[MPlayer-users] Linux USB - VGA/DVI adapters?

[Oliver Seitz]

Am 18.01.2009, 19:09 Uhr, schrieb Siemen Baader <siemenbaader at gmail.com>:

> Hi List,
>
> I am about to set up a video installation with one pc connected to
> 18(!) screens playing mostly pre-recorded MPEG clips as well as a few
> IP based streams and custom visualizations. The MPEG is encoded at
> 1mbps (I think that is fairly good quality, right?)

For 1680x1050 resolution at 25fps in MPEG2, you should calculate 6MBit per  
stream as I recently tested. Quality's terrible with lower bitrates then.  
Depends on the resolution and framerate of your videos.



>
> After doing a few calculations on the volume of the data streams
> within the machine (pci & usb bus, hdd reading spead), it seems
> possible to me to connect all 18 screens using mpeg2-decoding external
> video cards via USB 2.0 (using powered hubs).
>
> So my question is: Do you know of any USB-to-VGA (or DVI) adapters
> that can decode MPEG2 (or any other suitable encoding) in hardware
> that will work with Linux / mplayer? Other media players would also be
> fine.

Haven't seen something like that, I only know of a USB to VGA adapter  
which is very cheap but also very dumb. You can hope to play a 640x480  
video on it, but don't think about using two at a time.

I've tried some things in playing multiple videos and my approach for 18  
screens would be 18 players using cheap onboard graphics or 9 players with  
better graphics cards.

But if you have success with 18 streams at once, tell me, I'd like to know  
;-)

Greets,
Kiste