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General discussion

Dual input monitors or Y-connecotr...

Feb 11, 2004 11:57AM PST

There are few monitors on the market that have dual inputs. That is a switch that one can switch from one computer to another by hooking two different computers up to one monitor.
My friend is looking for one. The only ones that I have found are Sony and they are rather expensive (he needs a 21? since he has two monitors and one is worn out and they are both 21?). I know that Samsung seem to have a 19? monitor with such feature, but that would be too small.
What I wonder is if there is some kind of adapter or Y-connector that may have the switch so he can buy a monitor that doesn?t have the switch. If the connector/adapter would have it, he could go with that?
Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Dual input monitors or Y-connecotr...
Feb 11, 2004 1:41PM PST
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Thanks a lot!
Feb 11, 2004 2:27PM PST

I think that will do, but don't know since it is not for me... But I appreciate your effort and the time you have spent on looking it up! Thanks once again ozos!

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Re:Dual input monitors or Y-connecotr...
Feb 11, 2004 9:37PM PST

I have been using a KVM switch to run multiple systems at once for about 10 years. I run 4 systems on a Belkin Omnicube switch right now. One Keyboard, mouse, monitor can be used to run all those systems.

There are a lot of cheap KVM switches but you end up with poor quality video when you use them, there is a Shadow on the characters that is quite noticeable, unless you have a Flat Panel monitor. The more expensive switches eliminate that shadow, or reduce it to a very low level. You can use a KVM switch with any monitor however.

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Not exactly what I asked for...
Feb 12, 2004 1:15AM PST

I need something for multiple systems on two monitors...

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Re:Not exactly what I asked for...
Feb 13, 2004 4:39AM PST

for 2 monitors on 2+ machines you need a bit more equipment.
but i forgot that you lose image quality by converiting signals many many times.
for 2 monitors on multible systems
I think the best you can get is stereo vision (same thing on each monitor, but I am not 100% on this) but for that you would need to hook the monitors to something like a Y-See2 and then hook that to a KVM or hook the KVM to the Y-See2 and the montitors to the KVM that second one sounds right, for 2 monitors on multiple systems coudln't you just buy 4 or 6 monitors instead of lose quality and hook them on "converter world" (when you need a ton of converters to hook up something, kind of an exess thing) i dont know your exact requirements or if you have a video card that can support 2 monitors, but another idea is use 2 KVM's
each monitor would then get its own KVM switch, so you could run 2 mahcines on 2 montors or 1 machine on 2 monitors or 2 machines on no monitors. that should work if you remember to switch those over.
otherwise if you only have 2 machines just hook up one monitor to each, adn if one of those has a dual monitor card when you need 2 monitors on it, just unplug the monitor from the other machine and hook both monitors up to the single machine, you wouldn't lose qualtiy just 1-3 minutes of your time (im assuming that both of these machines are in close proximity to each other)