Found A cheap monitor

[Tass]

Composite to scart sounds like a good alternative, as most tvs I know of have scart.

I also like the idea of an add-on board with vga - not how viable/easy/cheap this would be?

While no vga will be an issue for some, my guess is that this would only affect 25% (complete thumbsuck!) so the increased cost wouldn"t be justifiable.

[Smartybones]

Tass said:


Composite to scart sounds like a good alternative, as most tvs I know of have scart.


I have to disagree..

How readable will text actually be? the slight flicker your going to get is going to be a nightmare, it will be fine for stuff like a media player, of photograph slideshows, but to spend several hours working on a CRT on a very low res display, writing some code is going to be a nightmare.

but I do agree that the extra cost of adding VGA support is too prohibitive, but as I have so many VGA monitors about, I would pay £20 for a add on board, which would still be a compromise until I got the right monitor at the right price.

[Phil Spiegel]

There is no reason why such an 'add-on b oard' should be produced by or specific to the Raspberry Pi ..... its a standalone generic standards conversion device: DtoA converting hdmi into VGA or alternatively a composite to RGB decoder (ie a typical TV front end ... hence you might as well use a TV anyway) ... although the 'proper' stnadalone boxes include a framestore and zooming options so that the dispolay rate can be uninterlaced and a higher frame rate. ..of course it costs money .... but that is nout to do with Pi, that's life.

Look at it this way: by getting the computer board sop economically, a potentiual user can AFFORD to spend money on a decent display ... as asfter all.... its  what you see on the screen that forms your opinion of the computer ... hence the splits here between how small and portable we can make it (1 set of applications) to how large an HD screen we can use, and not expect to move it often!

[Skygod]

19" 1080p TVs with HDMI input are available in the UK for 60 GBP.

You also get TV and a DVD player thrown in, so as long as you already pay for a TV licence, this is probably the easiest solution.

There are also 2nd hand outlets in the UK (CEX) where you could get a DVI-D monitor for ~ 40 GBP

For school use, there has been a lot of discussion in the past on this forum of getting an HDMI to LVDS convertor and then using screens designed for laptops and there are also people investigating a connection from the MIPI DSI outputs to something like a tablet screen.

I've read of schools still using Pentium II and Pentium III systems, so they basically need to 'bin' what they've got and look to start afresh at a reasonable price point. Those old systems are highly inefficient and paying for a digital display will be the 'expensive' part of a refurbishment, but the cost of the computer hardware is now so much lower and a digital signal monitor is going to have longevity compared to old analog devices.

A complete setup of screen, keyboard, mouse, power supply, cables will cost ~100 GBP.

[spurious]

Scart Adapter Switchable (£1.01)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psylins-Scart-A ... 548&sr=8-5

RCA Phono to Triple Phono Audio Video Cable Lead 1m (£1.03)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phono-Triple-Au ... _ai_ps_t_3

RCA Phono Female to 1x 3.5mm Male Jack Audio Adapter (£0.78)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Phono-Female-3- ... _sim_ce_52

And before you say composite isn't good enough...All us ZX81/Spectrum/BBC/Amiga etc owners didn't have a problem with it

[W. H. Heydt]

There are these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/.....=BESTMATCH

from Newegg.  Looks like only one of them lacks DVI input.

I picked them specifically for "normal" aspect ratio (so sue me...I'm old and used to 4x3).

[pigsy]

16" HD LED* TV with PVR and 2 hdmi ports + 12v power for £59 delivered

http://www.kogan.co.uk/shop/16.....srs-audio/

[nemmi69]

I am going to try 7" TFT colour LCD car monitor on EBay for around £25. Not HDMI but should do the job and are portable and have sound.




 
 

[murkle]

A review (yesterday) on eBuyer says:

Note: The description above says it's "DVD-D" which is wrong. It's a "DVI-I"

[deepthought]

The Argos Clearance Bargains store on Jerome Retail Park in Walsall, England has dozens of HD-ready Freeview tv"s, some with dvd players built-in, in stock at the moment, from 15 inch to 40+.  Generally these are stock clearance or customer returns with a full 12 months guarantee.

I picked up one of these 16 inch widescreen Alba LED16911HD tv"s for just £34.99 yesterday as a likely candidate for use with Raspberry Pi and retrocomputing as it is small, very light and has multiple inputs.



Here it is connected to my Macbook Pro 13" via a mini-displayport to hdmi adaptor:



And here"s the main inputs and a cable lock point:



And the composite cable input together with a USB input 5v at 500ma:



The tv synced with everything the Macbook Pro could throw at it, and though it"s clearly not as sharp as the Apple screen and has a much narrower angle of view, it was perfectly readable, with good colour.

Here"s the funky remote, manual and composite+audio input cable which plugs via a jack into the tv (see yellow socket on side view above):



There are two small speakers located in the base of the screen and pinting down. Don"t know what the computer sound quality is like as my adaptor doesn"t pass the sound through. It comes with a simple clip-in pedestal, the angle of which is not adjustable.

This is a good little tv, quality is adequate and the price is very good at the moment from Clearance Bargains.  There are lots of adjustments via the menus so you can fiddle to get it to suit your computer.  I found it worked well on 1080i but it will take various resolutions including 50hz PAL or 60hz NTSC options.

With the right cabling it could be used with many different computers and would be handy for taking to events, exhibitions or a computer club as it weighs very little.

Bottom line? Well worth the £34.99, a real bargain in fact.  I would probably be more picky at £89.99 :O)

Finally, info off the box:

[lewmur]

Just came across this little 13" monitor with HDMI.

[MiL0]

here you go... ~£26 for a hdmi to vga adapter (with free shipping):

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/h.....rter-71816

looks like a good option if you wanna use an old vga monitor...

[kaos]

It does look good.

I did, however, notice in the "related items" section, this little gem, so caveat emptor: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/1.....ngth-81243

In case someone is in doubt, the gem I noticed is in the same category as those passive HDMI<->VGA cables that have been pointed out here before. It will *not* work. Ever.

[At least not as advertised: "Converts VGA/SVGA signal to S-Video/RCA AV signal". It is possible that some demented equipment designer has at some point used a 15 pin D subminiature connector to carry the S-video etc. signals, but in that case it is not a VGA signal, and the cable is just a passive adapter that will only work with that hardware.]

Note that this does not mean that MiLO's find won't work perfectly, but given that the same site carries this piece of junk ... it would cause me to tread carefully.

Just my {local_currency}*.02

--

Kári.