TV Technology

I constantly have several computer projects on the go at once and thanks to the likes of WinSCP etc I can run several real and virtual computers on the same screen, all fighting for screen area and of course hide-able and re-sizeable. This has been the norm for some years.

Meanwhile despite tremendous advances in quality and (long overdue) increase in density), our TV screens have no such concept as virtual HDMI. How I would love to simply have one large screen attached to half a dozen gadgets using virtual HDMI inputs on the TV.

Reasonable?

5 thoughts on “TV Technology

  1. If you really want to go “next gen”, you might want to look at the Microsoft Hololens (£3k)

    Using one of those, you can have an almost unlimited number of windows that you can place anywhere, both on real-world surfaces (walls, floor, ceiling, table, etc) and floating in “mid-air”. You can use gestures to move the screens around too.

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens

    B-)

  2. Hi,

    Google “cheap korean 4k monitors” or go directly to ebay and search for >> (crossover, catleap, qnix, shimiam,wasabi,mango,”wasabi-mango”,”wasabi mango”,”mango-wasabi”,”mango wasabi”) (“3840×2160″,”3440×1440”) 4k <<
    Most of them have 4 hdmi/dp inputs and with 4k resolution you can have 4 full hd inputs active and display 4 different devices – picture-by-picture. 99% of them supports that. After You chose a model there should be a review on youtube. I recommend 32inches and up for that setup.

  3. I think a big part of the problem is that HDMI is normally encrypted to prevent piracy, and the relatively weak encryption has been backed up by a relatively strong threat of litigation

    Bunny Huang’s NETV2 is a hardware device to overlay pixels over an encrypted HDMI stream

    Developing Apps for Your TV the Easy and Open Way

    Not quite what you were describing, but may be a step in the right direction!

  4. Actually, virtual HDMI ports is not that far fetched. It is very common in larger AV installs to use an HDMI matrix switcher, which allows you to route any HDMI source on its inputs to any display on its outputs. If you only have one monitor as a destination, then a simple HDMI switch would do the job.

    Example: https://bit.ly/2AMQThU

    If your aim is to have multiple video windows from various HDMI sources on screen simultaneously, have a look at this: https://bit.ly/2vpcxn8
    This will do switching and multiview.

    Just install the device in rack/cabinet/etc with your HDMI source devices and run a single HDMI to your screen.
    Use an IR extender or an ESP8266 or something along those lines to control the unit remotely, and you’re all set. The limitation is that you can only view one source at a time and it will be full screen.

    If you’re brave, you can daisy chain such devices as well to get even more flexibility.

    A few things to be aware of:
    – It’s easy to loose track of what’s what when daisy chaining, especially with multiview devices (…picture in picture in picture…)
    – Switching times may vary, especially when daisy chaining. Without getting into the weeds, this has to do with EDID handling, and timing and resolution changes between sources.
    – HDCP protected sources such as bluray may not work with such devices.

    Have fun!

    By the way, WINSCP is great for file transfers, but for terminal sessions, look into cmder: https://bit.ly/2Ogs1kk

  5. Uhm, I’m a bit lost on this one how does winscp == virtual anything. And I’m not exactly following on the virtual HDMI. I think you might be able use RDP to access the remote display and have one computer as the display of the other remotes. I also use X for something like this (remote application run on the remote computer but displayed on this computer). Of course that doesn’t help have the computer display and a TV show or a TV show and a computer/video message/feed fed into the same HDMI (kind of like the NeTV – which I have but went wonky).

    I’d love to see some really advanced picture-in-picture stuff for HDMI but I don’t know if anyone could afford it or the industry would allow it (HDMI is encrypted).

    Sorry if this is off the topic.

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