Sharing a screen in the office?

[Cache-man]

On our work network we have a requirement to mount a new 42" Plasma on the wall as a previewing/sharing monitor - whereby if any of the team in this office want to show something on their own screen to everyone else they should be able to simply share their own screen with the preview monitor (plasma).


I was thinking of some kind of video-over-ip software, if we connected a spare computer permenantly to the plasma to act as a host. Have even considered something like TeamViewer, but having to log onto the host PC to accept the request everytime would not be acceptable.

Most of the people in this department already have dual screens, so their video outputs are already in use, hence thinking more about video-over-ip.

Ideally, the user would have some software where they could simply log onto the plasma-connected computer, without any interaction being required on the plasma computer.
Does any thing like this already exist?
Is their a better solution (maybe a hardware solution instead of software?

I'd be really appreciative of any ideas please guys.

 

[Ian]

Good to see you again Cache-man

Flops does audio/video work like this for his business, so he may have some ideas up his sleave .

I've had a good look round, but I can't find much in the way of hardware to do this (but I'm sure it must exist). This link that may do the trick, if you do end up using a spare computer to get the TV running:

http://www.maxivista.com/mirror_screen.htm (can mirror PC display over network)

 

[Cache-man]

Hey Ian, yeah, been a while since I've been around these parts.

Thanks for your suggestion, it's probably the closest thing so far to what I'm looking for actually, although it only allows a single machine to mirror a screen to the secondary machine, and I need approximately 8 machines able to connect (not simultaneously though). I'm reasonably confident now though that a software solution must exist, and I'm on the right path, so I'll keep looking down this route. Unless anyone else has any other suggestions.

Maybe I'll see if I can speak to Flops too.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Don't have a solution I'm afraid and I don't do much work in that field anymore, haven't done so for about 5 years, never really took off and most of my work is audio only now which sometimes means I'm just a glorified cable layer. But it pays fairly well (when I can get some work, that is)

IT & Audio-Visual is too competitive a field, much the same as CCTV which is why I don't promote being able to do CCTV work but I do it if I'm asked.

However.

The first thing I thought of would be to have a simple 8 or 10 way video switcher that could be connected to by each machine, either by wireless or hard wiring. As for each of the proposed users having both video outputs already used, a simple splitter on each machine would probably suffice.

If this were possible a computer wouldn't be needed to go with the screen.

As for the 42" screen - why plasma? LCD screens are just as good nowadays, especially the LED ones.

For best, obviously 1080 but also look for 100Hz or 200Hz scanning and HD reception may be a requirement This one is good, imo.

I'm wondering where the users will be when they want to make a presentation? And what machines they're using?

I'm assuming laptops they'd all normally use in a different location and they'd bring their machines to the room with the large screen to make presentations.

It's a shame they don't have HDMI output as well as you could fly four HDMI cables from the screen that could then plug into a computer.

Perhaps a device that takes one video out from a computer then converts to several vga and an HDMI output may be worth searching for.

Here's some places which may be worth looking at:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/home/homepage.jsp

http://www.cricklewoodelectronics.com/Cricklewood/home.php

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/

http://www.rapidonline.com/

http://www.misco.co.uk/indexuk.asp?

Good luck.