Mounting computer monitors to your cart

[JonG]

I’m installing a Mac Mini into my cart, and am now faced with the question of monitors. I have dual 7” Marshall video monitors for my camera feeds, but now I need something for the Mac.

 

Currently I am pondering which kind of monitor to be using, how to mount it, and if possible, leave it hooked up but maybe foldable, so that I don’t have to install it every time I want to use it. 

 

My current setup has all the “guts” of my cart in a rack mount case. 

 

Please share photos, links, and useful information. Thank you!

[Vincent R.]

Recently I was looking into the same. I stumbled upon these slim iPad kinda HDMI monitors. might worth to explore this route because it is so low weight and very cost effective, Maybe some articulating tablet holder with a 1/4 inch thread to a blind panel or something. Loads of rugged tablet holders out there already.  





https://www.amazon.com/UPERFECT-Portable-1920×1080-Raspberry-Cellphone/dp/B07K8JLR4C

[Rob Beal]

I'm in the middle of redesigning my cart around a Mac Mini as well. My current plan is to replace my 7" dual monitors with one of these 1RU pullout 17" monitors:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1302336-REG/lilliput_rm_1730_s_17_3_full_hd_pull_out.html

 

I plan on using the HDMI input with the Mac Mini and using the SDI input for video (using a Decimator on the source end to combine video streams to a single SDI), and just switching back and forth with the front buttons as needed.

 

Then in addition to that, I already use an iPad on my cart for Scriptation, so I'm going to use the Duet app to extend my Mac Mini's desktop to the iPad as well:

https://www.duetdisplay.com/

 

My hope is that I'll be satisfied with those two screens doing double duty, since I don't really NEED to be looking at my Mac's screen while shooting, it's more for setting up Dante, Wireless Designer, emailing sound reports etc.

I suppose there will be a time when I'll want to simultaneously see the script, the video feed, and Wireless Designer during a shot if I'm troubleshooting RF problems, but I'll wait and see how important that is before committing to a third monitor. I like the idea of using my existing screens.

 

 

 

 

[JonG]

I like these pull out monitors but I can’t understand why they are so expensive. Couldn’t someone just put an inexpensive computer monitor in a rack chassis for less than half the price of one of these?

[Rob Beal]

Yeah I hate the fact that the monitor will cost more than the computer, but at least I’ll be selling my current rack mount monitors so I’ll recoup some of the cost. That’s also why I want it to do double-duty. 

[Olle Sjostrom]

I know Adafruit, who makes stuff for small card size computers and diy computer things, have a retina monitor. https://www.adafruit.com/product/1652

Don't know about quality or anything. They have other stuff as well 

[joshhp]

Just thought I'd chirp in because I'm currently working on a project fairly similar. 

 

I'm creating a new live looping music rig, the brain of which is an Intel NUC8 that I've Hackintoshed (4x smaller, 4x less expensive, and 2x the performance of a real mac!), and am similarly using a portable monitor like the one mentioned above with the setup. If you want to see more about my project, check out this thread or the Gearslutz thread linked: 

 

The monitor I ended up using is a "UPERFECT" 15.6" touchscreen portable monitor I got on eBay for under $200- and believe it or not, it actually works with macOS! It's 1080p, but to be completely honest I can't really tell much of a difference from my 15" Retina MacBook Pro. It looks nearly identical. It works as a mouse-input though, so no multi-gesture. I've heard these work even better with Windows: https://www.ebay.com/itm/224067732910