HDMI Quadviewer with thru?

[adamburgess]

Hey guys n girls… looking for a bit of kit, if it exists?

A quad HDMI multiviewer - with thru outputs to the already installed 8x8 HDMI matrix…

The venue* have 4x sources (3x TV receivers and a line from outside for a PC, and 4x outs to TVs and outdoor LED screen etc.). They need to preview what they're outputting before making it 'go live', and not having to have someone at the other end of the building on the phone telling the guy with the remote inside if it's the correct channel would be a bit more professional.

Or, do I have to get 4x splitters and even more hateful HDMI cables?

Cheers, Adam

* my local 🍻

[Dave m]

I am a little unsure what you need but there is

https://www.amazon.com/SEETEC-Streaming-Broadcast-Television-Production/dp/B089Q7QR46

 

which basically is fed with sources and outputs each source separately as well

 

One could suggest that 4 x smaller monitors might be more proof against failure, worst case if a single monitor dies, just use three? Or buy five with redundancy?  I was always against the 70's "music centre" because if your state of the art cassette deck packed up, the whole "all in one" had to go to be fixed and you had no sounds.

 

[adamburgess]

Yes, that kind of thing would be great. Thank you.

Was trying to do it on the cheap, as their IT dept. have a load of old computer monitors lying around, so just really wanted a black box to stick in the back of the rack.
Basically 4x HDMI I/O and a split screen output to a preview monitor.

Space is a little tight, so was going against a few small monitors, although I did get a great little 7" thing a couple of months back. An emergency solution for my Mac mini after the laptop had a drinks accident. Could see if I could make room to mount a bank of them somewhere.

[Stuart91]

It would be an ugly bodge, but four HDMI to HD-TVI adaptors and a four channel CCTV DVR would do the trick. 

The only advantage here is cheapness, plus the fact that you can hopefully hide all the gubbins in the back of a rack. 

 

[adamburgess]

10 minutes ago, Stuart91 said:

It would be an ugly bodge, but four HDMI to HD-TVI adaptors and a four channel CCTV DVR would do the trick. 

The only advantage here is cheapness, plus the fact that you can hopefully hide all the gubbins in the back of a rack. 

 

Cheap is good!

They won't pay for a decent 'system' even though currently the audio is BSS Soundweb (not enough inputs so bar staff are switching phono leads about!) and a nicely well built Aten HDMI matrix…

Corporate struggles

 

[david.elsbury]

AliExpress has plenty of HDMI quad viewers and hdmi splitters. Probably the cheapest way to do it

[TomHoward]

What's the 8x8 matrix?

If there's only 4 outputs on an 8x8 matrix, and they know how to use the matrix, can you just put one local monitor on output 8 and just check the channel on that before you change it?

That's how ours works, we have a sports pavilion with 4x4 Kramer, 3 zone outputs (although many TVs on a zone), 4 inputs, and the spare output has a monitor on the wall by the rack for checking the PC etc before going full screen via the matrix 

OR if you want to eat up all 4 matrix outputs and don't plan expanding it in future you could route all 4 inputs into a cheap multi viewer via outputs 5-8 and let the matrix do the splitting?

Edited February 4, 2023 by TomHoward

[adamburgess]

1 hour ago, TomHoward said:

What's the 8x8 matrix?

If there's only 4 outputs on an 8x8 matrix, and they know how to use the matrix, can you just put one local monitor on output 8 and just check the channel on that before you change it?

That's how ours works, we have a sports pavilion with 4x4 Kramer, 3 zone outputs (although many TVs on a zone), 4 inputs, and the spare output has a monitor on the wall by the rack for checking the PC etc before going full screen via the matrix 

OR if you want to eat up all 4 matrix outputs and don't plan expanding it in future you could route all 4 inputs into a cheap multi viewer via outputs 5-8 and let the matrix do the splitting?

This is a great idea. Thanks for that.
I don't mind burning up the extra four outs, but I think the less gear involved, the better. 1x local monitor should do them.

Matrix is an Aten VM8080HA. Nicely built.

Thanks again for your different approach.