Adding a second screen/projector

In one of my previous posts, I went through the process of building a DIY projector screen.  I'm going through the process again.  I'm adding a second projector to the right hand side of our kid's church room.

I'm planning to have it so it can show the same video as the main projector or have an independent image.  During worship and bumper-type videos, the images will be the same on both.  But during games, I'll have ScoreKeep (from Digital Stache) up on one screen and whatever video is needed on the other.  Probably something like a Minute to Win It timer or something.

I'll update this post with the progress in the next few weeks.

I'm considering using this VGA Matrix switcher to control which video goes to which monitor.  I'm not sure how well it will work, but for the price, it is hard to go wrong.

 

Update as of 07/25/13:  I haven't had a lot of time to post lately because of VBS.  But we did get this solution in place.  Now we have two projectors/screens.  We use the Matrix VGA switcher from Monoprice.  Here's a couple of pictures:

This picture shows the screens with the projectors off



This image shows the screens with the projectors on.  Both projectors are throwing the same image.  Notice the difference in image quality.  Even though they are pretty much the same projector, the newness of one is a big jump over the other.   We played with the brightness and whiteness quite a bit, but weren't able to get it any closer.  I guess that's one downside to using cheap projectors.



Unless there's a lot of white in the background, they looks pretty much identical.



 

This image shows the front of the Matrix switcher.  The left button contols the left projector.  The right button the right projector.  You press the button to select source 1, source 2, or nothing.



 

This image shows the back of the VGA Matrix switcher.  There are two sources (both computers) and two outputs (both projectors).



 

The only issue we've seen is that the Matrix switcher isn't an instant switch.  It takes a bit for the image to change.  This caused two issues.  One the projector would think the image dropped and display its logo.  To fix this, we changed the projector settings to only display a black screen and not the logo.  The second issue was that during the change, the projector would begin searching for a signal.  Again, we simply turned this off in the projector settings.  No big deal.

Soon I want to make a quick video showing how everything works.