Using Laptop as a Monitor

I'm looking for something that will let me use a laptop display as an external monitor. The ideal solution would be some sort of USB VGA-in dongle, if it exists. I've tried searching but am not having a ton of luck. I don't want to remote into a system I want the laptop screen to actually act like an external monitor for a separate machine. Is this possible?

 

I'd love to have that one as well. would be awesome. and i'd love to see business notebooks to have that feature. be able to use the screen, keyboard, touchpad to connect to an ordinary pc and control it. would be great for pc builders, for supporters, etc.

and, espencially, for me

 

That would be really awesome. You could find a video capture card with VGA (if that exists).

 

I think it's been talked about a few times around here. Apparently since most (if not all) laptops only have an output of the monitor, so using an adapter of some sort to input would be laggy or something. I'm sure someone more knowledgable will come to help, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

There are a few ways to do it.

Problably the best is via a software monitor extension program.

http://www.maxivista.com/multi_monitor.htm

try the demo, if you like it buy it or find the older xp based version that is freeware.

good video on youtube of it in action somewhere its so lag free that you can play a movie half on one screen and half on the other and not see a difference, of course you need a good network or a direct connection.

found the video:

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no, that's not what he wants. imagine a friend bought a new pc you want to set up. the old one is still besides, as there, you can download drivers and such.

now normally you would plug a keyboard, mouse, and screen into the new pc to set it up and see the bios, edit it, install windows, etc.

it would be cool if, for this very situation, you could instead plug some 3-piece cable from your notebook into mouse,keyboard, and screen port of the new pc. and when you turn it on, you see it on your screen, and can use the keyboard and mouse from your notebook.

a full hw solution, no software needed on the pc. maybe not even on the notebook (but a simple switch for troughput / internal).

would be great, too, for supporting headless devices, like some servers in a rack, or my home server, etc.

 

I assume that rdp or any of the vnc variants won't work for your purposes?

 

Maxivista seems pretty close to what I would like. The only dif. is that I need it to be a hardware solution. Keyboard and mouse can be separate (although that would be pretty cool as well but beggars cany be choosers). I just wanna be able to take a usb/expressport/whatever physical connector with a vga in and plug into my laptop just to use a machine that is only missing a monitor (yes such as a server/rack machine). There are basically two things I desire:

1. I can have software running on the laptop just not on the other machine that needs the display.
2. I need to be able to do this without involving the network (otherwise I could just remote in, which I am trying to not do).

Basically just a simple way to plug and play. I've sort of read that you can use a tuner card but haven't really heard anyone actually doing it and having it work well.

I don't really understand why something like this doesnt exist already, its gotta. Even if its just video in running within windows/linux that would be fine too. It would basically just be a tuner card that inputs VGA, totally seems like it should exist.

 

I have a "word around" way its not the greatest quality but basically a capture device is what you need.

I have the adaptec game bridge, its usb and has s-video or composit input, also some people use another product similar, it would work but you would need a vga adapter to hook it up to the s-video input.

other devices that may work similar: HAVA, Slingbox, TV Tuners

 

I think everyone has wished this at one point or another. I don't understand why laptop companys don't do it. I'd really like to be able to plug a HDMI cable into a laptop and play my xbox on it, but I've never seen one that could do it without using a video capture card.

 

Have you actually tried it with a vga to s-video adapter? Does it work well? What are the limitations?

 

I think what you are talking about is found here:

http://www.epiphan.com/products/frame-grabbers/kvm2usb/

They are NOT cheap though...

 

Wow, you're amazing...but god damn thats expensive.

 

Yeah actually I have one just collecting dust right now, limitations vary based on how good of an adapter you get.

Mine is not bad, I used it to hook my HTPC to my old TV that had S-Video & Composite only.

 

I was thinking to myself that using the keyboard & mouse sounded like a KVM, good to see it exsist as a KVM + video adapter thing.

I guess if you did it for work the $400 price is not much.

If you just did it once in a while id be carring around a logitech nano, a small keyboard and a video adapter

 

The only issue with it is that most rack servers only have usb plugs for mice/keyboards. They seem to have a straight vga to usb adapter also, but its still $300.