've been doing a lot of research into this for my setup.

I'm using a Sapphire x550 video card, which has dvi and vga outs. I'm interested in dual monitoring my 17" flatscreen monitor with my 32" widescreen lcd tv (which is about four feet away from the 17").

My purpose would be to be able to lay on the bed and use the widescreen as the main monitor because I'm lazy, or have the ability to watch shows on Hulu that are no longer available ON-Demand. I'm also interested in being able to just drag and drop browser windows, or some of my web design stuff over onto the other screen while using instant messaging or something else on the other.

My question to you guys is this, what are the best FREE programs available that would be required to meet my needs? Also, would a DVI-HDMI cable be all that I would need, being they can be had from Ebay for $15 shipped?

I'm not opposed to upgrading my video card either, it would have to be a relatively inexpensive ($100-$150) PCI Express card.

I've also got a nice 500w speaker setup for the computer that would be nice to be able to play the video's through on the widescreen from both the dvd burner hooked up to the tv or the one in the computer. How would I go about hooking that up? I'm using a SB Audigy card.

I know some of you may say something about the immense television being used as a monitor and the quality that will be produced due to being widescreen, but I'm sure this tv has the ability to change screen size down as many nice televisions do for news channels and such.

The tv is a Samsung 32" 450 series. (top rated in it's class)

SAPPHIRE X550 Specifications

64-bit and 128-bit memory interface supporting 64MB or 128MB DDR1 memory configurations
Two programmable vertex shader pipelines
PCI Express® x16 lane native support
Full Microsoft® DirectX® 9 support
Dual integrated 10 bit per channel 400 MHz DACs
Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 / HDMI compliant and HDCP ready)
Maximum 3D Resolutions 16.7M colors 2048x1536 85Hz
FullStreamâ„¢ video de-blocking technology for Real, DivX, and WMV9 formats
Hardware Motion Compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion
ATI Catalystâ„¢ Software Suite
 
Yup, from what I've read that is a nice card, just wondering if it would make a substantial difference in the outcome of my plans?
 
heck yes. not to mention if you game at all. your card is only DDR1 this is DDR5 and it has more memory. WOOO!
 
You really don't need a new video card.

It should work as long as your monitor has a VGA connection as your TV would be on the DVI output using a DVI-HDMI cable.

The only program you will need to accomplish the dual "monitor" setup will be the Catalyst control panel included with the drivers. There should be a section in it for setting up dual monitors.


EDIT:
Hold on a second. . . If I'm not mistaken, that Samsung TV should have a D-Sub 15-pin (VGA) port. If so, you wont need DVI-HDMI cable if your computer monitor has an DVI connection. You could just use a VGA cable. But I'm not sure what the quality on the pic on the TV would look like.
 
You really don't need a new video card.

It should work as long as your monitor has a VGA connection as your TV would be on the DVI output using a DVI-HDMI cable.

The only program you will need to accomplish the dual "monitor" setup will be the Catalyst control panel included with the drivers. There should be a section in it for setting up dual monitors.


Now I'm investigating catalyst. I've never done much with it, so this should be fun.


Bought a 10ft. DVI-HDMI cable for $9 to the door, ha! Hope it's not junk!
 
Hold on a second. . . If I'm not mistaken, that Samsung TV should have a D-Sub 15-pin (VGA) port. If so, you wont need DVI-HDMI cable if your computer monitor has an DVI connection. You could just use a VGA cable. But I'm not sure what the quality on the pic on the TV would look like.

VGA looks very nice, depending on the resolution you decide to use. You'll have the option of using a longer cable because of its analog signal.
 
For $9 it is totally worth a try to see what the quality will be like using the dvi-hdmi cable and then using the vga for the 17.

Thanks guys!!
 
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