16 Cinema displays on one wall?

[Black Diesel]

I have a wealthy buddy who is building a house and he wants to build a wall with a grid of 16 Apple Cinema displays on a decorative wall framed in nice wood. The goal is to have each ACD display a different slide show of images throughout the night like digital picture frames.

Does anyone know if this is possible with a MAC to control 16 monitors playing a different slide show on each display? Could be amazing if there's a way to do it, anyone know where to start with this idea?

 

[juanm]

I can think a million better ways to spend money than doing that... unless he wants to stare at the TV wall in silence, dressed like Batman, and breathing heavily, in which case it'd be the coolest thing ever.

You might be better off using a PC with multiple AMD Gpus.

 

[doc james]

Ignoring all judgement on the value of doing this, I agree with the PC idea. I've used budget Matrox G400 quad head cards to control a variety of 14" monitors and projectors via VLC for an atmospheric youth event at church. Our budget was precisely $pocket money but at the time I did note that you can stack upto 4 of the Matrox cards into an appropriate motherboard. Think I was using Windows 2000 at the time.

I'm sure if you want higher resolution etc. there are more expensive and robust options.

Alternatively - why not link a Raspberry Pi to each monitor (or mini android etc.)? If you want them to talk to each other, I guess you'd need a 17th but in the grand scale of the cost of this project...

 

[paulrbeers]

I have a wealthy buddy who is building a house and he wants to build a wall with a grid of 16 Apple Cinema displays on a decorative wall framed in nice wood. The goal is to have each ACD display a different slide show of images throughout the night like digital picture frames.

Does anyone know if this is possible with a MAC to control 16 monitors playing a different slide show on each display? Could be amazing if there's a way to do it, anyone know where to start with this idea?

The only way to even remotely do this with one Mac, would be to use a Mac Pro and even then I am not sure you can run 16 displays using the 4 PCIE slots in the Mac Pro (not sure if there are cards that can run 4 displays that will fit in a single height slot).

However, as everyone has stated, he might be better off with PC. If he is really going to frame everything in wood, then the asthetics of a Mac is completely lost (heck he could use cheap Korean panels or the dell 2713HM) since you really won't see them anyway. Then with a PC, he just needs to buy a full ATX motherboard with as many PCIE 8x (or 16x) slots as he can get and he should be good to go for (the computer with all video cards would cost less than a single Mac Pro w/o necessary slots).

If money really is no object, then he could buy 16 Base Mini's and the 16 Apple Cinema Displays and "only" drop 25K.

 

[Irishman]

The only way to even remotely do this with one Mac, would be to use a Mac Pro and even then I am not sure you can run 16 displays using the 4 PCIE slots in the Mac Pro (not sure if there are cards that can run 4 displays that will fit in a single height slot).

However, as everyone has stated, he might be better off with PC. If he is really going to frame everything in wood, then the asthetics of a Mac is completely lost (heck he could use cheap Korean panels or the dell 2713HM) since you really won't see them anyway. Then with a PC, he just needs to buy a full ATX motherboard with as many PCIE 8x (or 16x) slots as he can get and he should be good to go for (the computer with all video cards would cost less than a single Mac Pro w/o necessary slots).

If money really is no object, then he could buy 16 Base Mini's and the 16 Apple Cinema Displays and "only" drop 25K.

oohhhhh, yeah! A Mac Mini server farm.

 

[chumawumba]

Do they still cell cinema displays?

 

[DustyLBottoms]

Do they still cell cinema displays?

Ask the NSA, they'd know.

 

[Black Diesel]

Guys, don't forget some people have money to burn.....thus a wall of apple cinema displays for show. Budget is not an issue, so maybe he will have to buy a farm of minis. He plans to incorporate them in wood to where you would still see the apple frame of the display.

Sounds like PC is the way to go. Pretty sad there's not an easy solution for MAC

 

[zedsdead]

http://www.digitalgist.com/2010/06/apple-wwdc-2010-app-wall-video.html

 

[Black Diesel]

http://www.digitalgist.com/2010/06/apple-wwdc-2010-app-wall-video.html

Yes, just like that but with not so many ACD's and he doesn't need them in sync...diff photo show on each display. Too bad there's no easy way to do it on MAC

 

[Flynnstone]

How Apple made the App Wall. Good starting point.
A bunch of minis should do the trick ...

 

[Flynnstone]

Yes, just like that but with not so many ACD's and he doesn't need them in sync...diff photo show on each display. Too bad there's no easy way to do it on MAC

I think its very easy on the Mac. Check out Quartz Composer.

There is a Quartz Composer user group or list.
Since your bud has lots of cash, I recommend contracting someone from the list. Some of the Real cool Mac apps are written using Quartz Composer. The people behind those apps are on the list.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Can't you daisy chain the TBD? Why wouldn't that work, or is there a limit on how many?

 

[NorCalLights]

We do this all the time in the live entertainment industry. It would require more than a single Mac computer, but there are a number of options here. It would be possible with as few as 8 Mac Minis, or 3 custom-configured Mac Pro towers.

There are lots of off-the-shelf (and actually quite affordable) software options as well.

Where are you located? Contact me privately and I can point you in the direction of someone local who has experience in this area.

 

[priitv8]

Can't you daisy chain the TBD? Why wouldn't that work, or is there a limit on how many?

Shoud work. According to Apple, limit is 1 display for MBA, 2 displays for all other TB-equipped Macs:
http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/09/16/macbook.air.restricted.to.single.monitor/

 

[notjustjay]

Yes, just like that but with not so many ACD's and he doesn't need them in sync...diff photo show on each display. Too bad there's no easy way to do it on MAC

If all that the screens are doing is displaying a photo slide show, why would it need to be on a Mac? Or for that matter a computer at all? I kinda like the idea someone suggested of using Raspberry Pi controllers (or something similar).

If, however, you really want to do something cool on a Mac, check out ProVideoPlayer:

http://www.renewedvision.com/pvp.php

Likely overkill for just photos, but maybe this will inspire your friend.

 

[Madmic23]

Here's the easiest solution: buy a bunch of LED smart TV's! He could buy fewer TV's, maybe twelve 42" LG's or something, and just plug a USB drive into each of them loaded up with photos and put them into slideshow mode.

Or, for an even cooler trick, he could have the TV's displaying online photo albums, like from Picasa or Facebook. Make a different album for each TV. The cool thing is, he could update the TV's from his phone just by updating the online photo album.

Another fun thing, he could actually turn them all off with just one remote.

I think I just saved your friend about $12K or more.

 

[Michael CM1]

The new Mac Pro says it will be able to handle up to three 4K displays. I don't know whether that means it will be able to just handle three displays or if it can handle way more than that with plain ol' crappy HD displays. That's probably your best Mac option.

 

[brand]

I have a wealthy buddy who is building a house and he wants to build a wall with a grid of 16 Apple Cinema displays on a decorative wall framed in nice wood. The goal is to have each ACD display a different slide show of images throughout the night like digital picture frames.

Does anyone know if this is possible with a MAC to control 16 monitors playing a different slide show on each display? Could be amazing if there's a way to do it, anyone know where to start with this idea?

Guys, don't forget some people have money to burn.....thus a wall of apple cinema displays for show. Budget is not an issue, so maybe he will have to buy a farm of minis. He plans to incorporate them in wood to where you would still see the apple frame of the display.

Sounds like PC is the way to go. Pretty sad there's not an easy solution for MAC

Yes, just like that but with not so many ACD's and he doesn't need them in sync...diff photo show on each display. Too bad there's no easy way to do it on MAC

The media access control address is not capable of doing this. There is specialized display/signage software for the PC that is capable of doing this and is very good at it. Apple computers are not designed for every situation and the best solution for the problem should be what is used. Additionally the bezel width on Apple monitors is huge compared to digital signage displays.

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I think I just saved your friend about $12K or more.

You should at least get a portion of that.

 

[iSayuSay]

Here's the easiest solution: buy a bunch of LED smart TV's! He could buy fewer TV's, maybe twelve 42" LG's or something, and just plug a USB drive into each of them loaded up with photos and put them into slideshow mode.

Or, for an even cooler trick, he could have the TV's displaying online photo albums, like from Picasa or Facebook. Make a different album for each TV. The cool thing is, he could update the TV's from his phone just by updating the online photo album.

Another fun thing, he could actually turn them all off with just one remote.

I think I just saved your friend about $12K or more.

Saving money is not the point here

For the sake of it, he might be better going with array of 42" Loewe Individual.
One way to burn money right away considering a mediocre quality of Loewe TVs.

 

[Flynnstone]

How about using 4k monitors. Since money is not a big problem

 

[dollystereo]

Putting this is a house is the most stupid idea I have ever heard.
It just make me sad that with all the inequality and hunger world wide, some people just burn money for things like this.
Anyway, we h ave a Macpro with 8 displays here at work (8 TVs) for visualizing weather vector fields. I doesnt have room for more cards, it has all 4 slots occupied with 4 dual head cards.(the basic one, dont remember the model).
As someone said, it's easier with a PC. And I dont think that this is going to look cool on a wall, the bezel is big, and the apple displays are glossy.

 

[Skika]

If he goes the mini route, wouldnt that mean he would need just as many mice and keyboards and then need to manage all of them separately?

Also shouldn't he just hire some company to figure this out for him since money is no object?

 

[paulrbeers]

Putting this is a house is the most stupid idea I have ever heard.

Great, tell that to all the people with $5 million+ homes with 25 bedrooms and 80 bathrooms.....

That's way more waste than $25K on computer equipment.

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If he goes the mini route, wouldnt that mean he would need just as many mice and keyboards and then need to manage all of them separately?

Also shouldn't he just hire some company to figure this out for him since money is no object?

There's this thing called Desktop sharing that's built into OSX..... It's kinda handy for this sorta thing.

 

[Vincent V]

I would go the MP route with a MBA as a remote.