Widescreen monitors and whiteboards

[CraigM]

Hi everyone

Every class we have has a SMART board in it. Most monitors are 17" CRT, running at 1024x768. As we replace these, we are buying LCD's of course, but now it seems that getting sqaure LCD's is next to impossible. As such, our supplier is giving us wide screen monitors.

As you can imagine, the mix doesn't play to well, as the projector can't handle the resolution, dual view doesn't work with SMART Notebook very well, and extending the desktop isn't any better.

The best I can do is scale the monitor so that it looks decent, but the wasted black space on the sides seems a waste to me.

Does anyone know how we can have a cloned display with different resolutions or some other trick to make it work?

The machines are all running XP SP3, most are Nvidia cards, some are ATI cards. The projectors can only do 1024x768 at best. We have splitters in all the classes, but would rather use both outputs on the video card. The splitters we have don't do DVI connections either.

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

I have very recently been buying 4:3 LCD monitors for this reason - not found them too tricky to get hold of yet. I found by looking for hard glass ones it's easier too (plus they're a good idea in a school).

AFAIK, running the same desktop but at two different resolutions is impossible (without some compromise workarounds I suspect) - it's the same image.

[MYK-IT]

We have SB580/680i with 22" Dell Widescreen Monitors running at 1024x768 ok.

There's a setting on the monitor that makes the display fill the whole screen.

[sted]

We have SB580/680i with 22" Dell Widescreen Monitors running at 1024x768 ok.

There's a setting on the monitor that makes the display fill the whole screen.

id rather have the black borders though than fat screen images

[Andrew_C]

It gets really interesting in science and maths where it matters if circles aren't round on both screens! The cards in our Dells (type?) will output two resolutions, but this needs to be configured for each user, PITA!

I'm swapping wide screens for 4:3 whenever I get the chance.

[CraigM]

It gets really interesting in science and maths where it matters if circles aren't round on both screens! The cards in our Dells (type?) will output two resolutions, but this needs to be configured for each user, PITA!

I'm swapping wide screens for 4:3 whenever I get the chance.

I have to agree, after seeing what 1024x768 looks like stretched on a 21.5 widescreen, I almost cried it was so ugly.

After I wrote my original post, the head of IT came up with the idea that we will swap the new widescreens with the 17" sqaure LCD's in our computer lab. The idea is quite good, and is the only real way to proceed, since it is really difficult to get hold of decent 4:3 LCD monitors here now in SA.

Pity really that clone can't work with 2 independant resolutions, but it makes sense. Ah well.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

[FN-GM]

I cant understand why you have problems. All suppliers i use can get them easy.

[synaesthesia]

I've been specifying ATI graphics cards for this reason, being able to have separate resolutions per screen - extremely useful. Intel stuff - enough said, however with nV and their crock-drivers, has anyone had any experience using something like Ultramon in a curriculum environment, as that has this ability also.

[Robbocop]

Am I missing the point here, or am I right that only the machine which is connected to the projector and whiteboard needs to be 4:3 aspect ratio?