USB to DVI additional display adapter ! ?

[jeremyroberts]

OWC announced this new device:

USB to DVI/HDMI/VGA Display Adapter (1600x1200)
Easily Add Additional Displays To Macs & PCs Via Any Available USB 2.0 Port.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other...ing/VIDU2DVIA/

Who's gonna be the first to try this? They claim:

The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter allows you to connect one extra monitor per adapter to your desktop PC or laptop's USB port. The connected monitor can be configured to either clone your primary screen, or extend the desktop allowing visibility of more applications at the same time.
The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter driver used to control the extra screen uses very little computer resource and offers a vast array of screen resolutions and color depths. This ensures that there is little difference in performance between a directly connected screen and a screen connected through the USB 2.0 Graphic Adapter
The OWC USB 2.0 Display Adapter supports up to four simultaneous displays on an Intel Mac or up to six displays on a Windows PC, including widescreen displays, extending your desktop and your horizons. It operates at a high resolution of 1600x1200/1680x1050.

So a few immediate thoughts:

1. Video ram: coming from the host?
2. throughput -- will this kill any USB2 control surfaces for real-time accuracy?
3. display timing -- is what you see going to correspond to what you hear? how slow (fast) can usb2 move video data?

I guess for $99 and a 30-day moneyback, there is nothing to lose except a few minutes and some shipping. I may just try this...

ahhh--- always the fine print:

This release does not support OpenGL acceleration (3D hardware acceleration) so therefore applications and features that require OpenGL, Quartz Extreme, Quartz Composer and other framework based on OpenGL will not be fully supported. Examples of such features are Keynote Presentations, iPhoto Slideshows and iMovie.

[John_Toolbox]

Holy S#$% That is cool!

Much more affordable than the matrox dual/triplehead to go.

1. Video ram: coming from the host?

Their specs imply that it has it's own video RAM:

Originally Posted by OWC

High-Performance DDR memory

2. throughput -- will this kill any USB2 control surfaces for real-time accuracy?

I would probably say no, a USB control surface doesn't take a huge amount of bandwidth, many of them worked fine with USB 1.1

3. display timing -- is what you see going to correspond to what you hear? how slow (fast) can usb2 move video data?

This could be a problem:

This release does not support OpenGL acceleration (3D hardware acceleration) so therefore applications and features that require OpenGL, Quartz Extreme, Quartz Composer and other framework based on OpenGL will not be fully supported. Examples of such features are Keynote Presentations, iPhoto Slideshows and iMovie.

I think to use it as a movie playback window is probably not going to be ideal, but it would be a nice place to stick all of the clutter like your big counter, transport, plugins etc. Also would work well if you stick a monitor in your vocal booth for posting lyrics, cue sheets etc.

[drenkrom]

I've tested an external USB video interface a few weeks back and, while the concept is a superb idea, it has its limitations. Video RAM is indeed handled by the interface but there's not a heap of it. USB2's throughput is high, but nothing compared to that allocated to a PCIe video interface, so it's gonna suck that port dry. Forget any other USB device connected to the same buss. Seeing that the Macs have comparatively few distinct USB busses and that one of them is invariably taken up by the keyboard and mouse, that could be an issue, depending on your current setup. I did my testing on two PCs.

Once everything is up and running, performance is acceptable for most uses. If you're going to display a PT window, the mixer for instance, it should work great. I saw a bit of shearing and flashing on high-def videos streamed through the unit I tested, but performance is perfectly acceptable if used for reference. That may also improve with later drivers updates. Lower-quality video played back without any issues at all. The interface totally showed its limits with graphics-intensive processes like 3D sequences and games, though. No gaming after hours on these babies.

So as long as you have a free USB buss and don't expect high performance on GPU-intensive processes, this class of device fills a great void in the market. Also be careful to pick one with Mac OS support. I tested a Sewell SW-8769. The units I've seen with Mac support are mostly only supported on Intel Macs. To insure sync during video playback, you'd have to measure the interface's latency and adjust your Video Sync Offset accordingly. It should work, but I haven't tested that. In fact I haven't tested with PT at all, so tread lightly.

[Vaphoron]

I'll be getting one soon to test it out since this is going to be a cheaper solution than the other options I was considering. I just have to figure out how I'm gonna fit 3 or 4 monitors on my desk if this thing works.

[Ryan Young]

I use a MacBook Pro with a Canopus for doing ADR. I've been trying out the Sewell USB-DVI so I could get rid of my Canopus. Unfortunately with the Sewell video playback is VERY jittery. So, I switched the Sewell display to be my edit window/primary display and put the video on the actual DVI port, but it still seemed to make playback pretty bad. Acceptable, but not smooth playback. Also, my main display (Sewell) flashes every so often and the response is pretty slow. Video sync offset is about 14 quarter frames with the Sewell setup.

I really hope that I can find a configuration that I'm happy with because these things were pretty pricey! Ideally, here's what I want to have.

Mix window on the MacBook Pro display, Edit window on a second display (and to be my primary display), Video window on a third display (with a DVI/VGA splitter so the Video window is on 2 monitors).

Right now I have this with the Canopus but ever since one of the Pro Tools v8 updates, the Canopus has been VERY buggy! It makes Pro Tools quit upon opening a session with video. And, it'd be really nice to use any video codec, not just huge .dv files. Video sync offset is about 18 quarter frames with the Canopus setup.

Any suggestions?