[Mike Sippel]

Hey Steve,

I did end up using a mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI Adapter to TH2G Digital and it worked great – didn’t have to buy a set of TH2G DisplayPort boxes for this project.

I enjoyed reading your blog too, good info.

Best wishes,
mike

Mike Sippel : Videograph, Inc. : PowerPoint and Keynote for Live Events

[Mike Sippel]

Hey Walter, great to see you’re moderating this group. Yes, look me up when you’re in town!

The link you provided suggests that it can be done, which is good news. Won’t know for sure until I get everything patched and sending to the Encore. The show loads in April 23 so I have time to figure this out, but if anyone can shed some light on the topic please chime in!

I found an interesting article here: https://www.serialdigital.com/tag/mac/ describing an issue with DisplayPort and HDCP-compliant devices. If the DP version of the TH2G is an HDCP-compliant device (I’m guessing it is) then connecting to the Encore with it could be a problem. The way I planned to connect (Mini DisplayPort out via Mini-DP-to-Dual-Link-DVI adapter to TH2G Digital to Encore) might actually be the best way to go.

Thanks

Mike Sippel : Videograph, Inc. : PowerPoint and Keynote for Live Events

[Mike Sippel]

Right. The computer sees the TH2G as a large single display. You extend the computers desktop to that “display”. The TH2G takes the computer output and splits it into 2 or 3 streams.

Mike Sippel

[Mike Sippel]

Brent,

I guess you could make a PowerPoint show that is 3 screens wide and on each slide create the content for 3 of your screens. You’d then use the TripleHead2Go to route left, center, and right sections of that presentation to 3 separate monitors. This would allow 1 computer to send 3 streams of content to 3 monitors. Here’s a link to the Matrox TH2G website:

https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/

There are products designed to do exactly what you want though. Scala is one, Nanonation and others. Do a search for kiosks and digital signage.

Good luck,
Michael Sippel

[Mike Sippel]

Hi Brent,

As always in this business the devil is in the details. I don’t have all the details but I’ll take a shot at giving advice anyway.

You want to run independent PowerPoint shows on multiple screens. You wish there was an EightHead2Go so I assume you have 8 independent PowerPoint streams that should each play on one of 8 screens. I’m also assuming each of the 8 presentations will have the same number of cues, and you would like to control all 8 with a single press of the spacebar, so they all advance simultaneously and end simultaneously. In this scenario you need 8, maybe 9 computers – one for each screen and maybe one for control.

If that is the case maybe Keyshowx will work for you: https://www.keywebx.com/keyshowx.html

If you want to span 8 screens with a single image that’s a different story.

If what you want to end up with is something different than this then we need more info.

I don’t think the Matrox Triple or Dual Head2Go Digital devices will do what you want them to do, whether you are sending 8 discrete PowerPoints to 8 screens or sending one gigantic image to span 8 screens. In a live show scenario the Matrox boxes are used to take a single very wide image and break it down into chunks that can be handled via DVI by something like a Spyder.

I’m a graphics guy specializing in widescreen/multiple screen live events. I just finished a show where I used my Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital boxes to send 2560×768 PowerPoint to a Spyder. In this example, the Matrox took the 2560×768 extended desktop of my laptop and split it. It sent two 1280×768 images, one on output 1 and one on output 3, to the Spyder via DVI. Spyder then took those inputs to drive two stacks of projectors whose images were butted up to form a single wide screen display projected on a 60′ wide screen. The Matrox boxes worked great – the output was flawless. But they won’t drive 8 independent PowerPoints to 8 screens and they won’t span a single image across 8 screens.

As a side note, and because I’m a graphics guy, I have to say Apple Keynote is far superior to Microsoft PowerPoint as a high res graphics delivery platform. I got smooth dissolves, glitchless motion and perfect Quicktime video out of Keynote at this resolution and up to 3840×1200, while in PowerPoint I had to scale back the transitions to simple wipes that didn’t suck. We went with PowerPoint anyway for this show due to client concerns. But next year . . .

Hope the above info helps in some way.

Best wishes,
Michael Sippel