Titanium screen

It’s quite difficult to find a big screen that supports the PBP function, with the suitable ports (2 HDMI or 2 DVI). One that could also keep its configuration over reboots.

I find 3 possible candidates:
https://www.philips.fr/c-p/345E2AE_00/moniteur-lcd-ultrawide
https://www.asus.com/Displays-Desktops/Monitors/Gaming/VP348QGL/
https://www.gigabyte.com/Monitor/M34WQ

Do you have experience with one of them, or do you have another suggestion? Thanks!

It’s quite difficult to find a big screen that supports the PBP function, with the suitable ports (2 HDMI or 2 DVI).

How big is big? My current main screen is a 4K 32" AOC U3277PWQU (which seems to be unavailable at the moment). It has PBP, but only one of each connectors (DP, HDMI/MHL, DVI, VGA). I don’t use its PIP or PBP feature however, everything is connected via my HDMI KVM switch – the DP sources are converted from DP to HDMI before entering the KVM switch.

It should be easy to connect HDMI to DVI, but you’re limited to single link then of course (not even sure if the DVI input supports dual link).

One that could also keep its configuration over reboots.

Not sure if that works – let me know if I can test that for you.

As an added bonus, all five buttons of the screen are real, haptic, physical buttons which is a lot better than the touch-sensitive stuff you often get nowadays.

I don’t think a Titanium can support it at full resolution :) That’s why I’m searching for the right PBP solution…

Unless you need a single ultra-wide monitor for gaming, two separate screens are a better and cheaper option, especially if you have multiple machines.

Unless you need a single ultra-wide monitor for gaming, two separate screens are a better and cheaper option, especially if you have multiple machines.

While I agree for the general case, I don’t agree in the case of the Titanium with its strange video limit (I think it was 2048×2048 pixels). For Titanium, you’d use two Full-HD screens (or 1920×1200 16:10) side by side, which gives you less pixels than a single 4K screen.

Myself, I just settled with the Titanium using FullHD on the single 4K screen. Comfortable switching via KVM is more important than a Titanium-specific optimum solution, if I need the higher resolution on RISC OS I can use it in RPi or ARMX6 or RPCEmu.

I don’t think a Titanium can support it at full resolution :) That’s why I’m searching for the right PBP solution…

It’s possible to have 1920×2048 @30Hz on both screens of a PBP monitor. You get a small black border at the top and botton of the screen. So effectively 3840×2048.

1920×2160 24Hz works too on both to get 3840x216024Hz but the mouse disappears past 2048 at the botton of the screen so makes it hard to get to the icon bar without seeing the mouse. :-)

Comfortable switching via KVM is more important than a Titanium-specific optimum solution

Back to this question again — have you found a KVM that works with the Titanium, without crashing the USB?

have you found a KVM that works with the Titanium, without crashing the USB?

I certainly haven’t. I have tried three different KVM switches, none of which work on the Titanium, where all three switches have worked on every other machine I have tried them with (various RISC OS and PC laptop). I seem to be stuck with having to use separate keyboard and mouse for the Titanium, which means it gets far less use than it should.

I use a wireless keyboard and a wireless trackpad with the Mac Mini, and a wired keyboard and mouse with the Pi. They share a monitor (well, it’s a TV really, but it’s a big 4K one). It’s a bit of a pain swapping the keyboard and mouse/trackpad around, but switching the screen is three clicks on the remote. I use the Pi quite frequently; the Mac almost continuously. The swapping over doesn’t affect how much I use the Pi to any appreciable extent, I don’t think.

Back to this question again — have you found a KVM that works with the Titanium, without crashing the USB?

The Pi 4B crashes occasionally using an electronic USB switch, the Mini.m less often, so I would say this is a RISC OS 5 issue rather than something specific to a machine.

I would say this is a RISC OS 5 issue rather than something specific to a machine.

I am not sure if that is the whole story. The ARMX6 and IGEPv5 (or the ARMBook which I tried with it) have never ‘crashed’ with the KVM. The Titanium freezes immediately the KVM is switched away and back.

The behaviour I get with an ARMX6 (RO5.24 up to RO5.29) might be related – sometimes when switching the KVM to it, the keyboard is unresponsive, and while the mouse moves the pointer, the buttons do nothing. It almost always does this if I move the mouse while it’s switching. I’ve found that if I leave it, in most cases the nums-lock light comes on after about 25 seconds, and normal operation resumes.

[Edit] Correction. In the unresponsive state the pointer doesn’t move either. In addition, Messenger Pro has a moving indicator when new mail has arrived in one of its open folders. That doesn’t move until the connection is restored, suggesting that something is looping.

and while the mouse moves the pointer, the buttons do nothing

I get that behavior when unplugging then re-plugging the HMDI cable on the PI3 under Raspbian.
But there I guess they are just disabling the mouse buttons when no monitor is attached and they forget to reactivate them afterwards.

2×1920×1080 is not for me (we can do much better).
32 inch 3840×2160 has a really small dot pitch. 40 inch would be OK… but does not exist.

32 inch 3440×1440 has a perfect dot pitch.
38 inch 3840×1600 has a perfect dot pitch too.

Problem: the price. The Viewsonic VP3881 is almost a no go.
I could try, but only if I’m sure Titanium can do 2×1980×1600 at a correct framerate.

I will not switch to other computers, so no KVM, and no problem :)

32 inch 3840×2160 has a really small dot pitch. 40 inch would be OK… but does not exist.

40" 3840×2160 TVs exist: Panasonic TX40JX800B or Sharp 4T-C40BJ4KF2FB, maybe others. Both have three HDMI inputs. About £400 and £300 respectively.

Yes, but TVs do not provide PBP support…

My Samsung Q85 does.

OK: some can :)
But anyway, 40" is big and 30 Hz mode is probably risky.

3840×1600 could be perfect but seems to be overpriced.
I think I’ll try the 32" Philips at 3440×1440.

I don’t know about either of those 40" TVs, but my 43" Philips is okay at 24Hz, 3840×2160. I don’t even know what PBP means – I might go investigate, but if anyone wants to enlighten me I’d be happy 8~)

Just a warning… I have a Philips BDM4065UC (4K 40") which has PBP and PIP, but they aren’t 1:1, the video is scaled. I haven’t tried driving it with two 1920×2160 inputs, but if you display two 1920×1080 it scales them and puts a border in between. So I wouldn’t count on your two outputs being exactly adjacent, nor being put on the panel without scaling.

Similarly PiP is not 1/4 of the panel being another input, it’s an input overlaid on perhaps 60% to 95% of the panel in the top left corner (ie if measuring coords from bottom left, in the X or Y direction, 0-60% will be input A, 60-95% will be input B, 95-100% will be input A). As you can imagine that has horrible scaling artifacts.

Thanks, Theo – I think I understand now what PBP means! No idea whether my Philips 4K 43" (not near it at the moment, don’t know its model number) supports PIP or PBP or not. I just use the remote to switch between 4K from the Mac, or 4K from the Pi.

PIP = Picture in Picture, ie monitor displaying one input with another input on top, usually in a corner

PBP = Picture By Picture, showing 2/3/4 inputs at once by dividing up the screen into halves/quarters/etc

8~) Yup – that’s what I’d deduced 8~)

Back to this question again — have you found a KVM that works with the Titanium, without crashing the USB?

My current one (16-port TESmart 4K-but-only-30Hz) mostly works, while all others (including a 4-port TESmart, but mostly some very cheap ones) usually lock the Titanium. One KVM even managed to prevent the Titanium from booting!

The TESmart has alternative USB ports to act as a “dumb” USB hub to connect mouse and keyboard, which loses the “intelligence” (like keyboard-triggered port switching) but should gain interoperability. You can connect the KVM switch to your network to switch via IP (and I wrote a simple Java tool for that, but no RISC OS tool yet – http://itblog.huber-net.de/2021/04/zwischenprojekt-kvmportswitcher/), so keyboard-triggered switching can be done via an alternative route. Also supports serial connection for really-old-school control.

I am currently not frustrated enough by the seldom lock-ups to analyse that situation further, since the Titanium is only used for testing purposes and not for production purposes, and boots fast enough to recover quickly from a lock-up.

Note: TESmart has changed its name from the one of an infamous electric car manufacturer also starting with Tes, possibly to avoid misunderstandings. Or to avoid associations with lousy firmware quality.

The Pi 4B crashes occasionally using an electronic USB switch, the Mini.m less often, so I would say this is a RISC OS 5 issue rather than something specific to a machine

It’s always the XHCIDriver which crashes out. I believe that this is specific to the Titanium and Pi 4.