What Is The Problem & Solution?

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ahoustondj

ahoustondj

DJ Extraordinaire
Aug 13, 2007
20,235
3,464
Texas
Last night I did a Gig at a Club, Karaoke & DJ Music. I never succeeded in getting the Club's Projector to work so the audience could see the Lyrics. First,I used HDMI out from my Laptop, to a Powered HDMI Splitter, one side HDMI went to a 26" Flat screen TV for the Singers, which worked fine. The other HDMI side went to the Club's Projector which did not recognize it. When it did it swapped my active desktop to the two displays and what I wanted to show on the screens ended up in very high resolution on my laptop.

This was strange, I have never had this happen before. I then converted that other HDMI signal to S-Video for the projector using a powered converter, which did the same thing. I ended up having to use just the Flat screen TV for the singers. I forgot to write down the name and model of the projector. (I need to go up there today or tomorrow and try again). I am going to try and recreate the whole scenario tonight or tomorrow. I will have more exact details then.

I am off today to host my quarterly Blood Drive (Been doing this every year since 1995) after only 3 hours worth of sleep and will be on my feet until 5.00pm this evening so I may just crash when I come back. As stated before I have split signals to all kinds of TVs and Projectors but this is the first time I have had this happen to me. I am using Windows 7.
 
HDMI uses two way communications to "talk" to the source and device, so it maybe just picked up the first device it found, and synced to that one. Try doing them one at a time (disconnect the other from the splitter).

Personally, I would probably run VGA to the singers monitor, and HDMI to the projector -- that should work ok, as long as you have Windows properly configured.
 
I have the same issue with VGA. I have a splitter going to the singers monitor (1280x1024 - 17" LCD) and to a 32" TV (720p - I forget the VGA res). If I hook up the 17" first, the laptop will sync to that dimension and the 32" won't show it (not a resolution it can decode). If I hook up the 32" first, the laptop uses the wider screen format, but the 17" can handle it fine, so I have to be careful which unit to power on first.

May be a similar thing with the HDMI split. Try doing the monitors in reverse order.
 
Yep I tried doing it like you all suggested and what it did was swap my screens. Like I stated earlier, I will go back there and play around with it.
 
What outputs do you have on your computer, and what kind of video card (I'm assuming you have a dedicated video card built in)? It can be tricky to configure 3 monitors on Win 7, depending on the drivers for the video card.

Another option might be to daisy chain from one monitor to the other. Take the video output of the first monitor in the chain, and run it to the other. For example, if your singer monitor has a regular video out jack, you would connect to the singer's monitor via HDMI, and then run a regular RCA cable to the projector. I've done that here, because my TV has a video out jack, and can connect to my projector from that, and watch on both.
 
You can't use 3 monitors for most Karaoke packages as they only send lyrics to a single monitor. You'd need someway to configure 2 external monitors (VGA and HDMI) to act as one while keeping the laptop separate. There may be some app to do that, but I don't think windows will by default.
 
steve149 said:
You can't use 3 monitors for most Karaoke packages as they only send lyrics to a single monitor. You'd need someway to configure 2 external monitors (VGA and HDMI) to act as one while keeping the laptop separate. There may be some app to do that, but I don't think windows will by default.
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I haven't poked around kroakie software much, but it's not all that hard (relatively speaking), to send the output to multiple monitors/ports. You can either start multiple renderers in sync, or develop your own swap chain (that part is a bit complicated), or create your own surface renderer. Then you enumerate the monitors, and do it the way you want.

I'm sorta guessing the guys who write kroakie software, are not all that familiar with the DirectX API.

In Canute's case, I think just using a daisy chain would work fine, instead of trying to split the signal, and have multiple sync issues on the HDMI cable. It's not like you need high def stuff...
 
steve149 said:
You can't use 3 monitors for most Karaoke packages as they only send lyrics to a single monitor. You'd need someway to configure 2 external monitors (VGA and HDMI) to act as one while keeping the laptop separate. There may be some app to do that, but I don't think windows will by default.
Click to expand...
Well I have been doing it now for years, Laptop, Singers TV/Monitor and Venue's TV/Projector. Even with this new Laptop I have. The lyrics and scrolling message always appear on all screens. I cannot daisy chain them because the TV does not have a video out. I am going to do it tomorrow at the house with two different TVs and see what happens. You can configure Show Presenter (Sax n Dotty's) via Winamp to as many monitors as you would like.
 
By it changing the screens around, I'm thinking its an issue with how your lappy is set up. I run my video rig off of a VGA splitter/Amplifier (some runs are 100 ft or more)

You have to run the wizard in windows sometimes as the settings will change. So double check your monitor settings EACH time you go to set stuff up.

I designed my rig to be stand alone, All VGA. I dont mix and match. My 2 plasmas have VGA in's and if i send signal to the bar's t.v.s they all have VGA's too. Except one place has theres all wired together, And has a component jack right on the wall..just a S-Video to component adapter and i'm in business...(they have 16 Flat screens) it's simple and Sweet!
 
Scott Harris said:
It sounds like each HDMI device was seen as a separate device on a shared HDMI bus, not as a split signal. Next time check how many screens your laptop sees. In Windows 7 right click on the desktop and select screen resolution.
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It showed two screens. The strange thing was that with this particular instance and projector it would automatically swap my active laptop screen with the extended projector screen.
 
Precisionpower said:
By it changing the screens around, I'm thinking its an issue with how your lappy is set up. I run my video rig off of a VGA splitter/Amplifier (some runs are 100 ft or more)

You have to run the wizard in windows sometimes as the settings will change. So double check your monitor settings EACH time you go to set stuff up.

I designed my rig to be stand alone, All VGA. I dont mix and match. My 2 plasmas have VGA in's and if i send signal to the bar's t.v.s they all have VGA's too. Except one place has theres all wired together, And has a component jack right on the wall..just a S-Video to component adapter and i'm in business...(they have 16 Flat screens) it's simple and Sweet!
Click to expand...
All my splitters and converters are amplified/powered. This place has about 50 TV screens and eventually I want to send a master feed to the master input. Right now I am only concerned with the Projector and 10' screen above the stage.
 
OK Problem solved! I went back to the Club last night and took my time to try and figure out why my display screens were being automatically swapped. At first I ran HDMI, VGA and S-Video and it was doing the same thing as on Saturday namely switching my Main Screen with the Extended Desktop screens. Then I noticed there was a little box to be checked with an option that would make any of the selected screen, the main screen. (XP did not have that feature).So I checked the box and Voila everything reverted . It seems that in Windows 7, when you extend the desktop to other screens, it makes the extended screens the Main Screen by default unless you select a screen and make it your main screen. In the first Diagram, where it says "This is currently your Main Display" is where the box to be checked will appear. http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/twomonitors.aspx#fbid=3mWlQY1RlsP
 
SoftJock Rick said:
Ahhh, as I suspected -- operator error... :sqrofl:

You need to hire some kid to show you how to use Windows -- I think they sell them at the dollar store, in the back room... xf:D
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Yep! I stand guilty as charged. I am now getting used to Windows and unfortunately it is only on my Gig Laptop which I do not use for browsing on the Web. So it is only when i need to do specific tasks that I will encounter new instances.
 
ahoustondj said:
Yep! I stand guilty as charged. I am now getting used to Windows and unfortunately it is only on my Gig Laptop which I do not use for browsing on the Web. So it is only when i need to do specific tasks that i will encounter new instances.
Click to expand...
See, if you had bought an off-the-rack laptop, it would have had the button checked already ... :eek:
 
The problem occurs because you have ONE source - and you are trying to deliver MULTIPLE resolutions which is not possible without inserting scalers.

The devices at the ends of your multiple feeds all need to be ready to receive the same resolution and sync mode. Each new display device you add will initiate an auto-sync with your source (unless disabled). Your final resolution will always be that requested by the last device connected.

An active splitter or distribution amp only creates multiple paths - it can not resolve multiple resolutions or sync modes.
 
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