Multi Monitor Madness for Notebooks

[bgerber]

Add monitor real estate to your notebook with Village Tronic's VTBook.

 

[truromeo4juliet]

Add monitor real estate to your notebook with Village Tronic's VTBook.

It's the same price as the Matrox TripleHead2Go (which does the same thing), with no desktop support, and a crummy looking setup... seems like a bit of a hassle...

On the upside, it supports DVI and Apple ADC (with optional adapter), and has a better maximum-monitor resolution (per-monitor)...

for $249 and the option to have up to 4 monitors, I'd stick with the Matrox TH2G (3 monitors on the TH2G and 1 on the DVI output of my graphics card)... but that's my humble opinion... note, that I don't have a laptop

- Cheers

PS - FIRST!!

 

[cfisherrktk]

It does kinda the same thing as the matrox box (I have that one). There looks like there is one big difference though.
With the matrox box, my graphics settings only have 2 monitors (screen 1 & 2); one of those is just a real wide one and physically is 3 monitors though the computer thinks it's just a single screen.

With this VTBook, it looks like you can use different resolutions on each monitor... (Screen 1,2,3,4) you can't do this with the matrox box. Nor can you easily mix & match monitor sizes. But you can't widescreen game.

I wonder what would happen if you attached a matrox box to each of the VTBook's outputs? If VT allows 3 external monitors, and the matrox triplehead2go allows 3 external monitors for each input... up to 9 monitors + the laptop screen... :lol:

 

[truromeo4juliet]

With this VTBook, it looks like you can use different resolutions on each monitor... (Screen 1,2,3,4) you can't do this with the matrox box. Nor can you easily mix & match monitor sizes. But you can't widescreen game.

Tru, but for all general reasoning, the matrox triplehead2go covers a wider range of application (3D Design and Gaming) + 2D Applications (when used with the matrox software that allows you to minimize/maximize a window in each monitor like they're 3 different displays), where as this VTBook is only a viable solution for 2D Applications... couple that with the fact that this is a notebook-only solution, and you've got yourself another limiting factor that isn't easily justified by the price, when for the same price, you have a similar product that matches it's functionality + some...

I could sell you a plate, which will hold your food.. anything from steak and potatoes to pasta and meatballs... string beans, fried chicken, watermelon, bacon, eggs, and salad, too... All this and much much more for only $4.95... (SOLD!)





or, for the same price, I can sell you this bowl... which does all that AND holds soup... (DOH!)

I wonder what would happen if you attached a matrox box to each of the VTBook's outputs? If VT allows 3 external monitors, and the matrox triplehead2go allows 3 external monitors for each input... up to 9 monitors + the laptop screen... :lol:

Interesting concept, but the max resolution per input on the VTBook seems to be limited to 1920 x 1440 whereas the maximum output by the Matrox TH2G is 3840 x 1024... no good >.> nice try though i can just imagine have 3 rows of 3 monitors each stacked on top of each other for a HUGE screen... let's see someone play Oblivion on max resolution with that on a Quad 8800GTX SLI Setup xDDD...

but wait, SLI will disable 2 of the 3 rows... aw

 

[sukard]

We purchased a few of these to test and use on our HP notebooks. Even though HP recommends the VTBook, the performance was not there. We tried tweaking everything we could and even contacted VillageTronic about the issue. They lead us to a beta driver which still did not help our situation. This occurred on two different HP models with the same issue. The main testing we did to create this problem was opening MS Excel on the monitor that is using the VTBook then we opened a file that had several pages. When the user would scroll down the document it would take forever to re-write itself onto the screen, so it would take forever to actually show the text after you started scrolling. This was an annoyance to the user and cannot be tolerated in the work that they do. This wasn't MS Excel only, it happened worse in the tax software the Accountants use.

(Did BIOS updates, etc.)

If any of you readers have ran into this, and know the fix, PLEASE reply. But so far, the VTBooks do not get my vote.

 

[cfisherrktk]

You missed the point. With the VTBook, it looks like I could use a larger center monitor running 1920x1440 and two smaller side monitors running 1280x1024... Impossible with the Matrox.

I like your plate analogy. Matrox gives you one big freakin plate. VTBook gives you 3 plates that can be sized different. Do you want your pudding slopping over into your mashed potatoes or would you prefer another dish?

I'm still wondering why matrox hasn't done a digital triplehead2go like they did with the dualhead.. it would bump the res up to 3840x1200.

 

[shushikiary]

"The vast majority of graphics cards easily support two or more monitors at once, while features like SLI and Crossfire make it even easier"

last I checked SLI only supports a single monitor.

 

[haleagar]

As an owner of both the Matrox triple head 2 go, and A VTbook I would say go for the Matrox. It works great. The VTbook works but not well.
At high res even 2d applications become painful on the VTbook, and video or animation is not an option to play on the VTbook.

Basically the triple head I use all the time, the VTbook, never. I never used it even when I had it before I got the triple head. The Tritton usb2svga adaptors out there are only $80 and have better performance than the VTbook. (Lower maximum resolution, but more useable).

I have one and I've tested all three, and still recommend the Matrox over either the VTbook or the Tritton usb2svga.
The VTbook has amazing packaging though.

(and I'll sell you my VTBook.)

 

[geekmaster]

The Three main ways to Setup Multiple Monitors

1) You can buy a pre-manufactured multiple monitor computer. The best place to purchase a multiple monitor computer is at:
Multi-Monitors.com. They carry a multi-monitor computer line called SUPER-PC that can support from 2 to 12 monitors.

Multi-Screen Computer Systems

Multiple Monitor LCD Displays

2) You can get a USB to VGA Adapter, or USB to DVI Adapter that will allow you to add an extra monitor to your computer
via any USB2.0 Port. You can also add multiple extra monitors by using multiple adapters. This is a great option for viewing
documents, surfing the web, using Microsoft Office and many other business tasks. This is not a good option for intense
graphical situations such as HDTV, Blu-ray, Gaming and 3D / CAD Workstation applications. For those types of scenarios,
it is highly recommended that you purchase a high-powered multi-monitor workstation or a Matrox Dual or Triple Head2Go.

Multiple Monitor Adapters

3) You can replace or add an extra video card to your existing computer, depending on how many monitors you wish to support.
Although this sounds easy enough, this is a rather complex solution for a beginner, especially when trying to find a compatible
graphics card. For this reason, I am going to write an entirely seperate post on that topic and will link to it here, very soon.

Multi-Monitor Graphics Cards

Once you have your multiple monitor system set up and ready to use, you will need to enable all of your monitors in
your “Display Properties” Control Panel. Here is a great link to a complete and animated walkthrough of how to enable
your multiple monitors in Windows.

How to Setup Multiple Monitors (Instructions)

This is what it will look like when you are done:

Multi-Monitor Video Demo 1
Multi-Monitor Video Demo 2