VGA in through USB

[hostar]

Hey guys,

Got a question. Do you know how to get VGA in through USB/firewire or any products that do that. Basically, I am trying to connect VGA out from a rack mount into my notebook through USB/firewire, since I do not have a VGA in on my notebook. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Pudgygiant]

I have an idea. GOOGLE.

Seriously though, I'm pretty sure you'd have to have a special processor (maybe a UART) on the sending end to parse the information, a la a digicam. And in answer to "any product that would do it", VGA could be interpreted as the 640x480 resolution, 256 colors. So a webcam'd do it.

 

[Peter]

There are framegrabber cards to go into the CardBus slots. USB doesn't have the bandwidth to do that properly.

 

[Pudgygiant]

Originally posted by: Peter
There are framegrabber cards to go into the CardBus slots. USB doesn't have the bandwidth to do that properly.

Yes, thus the reason most webcams are 640x480 at a whopping 5 fps or so...

 

[elTaco]

May I ask what it is you hope to accomplish?

For monitoring? because there are quite a few solutions for that

 

[hostar]

alright, what I mean is.....the rack has a vga out on the machine. Instead of lugging a monitor and keyboard to the location, can i just bring my notebook and possibly a VGA to usb cable and plug it into my notebook to see what going on. basically use my notebook as a monitor. I know you can remote access servers, but these machines are down so you can not remote access them and i don't feel like lugging a monitor to every location i go to.

 

[Pudgygiant]

Why not just plug an ethernet cable into them and run... is it called VNC? on them for a virtual desktop. Or PCanywhere if you can get your company to fund it.

 

[hostar]

the system is uising linux. there are dual ethernet cards on each of the machines, but they are used to connect to the router and another machine. There are also serials on the machines but they are used to console the router.

 

[Gunbuster]

http://www.realvnc.com/download.html

 

[hostar]

the only problem is that these machines are down, i can't reach them by IP thats why i have to be there physically to reset them or reload them or something. I am just not trying to lug a monitor in there so see whats going on the server. Thanks

 

[CTho9305]

edit: err never mind 😉

 

[hostar]

any other ideas?


Thanks

 

[glugglug]

VGA at high resolution/refresh (300MHz dot clock) = 900MB of data per second sent to the monitor.

USB = 500KB/s if you are lucky. USB2.0 = 10MB/s if you are really lucky.

In short: what you want is not gonna happen.

 

[hostar]

how about through serial?

 

[glugglug]

There is no port on your laptop with the necessary bandwidth. Hell, even a PCI card could only manage it with a framebuffer and drastically reduced framerates on the capture (unless you are always in 640x480 or 800x600).

There actually are 5" CRTs for exactly the purpose you describe, or nowadays, you get to take advantage of both of the real advantages of an LCD (weight and desk space).

BTW, have you tried hitting F1 on these servers while they are running headless?

 

[hostar]

hmmmm those 5 inch crt's are sound nice. Well it was worth a shot. Thanks guys