"Just can't picture the market for these being very wide"
It would work great in the workplace. Most companies have dual LCD's these days, 3 or more not being an option without a special card/displayport etc. This makes any old PC a multi monitor beast.
Any job that requires alot of multitasking/app switching could use this heavily.
An old PC doesn't have USB 3.0. And a new PC with USB 3.0 would likely have integrated graphics capable of driving dual monitors for non-gaming workloads.
He's talking about 3+ monitors, but even so I can't see this being much cheaper than a discrete card.
I think the real benefit is for when you get back to your desk and hook your laptop up to this to use the big screens. These days laptops have the hardware to run even the heavy tasks that benefit from this level of real-estate, so this, as part of a docking station setup, could save some people from needing a ever needing desktop at work.
No shit sherlock. I've been using one for over a year. The point is this little box only has 1 DVI and 1 HDMI which to me doesn't justify its price (I'm go to guess $60-$100) plus a USB 3.0 adapter card on an old system.
It's targeted at laptops; not desktops. The only reason I won't be buying one at launch to upgrade my work laptop is that what IT's given me doesn't support USB3 yet.
I can't stand working without 3 screens. Things like this would allow me to use a laptop. I do agree it is useless for desktops that have a pci-e slot available though.
There can be many reasons for mirroring screens, such as a display boot showing a screen in 4 different directions, and I am sure this device can work out perfectly in those cases. You might underestimate the size of the market - supermarkets, stores, sales boots, and so on that might be interested in something like this. Do not expect these companies to pay the premium for DisplayPort type products - mirroring might have a much larger market than you seem to think!
Then of course you have the market that is looking for more screen real estate such as developers - I frequently find myself wanting a 3rd screen - one for coding, one for displaying the result and one for debug output.
For laptops in particular this is a great product as most laptops only support a second screen. Had the Ivy laptops come with built-in 3rd screen support then the second market would be smaller, however they don't, so I am in the market for this!
We used to use something like this at a company that did not have a second monitor out on the IT built systems. They were against changing hardware configurations for those of us that had a second monitor available. The company was willing to buy us a little USB to VGA adapter and IT would install the drivers.
This was all bad policy, but it gave me a second monitor to work with.
Throw a few USB porrts on there, and a LAN port, and you've got a decent low cost one cable dock. How much cpu does it take to drive two 1080p displays? Especially if you are playing something like a Flash game on those displays...
It uses DisplayLink technology, so probably not terribly good for gaming, even though it can also take advantage of an available dGPU.
The software driver basically takes the data from the frame buffer, determines what changes between frames, compresses that data and then pipes it over USB to a hardware decoder that then drives the display output. The USB 2.0 versions are apparently only able to drive a single display and can be a bit laggy or suffer from tearing. The additional bandwidth of USB 3.0 will probably bring significant improvements, but it's still a bit like using VNC on a very small, thin-client to drive additional displays.
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Laststop311 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
What is even the purpose of this device? Mirror your desktop to more screens?themossie - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
Or laptop. One external monitor (max supported by most laptops) isn't enough for coding pleasure :-)Laststop311 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
Just can't picture the market for these being very wide. Has to be a very very narrow slice of the population that actually cares about these.Death666Angel - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
So? This is a niche product, yes. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, does it? :-)retrospooty - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
"Just can't picture the market for these being very wide"It would work great in the workplace. Most companies have dual LCD's these days, 3 or more not being an option without a special card/displayport etc. This makes any old PC a multi monitor beast.
Any job that requires alot of multitasking/app switching could use this heavily.
etamin - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
"This makes any old PC a multi monitor beast."An old PC doesn't have USB 3.0. And a new PC with USB 3.0 would likely have integrated graphics capable of driving dual monitors for non-gaming workloads.
dananski - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
He's talking about 3+ monitors, but even so I can't see this being much cheaper than a discrete card.I think the real benefit is for when you get back to your desk and hook your laptop up to this to use the big screens. These days laptops have the hardware to run even the heavy tasks that benefit from this level of real-estate, so this, as part of a docking station setup, could save some people from needing a ever needing desktop at work.
lang999 - Saturday, June 9, 2012 - link
Did you ever heard a thing called controllercard?You can get usb 3.0 in any oldasscomputer for $10
Noob.
etamin - Saturday, June 9, 2012 - link
No shit sherlock. I've been using one for over a year. The point is this little box only has 1 DVI and 1 HDMI which to me doesn't justify its price (I'm go to guess $60-$100) plus a USB 3.0 adapter card on an old system.DanNeely - Sunday, June 10, 2012 - link
It's targeted at laptops; not desktops. The only reason I won't be buying one at launch to upgrade my work laptop is that what IT's given me doesn't support USB3 yet.Visual - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link
LOL, "Noob"You totally pwnt him.
gg no re l2p
iSmug - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
I can't stand working without 3 screens. Things like this would allow me to use a laptop. I do agree it is useless for desktops that have a pci-e slot available though.ka_ - Sunday, June 10, 2012 - link
There can be many reasons for mirroring screens, such as a display boot showing a screen in 4 different directions, and I am sure this device can work out perfectly in those cases. You might underestimate the size of the market - supermarkets, stores, sales boots, and so on that might be interested in something like this. Do not expect these companies to pay the premium for DisplayPort type products - mirroring might have a much larger market than you seem to think!Then of course you have the market that is looking for more screen real estate such as developers - I frequently find myself wanting a 3rd screen - one for coding, one for displaying the result and one for debug output.
For laptops in particular this is a great product as most laptops only support a second screen. Had the Ivy laptops come with built-in 3rd screen support then the second market would be smaller, however they don't, so I am in the market for this!
neostar63 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
We used to use something like this at a company that did not have a second monitor out on the IT built systems. They were against changing hardware configurations for those of us that had a second monitor available. The company was willing to buy us a little USB to VGA adapter and IT would install the drivers.This was all bad policy, but it gave me a second monitor to work with.
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
Throw a few USB porrts on there, and a LAN port, and you've got a decent low cost one cable dock. How much cpu does it take to drive two 1080p displays? Especially if you are playing something like a Flash game on those displays...repoman27 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
It uses DisplayLink technology, so probably not terribly good for gaming, even though it can also take advantage of an available dGPU.The software driver basically takes the data from the frame buffer, determines what changes between frames, compresses that data and then pipes it over USB to a hardware decoder that then drives the display output. The USB 2.0 versions are apparently only able to drive a single display and can be a bit laggy or suffer from tearing. The additional bandwidth of USB 3.0 will probably bring significant improvements, but it's still a bit like using VNC on a very small, thin-client to drive additional displays.
dukeanddaisy - Thursday, January 10, 2013 - link
This is a must if you want to run Dual External Monitors from a Samsung Slate. Just one example.....