Any video card with 3 outputs?
 

Are there any video cards that offer outputs for three monitors?

I use the Matrox Parhelia APVe. Two PC monitors and a HDTV.

The same. 3D acceleration is non-existant, but for simple editing there is nothing better at that price.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/cr...anion/home.php
MATROX triple monitor cards.

Also found quad head cards on Ebay!
http://cgi.ebay.com/MATROX-4-QID-Par...QQcmdZViewItem

I have a Matrox Parhelia APVE, and love it for what it does, but it won't render Magic Bullet :-(

At $600 I just don't see this as a cost effective solution. Not to the mention the fact support for this card is not the greatest in terms of either driver updates OR NLE support (such as the person who brought up Magic Bullet).

Why not just put in a secondary PCI video card into your machine to give you the third output device? Better, use a motherboard with SLI and put in two video cards and have 4 video outputs. There are some options here.. I don't think the $600 Matrox card is one of them myself..

Jon

Where did you get that price??????

It is listed at around $300.

See here: http://www.buymatrox.com/showmeparhelia.html

I had no idea you could even do that. Wow, I'm almost ashamed to say I've lost all of my computer geekery!

Is this tested?

I've got a nVidia 7800GT in an SLI capable motherboard and was considering buying another one to run a third monitor (a HDTV) but I have heard from lots of sources that it's not as simple as just plugging it in and having it work.

Does anyone have any more info on this - ie: has anyone tried it successfully?

As long as you don't shunt it into SLI mode you are good to go. Windows will support as many screens/graphics cards as you can chuck at it, although once you hit 10 screens you need something like Ultramon to control them as the 2k/XP/Vista control panels go doolally.

And the computer doesn't get confused?

Does it require any weird system configuration?

I use two PNY Quadro cards in my system...a 4500 runs my 30" LCD (for 2K full pixel count) and my 24" LCD (primary-center UI) and I have a smaller card running two 17" LCDs which flank the 24"...

Works great.

Also...for the record, the Parhelia can do two DVI UI monitors and an HD video output OR 3 DVI outputs.

And...one needs to keep in mind the cost of the Parhelia (under 300 bucks) when critiquing it for not supporting RT video FX, etc. My Quadro 4500 supports magic Bullet in RT and fast 3d/AE previews and SpeedGrade DI, etc...but it's a far pricier option (sometimes available for under 2,000 USD these days, but closer to 3,000 USD when I added this card and reviewed it in POST magazine last year).

The NVIDIA consumer cards are also good, but the difference is in the Open GL support depth and the number of polygons and clipping planes supported, which may not be critically important for everyone.

Apples to apples here folks...the Parhelia is a triple head card and it's really inexpensive. You can't have everything AND a low price...

As with so many things in life they are categorised as follows

good, fast and cheap

you may any two.

John, the computer works fine with it, windows just wont allow you to configure them natively. As for wierd, depends on your level of expertise with PC's :)

Tom, I have a hardware fetish, I would love to see a pic of that setup.

OK, if I did this right...the pic should be attached...

...and it's "Tim."

:-)

Apologies, and that is a mighty impressive setup I bet the clients love it.

It was obviously designed to look impressive... :-) Adobe's Creative Suite apps all open pretty well across 3 displays luckily.

I did have one agency client who, between the huge display system, and the ability to eyedropper a color from the video picture for a title, now seems to think that the Avid house they had worked with is a little "mid-range"...

I just think that's so funny. It just goes to show what sorts of strange factors leave really long-lasting impressions on many clients.

I'm sure it was on another thread on these boards, most times your average customer equates bigger to better.

They also think that TFTs are better than that junky old CRT in the corner but thats another story.

At the end of the day its not the tools though is it, the the quality of the work out the other end, and to have a setup like that I suspect your not half bad :)

What Parhelia model are you using (or did you use?) Just for the record, have you ever connected a Parhelia like that? (2 DVI's and a HD mon?) or to 3 DVI outputs?

We're using the APVe and it doesn't seem to do that. It only will do one DVI with an analog, then the HD mon output on the other ouput. Either it doesn't do what you said, or we're missing something somewhere.

If the latter is true, please tell us how you connected it to the monitors and which PowerDesk version you used (HD or the new SE).

I went back and looked at the card (it is in between systems right now) and I realize that I was wrong...you're right. We had three VGA monitors on it for UI at one point...or it could have been one DVI and two VGA I suppose (1-DVI direct and 2 VGAs from the splitter).

I guess I was thinking about UI and automatically thought "DVI" and since I hadn't looked at the back of the card in a while (I only remembered it had DVI on the back and that we swapped out the component analog adapter for a third UI monitor at some point...), I got it wrong.

It's an APVe...and I'm terribly sorry to post erroneous information. I'm typically pretty careful about such things.

2 DVI outputs or:
1-DVI, 1-VGA, 1 Analog component
1-VGA, 1 VGA, 1 Analog component
1-VGA, 1-VGA, 1-VGA

Tim...I heart your studio!!

Can we get some specs?

Well...the CPU is state of the art NAB 2005...a dual single-core Opteron 252, 3G Ram, AJA Xena LH, PNY Quadro FX4500 feeding a Dell 30" (top panel I paid 2200 USD for it when it first came out...ah well) via dual link DVI, and the Dell 24"-center panel via single-link DVI, a Quadro FX 540 (which I need to swap out for a dual DVI card one of these days) runs the two flanking 17" panels.

I have an 2 GB LSi fibre channel interface card in there that connects to a RAID system with two 6+1 RAID groups and a hot spare...15 250G drives. I was hoping for the 400G drives but when HD Sales in Chicago was getting this together for me, apparently MTV had purchased most of the available 400G drives on the continent for their ADTX units...so mine is populated with 250s as I didn't want to wait...I was cramming it in before the end of the year.

I have another 1.2 TB in nearline storage (3-400GB Seagate USB external drives) so I can keep some smaller projects backed up and I have a 3 250GB drive SATA RAID 0 inside the machine, which is nice for me as CineForm data is so damn efficient.

I'm an Adobe guy, so CS2 is on there...soon to be CS3. The Adobe packages lay out very, very nicely across the three monitors and it's nice to have all the resources "top layer" while working. My timelines are always on the 24".

I am an absolute Iridas convert so I have OnSet on my (also Dell) laptop and I have Speed Grade DI on the workstation which will go up to 2K and works VERY responsively with the 4500 display card. I use CineSpace to dial in the monitors (the 30" being the critical one as that one is overlay.)

While it's not in that shot, I have a better CRT than the one seen there...a BVM 14E5U (SD Broadcast standard monitor), which I use on the SDI output of the Xena card when I'm working on broadcast spots. Unfortunately Iridas can't use the AJA for video output, so I need to upgrade the 4500 to a 4500 SDI to view the CC output on anything outside of the calibrated 30" panel...

Other gear...

Convergent Design SD Connect
Convergent Design HD Connect LE
Canopus ADVC 500
patch bays for BNC, XLR, RCA, RS422 DB-9,...
SD WF/V
usually a bowl of midget Tootsie Rolls which, more often than not, I end up eating myself.



The furniture is built from limber yard countertops and believe it or not, the legs are car exhaust pipe...I got the client chairs on clearance at a local office supply chain store and the viewing deck was a great idea furnished by my friend Jerry Harvath (who also principally built it) when we were debating how I could utilize a roughly 13'x13'x13' cube of a room and give it some personality. By raising the room's table level to bar height (something I'm inexplicably drawn to...), it allows me 40" under the work desk to rack stuff, which is nice. I can also spin around and be face-to-face with the client around that table...

The thing on the wall is a curved surface (there's a symmetrical partner behind the camera) to attempt to "unsquare" the room a tad so it doesn't sound like a fishbowl. I have drop panels for the ceiling with completely indirect light ready to install...I just need the time.

The room is battleship grey and completely lit with daylight (6500 or D65) to help CC on the TFT, and there is no color in my forward view at all.

Other than wishing I'd integrated an ice chest into the client deck...I'm pretty happy with it.

...and Wes, before you "heart" my setup too much. It appears that the Tyan motherboard just went down for the count...