OT - LCD TV modification

Unlikely to be feasible at all without some serious engineering. That's something that's a lot easier with a CRT set.

Smitty Two wrote in news:prestwhich- snipped-for-privacy@news.lga.highwinds-media.com:

Have you considered digitally flipping the image with a computer before you send it to one of the monitors?

With an LCD screen, flipping the picture would require some serious engineering.

I would suggest getting a PC with a compatible video I/O option, and the proper software package for what you want to do.

There is a manufacture in New York called Q-TV. They make LCD monitors that can be ordered with a built in processor for video reversal. These monitors are very expensive.

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JANA _____

The feature was built in to the TVs we were using, but those models have been discontinued, and we're having trouble sourcing this feature elsewhere.

Any educated guesses on how difficult it would be to add the feature ourselves? If it matters, we're talking about a vertical flip, not horizontal.

Horizontal flip is fairly common to make a monitor into a mirror - or for use as a camera viewfinder. But I wonder what the vertical flip was designed for? But for vertical flip can't you just invert the monitor?

I thought that at first Dave, but it actually flips it horizontally as well. Like everyone else, I don't think that it is going to be easy to do within the monitor, unless you can find one that has been designed to have the picture displayed in a different format, such as happens with the LCD monitors that they use in airports, and in advertising displays now.

I used to work with a 3-D visualisation system 22 years ago. Used a single CRT and a vibrating circular mirror driven at 30Hz by a loudspeaker attached to it. Produced stunning results - almost like a 3D hologram 'floating' in space, but was big and bulky, and too expensive to ever be a commercial success. There was one sold over here to some university or other. It was for a project to map the surface of some planet or other, from radar-derived terrain data. I wonder whatever became of it ? Maybe it's sitting in some dusty cellar somewhere ...

Arfa

Well, if you can locate a LCD TV that can flip horizontally: Flip it once mechanically vertical. Flip it once electronically horizontal.

Taa Daa! :-)

Jonesy -- a little extra partition cognition

Most LCD projectors that I am aware of are capable of doing this. Maybe you can use one of those or a CRT.

Not too sure of your application, as posted, most of the DMD and LCD versions allow image reversal on both axis.

Thanks, we actually started with the projector concept, three years ago, but the customer opted for monitors... CRT's are too bulky.

Hmm, RPTV might be OK in theory, but size is an issue. Our application is 26" and 37", which is small for rear projection.

Thanks to you and bz for reminding me of the PC processing option. It's one we talked about some time back, but may need to revisit.

Do you have a link for Q-TV? I didn't turn it up on Google. (I mean, uh, the other search engine I'm using while I'm boycotting Google)

Huh? Can you elaborate a bit on that, Arfa?

Hi Smitty. Lots of the LCD monitors used in airports and train stations etc, are used in a 'portrait' fashion, and often appear to be pretty 'standard' looking types, turned on their side. You also see them being used as menu displays, alternated with advertising material, in restaurant windows. I guess that whatever is driving them may well be producing a picture that's rotated by 90 deg, rather than the drive being normal, and rotation taking place in the display. Until you came up with this question, I'd never really considered the 'mechanics' of how it was being done.

Arfa

Below is the link for QTV. They custom manufacture monitors for specific applications.

They may send you to a company called Applied to do the purchase.

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JANA _____

Thanks to you and bz for reminding me of the PC processing option. It's one we talked about some time back, but may need to revisit.

Do you have a link for Q-TV? I didn't turn it up on Google. (I mean, uh, the other search engine I'm using while I'm boycotting Google)

Good thought Arfa, but I've always assumed that the image was flipped on the computer before it goes to the monitor. Otherwise you would have streching problems unless you designed your video for being flipped this way and after all of the trouble of doing that you could have just flipped the video.

Mike

Thanks, I'll look at them more closely. I did find that site before but seemed like it wasn't the right one.

I think you're probably right Michael. I guess, thinking about it now, that the data for display is formatted 9:16 in production, and then rotated in software to be output at 16:9. Turning the display through 90 deg then makes it display at the originally created 9:16 again.

Arfa

Most modern video card drivers allow you to do this, we've got some LCD monitors at work that are mounted on a swivel, you can run them either horizontally, or vertically and the driver will display things correctly, there's no flipping done in the monitor itself.

I have a Haier TV I use with my Parasound C2 controller, with this "flip-around" feature.

One would assume that, if the chipset supports this feature, it would be available to the user. Ergo, the chipset probably doesn't.

I'd contact the manufacturer and ask. Perhaps there's a pin you can pulse to make the image cycle through its display modes.