options for display on old smartboard

[mrstrong]

just need a sanity check on this (it's been a long week!)

 

PC resolution at 1920 x 1080

VGA out to svga splitter with two outs

one to 22 inch monitor

one to projector onto old smartboard 4:3 aspect ratio

 

so normal image on board is 16:9 i.e. black space above and below image

 

I can change projector aspect ratio to 4:3 so image fills the board but then

geometry is distorted, e.g. squares no longer square.

 

What other options do I have ?

 

I suppose I could change PC resolution to 4:3 e.g. 1024 x 768 but then you'd

get black space left and right on monitor ?!

 

If I put a 16:9 laptop in place of PC I guess I'd still have same issues ?

[3s-gtech]

4:3 monitor

16:9 Smartboard

Extended screen rather than duplicate

Borders at the top of Smartboard

Borders at the side of the monitor

Distortion of image

 

Those are your options.

[Jawloms]

As @3s-gtech says, use an extended display rather than duplicate, but if it's a member of staff who won't cope with that (always surprises me how many of these there are!!!) then I'd go with this;

I suppose I could change PC resolution to 4:3 e.g. 1024 x 768 but then you'd

get black space left and right on monitor ?!

[mrstrong]

thanks,

 

never used extended screen before but in this setup I don't think that is even an option?, e.g. in PC display settings

only one display is present (the monitor).

 

I.e. PC doesn't seem to know it is connected to a projector as well, maybe because poor quality splitter /projector ?

I do have another projector I could try.

 

just to clarify this is how I have it

 

[font=Courier New]
PC-VGA-out ------------- svga-splitter--------------monitor
                                     \-------------projector
[/font]

[3s-gtech]

Yes, for extended you'd need to use a secondary output on the PC - be that from onboard HDMI, a discrete GPU or one of those USB adaptors.

[bald_pig]

thanks,

 

never used extended screen before but in this setup I don't think that is even an option?, e.g. in PC display settings

only one display is present (the monitor).

 

I.e. PC doesn't seem to know it is connected to a projector as well, maybe because poor quality splitter /projector ?

I do have another projector I could try.

 

just to clarify this is how I have it

 

[font=Courier New]
PC-VGA-out ------------- svga-splitter--------------monitor
                                     \-------------projector
[/font]

 

It's not how splitters work. They just take a signal and duplicate it.

 

I'd put a 4:3 monitor in if you can't replace the board and projector with a screen

[mrstrong]

It's not how splitters work. They just take a signal and duplicate it.

 

I'd put a 4:3 monitor in if you can't replace the board and projector with a screen

 

Just got me thinking, the display listed in windows 10 on the PC was correctly identified as the HP monitor so

I guess there must be some sort of communication protocol over the VGA cable between PC and monitor?

 

And this worked through the splitter so why can't projector do the same, i.e. tell PC it's connected and it's display

capabilities etc ?

 

Actually I did set up initially without splitter so maybe thats where it ID'ed the HP monitor but still recognized it

with splitter in place!

 

edit: i didn't install any hp monitor drivers / software, just plugged it in vga

Edited July 17, 2020 by mrstrong

[bald_pig]

Just got me thinking, the display listed in windows 10 on the PC was correctly identified as the HP monitor so

I guess there must be some sort of communication protocol over the VGA cable between PC and monitor?

Yep, that's how the pc knows what resolutions it can use etc.

 

And this worked through the splitter so why can't projector do the same, i.e. tell PC it's connected and it's display

capabilities etc ?

VGA isn't designed to connect to multiple devices. At a guess, this is a cheap splitter, and they have connected the data pins to one output, so the pc can get supported resolutions, and the video pins are connected to both outputs.

[SamanthaD]

When you're mixing aspect ratios the only way to ensure the screen is filled on both devices means geometry is going to suffer on one of the devices. In your case 16:9 would look squashed on the projector, whereas 4:3 would look stretched on the monitor. There is no way to output 2 different resolutions from the PC on one VGA connection, even if you had 2 outputs duplicating the desktop would still give the same results. Until you can match the aspect ratios between projector and monitor Extended Desktop is the only option available if you want to maintain geometry.