TERM PAPER REPORT

MULTIMEDIA COMMUNICATIONS

Discuss Technology behind Multi Screen

 Discuss technology behind Multi screen

NavjotPal Kaur
RG1007B33
M. Tech (CSE),LPU

Abstract - This paper describes the video card with special equipment that
Multi screen technology that is widely supports multiple monitors.
used nowadays to improve (increase) the
productivity. We have discussed the
II. CONFIGURATION &
configuration and placement of multiple
PLACEMENT
monitors on single PC, on multiple PCs,
different display modes, softwares
Single PC multi-monitor
required, the advantages and
disadvantages of using multiple screens A multiple monitor setup increases the

and so on. net display area of a system and can be an

inexpensive way of improving computer
usage. Resulting display area after
I. INTRODUCTION upgrading to a multi-monitor
Multi-Monitor, also called Multi- configuration is limited by the size,
Display, Multi-Head, Dual-Display, resolution and number of monitors. The
and Dual-Monitor, is the use of multiple monitors used for multi-monitor can be
physical display devices, such different types (LCD or CRT) and sizes.
as monitors, television, and projectors, in The operating system manages the
order to increase the area available monitors' resolutions independently.
for computer programs running on a
A "Dual Head" configuration utilizes a
single computer system. Microsoft descri
video card that supports two discrete
bes this setup as "one of the best ways to
outputs. Users may also utilize two
improve productivity".
discrete video cards, and sometimes even
Attaching multiple monitors to a single
an integrated motherboard video socket
CPU is fairly simple. What you'll need is
plus a second video card, though often the
either a second video card, or a special
motherboard disables the integrated video
when a discrete video card is used (a from one to the other on screen edges
limitation that was common on older as if they were one machine. This
chipsets featuring allows each machine to be doing a
integrated AGP graphics and an AGP different task, freeing up resources.
upgrade slot). An additional and different approach to
Additional monitors can also be multiple monitor systems involves using
connected to PCs via a USB connection the monitors of networked computers to
such as DisplayLink. display the output of a central computer.
By using the graphic cards of the
networked computers, stability and speed
are dramatically enhanced. This is often a
preferred choice for systems in which
adding additional graphics cards is
problematic, such as laptops.

The additional monitors can be

extensions of the desktop or mirrors of
the central display. The arrangement of
these monitors can be configured within
the properties tab in the windows display
dialog box, making horizontal, vertical, or
other monitor configurations possible.
Further, because the additional monitors
are powered by networked computers,
Multiple PC multi-monitor they can be located wherever the network
Software such as Maxivista for reaches, both wireless and hardwired.
Windows and ScreenRecycler for Mac
III. DISPLAY MODES
OS X let you set up multiple PC multi-
monitor mode through virtual display Clone mode
drivers and client-side software.
Since before personal computers
Similarly, software such as
existed, video signals have been spilt with
InputDirector or Synergy allows one to
simple Y-adapters to provide duplicate
use multiple PCs, each with their own
signals to multiple monitors for various
monitor or monitors, and transition
reasons. When personal computers came
to have video outputs, this naturally
carried over—sometimes for the purpose
of presentation, and sometimes to provide
a different representation of the same
output (for example color alongside the
higher resolution monochrome
interpretation of the output of an Apple
II). Later systems—particularly portable
machines with built-in displays—
provided built-in redundant outputs for
this. Even later systems, in addition to
being capable of the discrete modes
described below, are able to mimic this
"cloning" or "mirroring" behaviour.
Multi-mode
In the early days of the IBM-PC and its
clones, there were two main types of
display adapter: color (CGA, EGA) and
monochrome (MGA). Since these devices
used fixed areas of the 1MiB address
space of the 8086/8088 CPU, it was not
possible to have more than one of the
same type in a machine. However, since
color adapters used a different space than
monochrome, one of each could coexist.
This led to systems using a CGA or EGA
for color graphics, and an MGA for
monochrome text, on side-by-side
monitors.
The Commodore 128 was capable of
similar behavior using its C64 compatible
output for graphics on one monitor,
alongside its 80-column capable output
on another.
Span or extended desktop mode
Most—if not all—current multi-head
video cards are able to "span" a single
frame buffer across two monitors. The
result is one large rectangular desktop
space, of double either the horizontal or
vertical resolution. (For example, when
two 1024x768 displays are used, they can
have a virtual resolution of either
2048x768 or 1024x1536.) Both monitors
operate at the same resolution and depth
settings, and usually the same refresh
rate. This mode requires very minimal
operating system support, as the total
display area is a simple rectangle.
In "extended" mode, additional desktop
area is created by giving each monitor its
own frame buffer. The result is a virtual
desktop space comprising multiple
adjacent, but not necessarily aligned,
rectangular areas. In this considerably
more flexible configuration, each monitor
can be of different resolution, depth, and
refresh rate; and the desktop area is not
necessarily rectangular. This mode is
actually older than spanning—first
appearing in 1986,
when Radius introduced the Full Page
Display for the Macintosh Plus (which
was a dramatic increase over
machine's 9" built-in display).
Both of these modes present the display
space to the user as a contiguous area,
allowing objects to be moved between, or
even straddled across displays as if they
are one.
Some problems occur when you want to
define one large spanned view of two
1024x768 displays into one 2048x768
display in Windows Vista and Windows
7 since only extended desktop
supported and spanned resolutions are
non-existing in many applications such as
games and presentation
software. Windows XP supports
spanning and extended desktops through
older NVidia and ATI drivers.
IV. PROGRAMMING
Programming multiple monitors
challenging because each screen will have
its own graphics buffer. One possible
scenario for programming is to present to
OpenGL or DirectX a continuous, virtual
frame buffer in which the OS or graphics
driver writes out to each individual
buffer. With some graphics cards, its
possible to enable a mode
"horizontal span" which accomplishes
this. The OpenGL/DirectX programmer
then renders to a very large frame buffer
for output. In practice, and with recent
the cards, this mode is being phased out
because it does not make very good use
of GPU parallelism, and does not support
arbitrary arrangements of monitors (they
must all be horizontal). A more recent
technique uses the wglShareLists feature
of OpenGL to share data across multiple
GPUs, and then render to each individual
monitor's frame buffer.
• The Hardware Component
Your computer uses video display
are hardware to convert computer
information into something that can be
displayed on a monitor or laptop screen.
The video display is either on a special
video card or is built into the computer
both itself.
All laptops and some desktops have
built-in or on-board video.
To have true multiple monitor support,
the video display (which we'll refer to as
is "video hardware" from now on) must
support multiple monitors and must allow
independent resolution and color depth
settings for each. But as you'll see later,
there are other types of multiple monitor
support that are less flexible but still
useful.
• The Software Components
Your software must also be able to
called
support, recognize and use the video
hardware's multiple monitor capabilities.
There are three levels where this needs to
happen:
 • Windows itself
• The video hardware's display
driver
• PowerPoint and other
applications software
Let's take a closer look at each of these
levels.
i. Windows
Microsoft Windows 98, 98SE, ME,
Windows 2000, XP and 2003 all have
built-in support to recognize multi-
monitor configurations. Windows NT4
and earlier and Windows 95 do not.
ii. The Display Driver
A display driver is software that translates
graphics commands from generic
Windows ones to commands specific to
the video hardware.
The display driver recognizes the multi-
monitor hardware (the video hardware)
and tells Windows about it and the actual
number of monitors connected to the
system.
Normally, the display driver tells the
truth, but there can be a mismatch
between the actual number of monitors
attached to the machine and the number
of them reported by the driver.
iii. PowerPoint and Other
Software
Your programs must also recognize
multiple monitors and do something
useful with them. Windows itself may
allow you to spread your display out over
several different monitors -- for example,
you might be able to put menus and
toolbars on one monitor and your
working graphics on another. PowerPoint,
on a properly configured system, allows
you to display your slide show on one
monitor and your speakers notes on
another ... very handy indeed.
Video hardware and/or display drivers
can support multiple modes of operation,
including:
• Multi-monitor Clone
• Multi-monitor Span
• True Multi-monitor
Let's look at each of these modes in
more detail.
i. Multi-monitor Clone
Most of the multi-monitor display cards
and their drivers have the ability to
"clone" the content of one monitor to the
other monitors. In the Multi-monitor
Clone mode, the operating system is
informed that the machine has only one
monitor when it actually has several.
Behind the scenes, the video hardware or
the display driver replicates the content
of one monitor to the other monitors.
In clone mode, Windows and
applications (including PowerPoint) see
only one monitor. They aren't even
aware that the output that they produce
gets copied over multiple monitors. The
same information is shown on both/all
monitors.
 In the clone mode, one of the
monitors is selected as the primary
one. It is this monitor that the
operating system sees. All other
monitors usually have the same
display resolution and color depth
as the primary monitor.
Clone mode doesn't require the
operating system to have multi-
monitor support. This mode can be
made available on Windows 95 and
Windows NT too and even older
versions of Windows and DOS.
Clone mode is available on virtually
every laptop that has an external
monitor connector. You can usually
use a special function key
iii.
combination to alternate among
internal video only, external video
only and both internal and external
video.
ii. Multi-monitor Span
Normal monitors have a 4/3 width-
to-height display ratio. Common
video resolutions like 640x480,
600x800, 768x1024, 1280x1024,
etc. all fall under that ratio. Plasma
displays may have 16/9 width-to-
height ratios.
Multi-monitor Span mode allows
you to set a non-4/3 display
resolution as the "desktop" display,
then span the entire desktop (usable
area) across multiple monitors.
Like Multi-monitor Clone
mode, Windows and applications
see only one monitor, but now the
monitor is "virtual" (not a real
physical monitor) and it has an
abnormal display resolution.
For instance, if there are two
monitors configured as sitting side-
by-side, then the display driver
would tell Windows that the display
resolution has 8/3 ratio - twice the
normal width, that is.
And also like Clone mode, Span
mode too doesn't require Windows
to recognize and support multi-
monitor configurations. Span mode
can work on Windows 95 and
Windows NT.
True Multi-monitor
Clone and Span modes tell
Windows that only one monitor is
present on the machine. They don't
give Windows control over
individual monitors, but they don't
require Windows to support
multiple monitors either.
True Multi-monitor mode is
different. Here, the display driver
tells Windows the actual number of
monitors attached to the computer.
Each monitor can have its own
display and each can have its own
independent display resolution and
color depth.
Does your computer have True
Multi-monitor support? One way to
tell is to right-click the Windows
desktop and choose Properties from
the popup menu then click the
Settings tab of the Display
Properties dialog box.
Your computer's Settings tab
may look different. The key things
to look for are (outlined here in
yellow):
• Two or more monitor icons in
the dark gray area under "Drag the
monitor ..."
•A "Display" dropdown listbox
with multiple monitors listed, one for
each monitor in the gray area above
• The ability to set the video
properties (Screen resolution, Color
quality) of each monitor
independently
If your laptop doesn't offer true
Multi-monitor support, you may
be able to add it with a PCMCIA
(PC slot) graphics card such as
• VillageTroni
c VTBook
• Margi
Display ToGo
You can add Multi-monitor
support to a desktop PC by
replacing the video display card
with a "multi-head" card or, in
some cases, by adding an
additional card to supplement the
one you already have.
PowerPoint recognizes this mode
and enables features like Presenter
View when it detects that Multi-
monitor support is available.
The PowerShow add-in utilizes this
mode to extend PowerPoint's multi-
monitor support. It enables you to
show different slide shows on
different monitors simultaneously.
It also utilizes this mode to provide
span support for individual slide
shows. Using PowerShow, you can
control what slide show would span
how many monitors. True Multi-
monitor mode enables PowerShow
to let you view the speaker notes on
the laptop while viewing the slide
show on another display connected
to an external device like a video
projector.
The SundayStar addin for
PowerPoint introduces the
following slide show features to
PowerPoint running on a computer
that supports a multi-monitor
configuration:

• Start multiple slide

shows on a monitor
simultaneously.
• Each slide show has a
keyboard shortcut associated
with it. Switch between slide
shows using the keyboard
shortcuts.
• Slide design view
stays in-sync with slide
show.
• Slide show stays in-
sync with slide design view.

SundayStar works with

Microsoft PowerPoint 2000,
PowerPoint 2002 (XP) and
PowerPoint 2003 on Windows
98, Windows Me, Windows
2000 and Windows XP.

V. REFERENCES

i. http://www.actualtools.com/mul
tiplemonitors/

ii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mul
ti-monitor
iii.