Wanting to put 4 LCD televisions 100m apart from each other displaying static advertisements, videos and powerpoint presentations for a business.

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billgates

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#86479 7-Jul-2011 09:10

Hi folks. A business wants to buy 4 50"+ LCD TV's and put them 100 meter apart from each other. They want to connect all 4 of them with 1 PC if possible otherwise 2 PC's at most. They will be wanting to display static adverts, videos and powerpoint presentations on all 4 of them at the same time and will switch between videos, static ad's, powerpoint etc every other day.

What is the best way going about doing this? Buy a video splitter for 4 TV to connect with 1 PC? The entire area where the 4 TV's will be placed has network ports as well if such a solution exists.

edit - It's kind of the like the TV systems you see in pubs and restaurants now who display their menu on multiple TV's except that the 4 TV's are going to be 100 meters apart.

Do whatever you want to do man.

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#490424 7-Jul-2011 09:25

You would want to use HDMI baluns. Although 100m (330ft) is the very maximum distance over a single cat6 for HDMI 1.4 for each cable run.

Are you talking 100m from a centre point ie PC to each TV?

Also, if you are willing to sacrifice picture quality then a standard composite signal can be sent over a longer distance but the picture will start to degrade.

Where abouts in the country are you?

knoydart

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#490433 7-Jul-2011 09:32

Couple of Ideas to throw out there.

DVI/VGA over Cat 6 boxes to distribute your signal from a single source. Most stand alone boxes are point to point so you could need 4 pairs (happy to be corrected on that one however!).

Another way is to head down the digital signage route. Something like OneLan might be something to look at if you want to scale it up further down the line and schedule it as well.

regards

Knoydart

billgates

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#490448 7-Jul-2011 10:02

Thanks jjnz1. Company is in Auckland. I just went to see for myself at the site to see where the TV's will be placed. The 3 TV's are going to be less than 20 meters apart from each other and 4th TV is about 70 meters away from the 3 TV's.

There are thin clients in the same area already connected to one comms room so the area for all 4 TV's is well under 100 meters and all connected to the same comms room.

So we would need a fairly decent PC with dedicated GPU that has HDMI out. I am not familiar with HDMI Baluns. So we would connect the PC which will sit in the comms room with the HDMI balun which in then will have 4 outputs (network?). We then run 4 network leads from the balun close to each TV and use 4 more baluns/converter that will sit by each TV and will convert the signal from CAT back to HDMI for TV's?

sounds right?

Do whatever you want to do man.

jjnz1

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#490451 7-Jul-2011 10:06

billgates: Thanks jjnz1. Company is in Auckland. I just went to see for myself at the site to see where the TV's will be placed. The 3 TV's are going to be less than 20 meters apart from each other and 4th TV is about 70 meters away from the 3 TV's.

There are thin clients in the same area already connected to one comms room so the area for all 4 TV's is well under 100 meters and all connected to the same comms room.

So we would need a fairly decent PC with dedicated GPU that has HDMI out. I am not familiar with HDMI Baluns. So we would connect the PC which will sit in the comms room with the HDMI balun which in then will have 4 outputs (network?). We then run 4 network leads from the balun close to each TV and use 4 more baluns/converter that will sit by each TV and will convert the signal from CAT back to HDMI for TV's?

sounds right?

A powerful enough graphics card that does HDMI out is around $100-$200.

Are all the TV's displaying the same picture?

billgates

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#490455 7-Jul-2011 10:09

Thanks knoydart. The OneLan type system is exactly what we are looking for. We will try and do our own inhouse setup if we can first else we will seek pro help from the likes of Polycom who are the reseller of OneLan.

Do whatever you want to do man.

billgates

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#490456 7-Jul-2011 10:11

jjnz1:
A powerful enough graphics card that does HDMI out is around $100-$200.

Are all the TV's displaying the same picture?

Yep, they all will be displaying the same content.

Do whatever you want to do man.

billgates

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#490461 7-Jul-2011 10:21

jinz1, I am trying to locate a HDMI Balun/Extender that has input for 1 HDMI to connect the PC with and 4 outputs (RJ45) that will then run close 4 TV and from there use 4 different Balun to convert the signal back from RJ45 to HDMI. Does this sound right and does such a product exist withj 4 RJ45 outputs in audio/video world with 1 HDMI input?

Do whatever you want to do man.

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jjnz1

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#490462 7-Jul-2011 10:23

billgates:
jjnz1:
A powerful enough graphics card that does HDMI out is around $100-$200.

Are all the TV's displaying the same picture?

Yep, they all will be displaying the same content.

That makes it very easy and cheap then.

What you need is a PC with 1 HDMI out, which plugs into a 4 way HDMI splitter and sends the same signal out to the 3-4 TV's using CAT6 baluns.

So what you need is:

1x 4 way HDMI 1.4 splitter/balun sender
4x balun receivers to work over a single CAT6 (100m max)

jjnz1

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#490465 7-Jul-2011 10:26

billgates: jinz1, I am trying to locate a HDMI Balun/Extender that has input for 1 HDMI to connect the PC with and 4 outputs (RJ45) that will then run close 4 TV and from there use 4 different Balun to convert the signal back from RJ45 to HDMI. Does this sound right and does such a product exist withj 4 RJ45 outputs in audio/video world with 1 HDMI input?

Yes that product exists.

http://www.atlona.com/Atlona-1X4-HDMI-Splitter-with-CAT5-6-Outputs-and-3D-support-transmitter-ONLY-AT-HD-V14SS.html

and the receiver:

http://www.atlona.com/Atlona-HDMI-CAT5-Receiver-to-be-used-with-AT-HD19SS-and-AT-HD50SS-Receiver-Only.html

Supplier is based in Wellington, can PM details if you like.

billgates

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#490468 7-Jul-2011 10:28

jjnz1:That makes it very easy and cheap then.

What you need is a PC with 1 HDMI out, which plugs into a 4 way HDMI splitter and sends the same signal out to the 3-4 TV's using CAT6 baluns.

So what you need is:

1x 4 way HDMI 1.4 splitter/balun sender
4x balun receivers to work over a single CAT6 (100m max)

Thanks jinz1. I have found the 4 port HDMI splitter but cannot find the balun recoevers.
Can you please give me a link to a NZ based website where I can buy 4 of those from. Is this HDMI splitter good enough?

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?item=KVMATN0184 - HDMI Splitter

Thanks :-)

edit - Can you please PM me the details for the supplier of the balun reciever.

Cheers

Do whatever you want to do man.

jjnz1

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#490471 7-Jul-2011 10:33

billgates:
jjnz1:That makes it very easy and cheap then.

What you need is a PC with 1 HDMI out, which plugs into a 4 way HDMI splitter and sends the same signal out to the 3-4 TV's using CAT6 baluns.

So what you need is:

1x 4 way HDMI 1.4 splitter/balun sender
4x balun receivers to work over a single CAT6 (100m max)

Thanks jinz1. I have found the 4 port HDMI splitter but cannot find the balun recoevers.
Can you please give me a link to a NZ based website where I can buy 4 of those from. Is this HDMI splitter good enough?

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?item=KVMATN0184 - HDMI Splitter

Thanks :-)

edit - Can you please PM me the details for the supplier of the balun reciever.

Cheers

No it is not, especially for a commercial installation.

What I have found is that distributing HDMI requires quality gear otherwise in 6mths the client will ring you back and say it has stopped working. -Trust me I know.

The cheap stuff will have no reason for not working, it will just stop.

billgates

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#490479 7-Jul-2011 10:49

Thanks a lot jinz1.

Time to write a proposal now!

Do whatever you want to do man.

Niel

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#490719 7-Jul-2011 18:19

Use a PC to stream the content over Ethernet, then a network media player (or PC) with HDMI at each TV. The ones that are close together can use a single media player with HDMI splitter.

Have a look at www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=XC4204
There are many similar devices available. You can also use something like TVersity and network-enabled TVs. Or if you go with low cost TVs without networking, perhaps TVersity and a couple of XBox.

I would not run composite video. TVs have to do too much processing and upscaling. Use HDMI. VGA is specified to run I think 60m cables with no special boosters, but the TV still has to digitise it and you get lower quality.

I've got a Radion HD7750 video card which is low power fanless and priced around $100. It has 2x HDMI outputs. There are a number of options around to do what you need. But if you go with a PC, then look at fanless for reliability (no dust collectors).

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CYaBro

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#490726 7-Jul-2011 18:40

If you are looking for digital signage software to manage the displays have a look at http://mediasignage.com as it is free and works really well.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

billgates

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#490729 7-Jul-2011 18:51

@Niel. Thanks for the suggestions. Initially we did look at using media players like Xbox's, WDTV live but we decided against it because we want it to be able to control the content and change it at will from the IT office which is few hundred meters away. We decided to use a PC as a centralised media server because we can install VNC on it and remote on to it :-)

TVersity is an option which is still open to be installed on the PC if the TV we will buy will have network ports.

@CYaBro. Thanks for the link. Exactly the type of software we want. Will install it on a server tomorrow and check it out.

Do whatever you want to do man.

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