Anyone tried using an Xtenda with BTV?

[ertman]

I just spotted this nifty gadget:

http://www.ncomputing.com/ncomputing...cts/direct.php

Basically it's a "thin client" setup for your PC at home.

I was wondering if anyone has tried using these as a BTV "extender" for other TVs in the house. I was thinking that I might be able to run BTV Link for the extenders, with the main BTV server being the host PC.

[bnflaherty]

Highly doubt that would work..

"this solution is not recommended for high-end 3D gaming or 3D design applications"

Since Link uses DirectX technology...

it's basically running a remote desktop on each client.

[ertman]

Well, the spec sheet says that "multimedia" should work just fine. All of the video/sound/input processing is done on the "host", this thing is really just a remote display (which is why you can only use up to a 33ft long CAT-6 cable to connect it.) So if the host is able to run BTV Link, this thing should be able to display it.

I wouldn't try to do HD, but it does support up to 1024x768 video resolutions at 60Hz.

[bnflaherty]

*Basic* multimedia is what it states.

If it is indeed running Remote Desktop -- you can Only have once instance of Link running on a machine -- so that won't work.

[ertman]

It's not running remote desktop, though. Remote Desktop client runs on a full PC, and Remote Desktop runs on a full PC. You need 2 actual PCs to use Remote Desktop.

This thing is more like a remote KVM - ALL of the software is running on the "host" PC. There is NO software running on the device that is connected to the TV. Think of it as a second video card in your PC, but this video card lets you log in and run programs as a different user. It's using CAT-6 cables, but it is not sending data over ethernet. You couldn't wire this thing up to your hub or switch and expect it to work. The cable is being used as a really long video/audio cable combined with a really long keyboard/mouse cable.

That said, BTV does need a fairly hefty video card for some reason, so this might not work well depending on how well this "remote video card" is implemented. Which is why I asked if anyone has tried it.

As for running BTV Link (or any other software) multiple times on the same machine - that's what the "terminal services" software does. You can normally only run one copy of Outlook on one PC, but with a terminal server, you can run multiple copies of most software, since the terminal services tricks the software into thinking it is running on a different machine.