Equipment for the Flexicast Windows Multi-Channel Manager

What Do I Need?

The following is all you need to get HOTPICKS up and running.

MUST HAVE

	Internet Access. You need a permanent internet connection. ADSL, Cable, Fibre, Wireless, any of these are fine. Even permanent modem is ok. Market Hotpicks will send around 30 Mb of data to per month, WaterMark around 24 Mb and if you have Hotpicks Lite with your Watermark subscription, that will add a further 25 Mb per month so make sure your internet connection download limits are sufficient.
	A Computer. You need a basic reliable computer running Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista. The computer doesn't have to be the fastest on the market or even close, just a basic desktop machine with 256MB RAM or more. If you are only going to show one screen, even Celerons and faster PIII computers would do. We have more exciting and cost effective displays coming up though so if you are buying a computer for this alone its best to get one with decent RAM and CPU power if you think you'll want to add some of these new displays later.
	1 or more Displays. At least one LCD Monitor/ TV/ Plasma / LCD TV / LCD Projector is required. Running older style CRT TVs can be complicated requiring a video card which produce good quality video, a good quality modulator also if you want to put it on your aerial as you do with SKY. A far simpler way is to use low cost 19" or 22" LCD monitors. A 19" monitor has an equivalent screen area to an old fashioned 51cm TV set but with much greater vibrancy. These are available new from the mid $200 mark now and are great displays to a TAB taking a fraction of the room of a TV and able to be mounted on a pole or wall as well.

OPTIONAL

	More Displays if you want them. If you want to run multiple displays you can do this simply if you use LCD monitors, LC D TVs or Plasmas as they all plug straight into a standard computer VGA port. Many machines these days come with 'dual head' video cards that can drive 2 displays at once and having your computer shop add another 2, 4 or 6 displays is usually possible and relatively inexpensive. The standard Hotpicks bundle offering includes a Watermark ratings screen with Hotpicks Lite at the bottom of the same screen, but to get the best value from the deal running 2 displays and putting the full Market Hotpicks on the second screen is the way to go. If you stay with monitors and/or modern LCD or Plasma displays rather than old fashion TVs you will be able to simply drive up to 9 displays from a simple computer.
	Extenders, splitters and plug in video boards etc if you need them. If you want you can position the monitors away from the computer so you can keep the computer in your backoffice and the displays in the public area. You could even just add a second display to an existing back office computer if you wanted to and use that as the public display to avoid buying a new PC. There are video extenders available from Jaycar outlets for around $140 that will allow you to have the second screen up to 135 metres from the computer. Adding support for another monitor doesn't usually even require rebooting the machine these days. You can simply get a USB 2.0 based VGA adaptor , plug it in like any other USB device and then plug a monitor in to it and in a matter of minutes have another display for your TAB area.

General hardware notes for technicians and DIY people.

Hotpicks provides a multi channel service via a single personal computer, you dont need a PC for each screen you wish to run. Under Windows XP/Vista you can typically expand a desktop PC to run 6-8 screens without too much trouble as long as some basic rules are followed. Extra screens are provided by installing dual or quad head graphics cards (also called graphic boards, or video cards) into available APG and PCI expension slots int he desktop PC being used. Laptops can be used but require USB VGA extensions which are more expensive on a per screen (port) basis and often will not supply a TV-Out option to drive older TVs.

By far the cheapest way to expand a personal computer (PC) to run multiple screens is to base it on a desktop machine and use dual head AGP and PCI cards to expand it. Probably the most important rule to follow is to determine how many screens you need to run and then install all the same brand and chip model graphics cards. If you mix different brands or more importantly chips they should still work but software provided with the boards will often crash when trying to configure boards other than those it was designed for. In this case the utility will start up and begin interrogating all cards in the system and this often causes the crash. If the utility software is crashing, functions like setting the TV-Out to the correct format for your TVs may not be possible.

There are various types of interfaces in a modern PC that can support graphics boards. The current ones are AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), PCI (Peropheral Component Interconnect) and PCI-E (PCI Express, also called PCIe). PCI Express slots also come in 4 sizes but the common larger sizes can take smaller size boards. The current sizes are 1x 4x 16x and 32x. Its important to purchase the right boards for the expansion slots you have, each type will not interchange. Typically older machines will have a single AGP and multiple PCI slots whereas newed PCs will have a combination of PCI Express and PCI or all PCI Express.

If a machine has an on-board VGA port it is important to dispble it so that the utility softare for the extra cards does not crash. On some mainboards there is an option in the 'Onboard peripherals' or 'Integrated Peripherals' secion of the machine's BIOS to disable the onboard VGA graphics support. Other machines (esp many with onboard AGP graphics) may require you to install an AGP or PCI Express graphic board to disable the onboard one. If this is the case you should make sure you buy the board necesary to disable the onboard one first and then extra PCI or PCI Express boards sufficient to drive enough screens for your installation.

In some cases it may be necessary to find and select a BIOS option called 'PCI First' to enable the support for all of the screens. As a general rule if a system has an AGP slot it will only have one so if you need to run 8 screens on an older system you would use 1xAGP Dual head and 3xPCI Dual Head graphics boards. As each dual head board will support 2 screens, this will provide 8 screen support.

When starting a multi-screen system it is imperative to turn on all of the TVs and display devices before the PC or the display interfaces may be disabled for that screen. You can right click the desktop and then select 'Properties' and then 'Settings' to configure the size and positions that each screen makes up on the desktop. For public display setups graphincs properties should be set to 800x600 16 bit colour depth. It is simplest to arrange the screens in numeric order [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. With dual head cards with TV-OUT, generally the TV-OUT and the top VGA or DVI-I shares the boards second display interface so that you can only use one of the other. Australian TVs use the PAL system. Make sure that graphics boards you buy have PAL output if you intend using them to drive older TVs. Many TVs do have NTSC support also and thus will take any video board but if you wish to modulate it onto your RF aerial backbone then you will need to ensure the boards are PAL.

Technicians and hardware suppliers

Camray Computer Services Pty Ltd 0414 223 099 Carl Benson, coverage: Greater Sydney area
Camray computer services offer low cost PCs suitable for running Hotpicks systems.

Hayden Shaw Computer Services sales@ezyhostingshop.com Hayden Shaw, coverage: Newcastle, Central Coast, Nelsons Bay, Teagardens, Lower Hunter Valley, Singleton & Cessnock.
Hayden Offers a range of low cost PCs suitable for Hotpicks systems including multi-screen options.

Cybertech Computer Services 0414 498 848 Chris Toll, coverage: Greater Newcastle area clubs and hotel specialist.
Cybertech offer a complete audio visual and computer service including all aspects of AV systems for clubs and hotels including Hotpicks modulated onto RF backbones to drive many televisions.

Express PC Parts (02) 9621 8629 (9am to 12noon mon-fri) sales@expressPCparts.com.au , coverage: Ships Australia Wide.
This retailer is a one stop shop for remanufactured PCs, dual head video cards and the like. You will need a local technician to put it all together for you but you will find everything you need to set up a Hotpicks computer here at rock bottom prices. If you are the serious computer DIY type or a tech without contacts for all the bits you'll need this is the place for you. Please take note however this vendor is like a supermarket, they do not offer support on putting it all together, nor do we so you need to involve a technician or have a good understanding of the task at hand to do it yourself.

Equipment for the Multi Window Manager

VGA to TV Converters VGA to VIDEO Converter This handy device allows you to use your television as a computer monitor. It's the best we've seen. Click Here

USB to VGA Adaptors CB-USB2-73 USB TO VGA, USB 2.0 TO VGA ADAPTOR Click Here
USB 2.0 Wireless SVGA Adaptor Click Here
DreamVision USB-VGA Multi Display Adapter Allowing up to 9 to be used in one computer - $149 Click Here
USB to VGA Adapter for Second or Third Screen - $179 Click Here

Dual Head Video Cards

RADEON 9000 64MB PCI VIDEO CARD TV & DUAL VGA Add 2 displays to a standard desktOp computer - $47 Also will drive a single old style TV using video-out/video-in. Click Here

VGA Splitters

VGA 4 way Splitter with 65m range www.Jaycar.com.au cat number YN8099 $99.95

VGA Video Baluns

VGA Video Baluns allow monitor up to 135m from computer using cheap CAT5 network cabling. www.Jaycar.com.au cat number QC3428. $149.95

Screen Mounts

Roof down, Free standing, Pole mounted and wall mounted VGA options Click Here