Small monitor for ticket window

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm looking to add a second monitor to our boxoffice computer for an out-front display (for that mythical day in the future when we get to have new movies). Ideally it would connect wirelessly.... is there such a thing available that anyone knows about? If I search for "Bluetooth" monitors it comes back with a lot of iPad-type computers, or 'smart' speakers which is not what I want..... just a monitor that would connect wirelessly. 10" or less would be ideal. Ideas?

Mainly we want the wireless because we don't want to have to drill holes in the walls if we can help it.

[Frank Cox]

What you want is a wireless vga transmitter/receiver and then you hook up the monitor of your choice to that.

Check amazon for "wireless vga" and you'll find lots of choices.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Anything involving raw video consumes an awful lot of bandwidth. That's why you will not find a lot of Bluetooth video applications. There are some wireless VGA solutions and also some digital solutions (HDMI, DVI), most of them using some kind of compression.

The things you must keep in mind are:
- Ranges for wireless video transmission are usually very limited.
- Some solutions are notorious for interfering with other wireless equipment, including WiFi.
- Many of them are not secure. Depending on what kind of video you're transferring, you need to keep this in mind. Anything involving personal information should require a secure form of encryption.

Maybe, if you describe a bit more what you're trying to do, there may be other solutions, like a cheap PC or RaspberryPi connecting via plain-old Wifi and using something like VLC to share the screen may be an alternative.

[Mike Blakesley]

Maybe, if you describe a bit more what you're trying to do, there may be other solutions,

We're going to move to reserved seats so I'm thinking of a front-facing display for people to look at to see how full (or the way things are going, empty) we are.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

I thought that showing the seating plot with the "forbidden seats" blocked off would be adequate. The problem might be patrons wanting to move to other seats after the start of the show. Policing this might be difficult in these times.

[Marcel Birgelen]

We're going to move to reserved seats so I'm thinking of a front-facing display for people to look at to see how full (or the way things are going, empty) we are.

You obviously already know that the best option is always the option using a cable rather than a wireless solution.

If you want an easy, hands-off solution that doesn't require too much configuration and fiddling around, then extending or mirroring a screen will probably be the easiest solution.

Now, I've personally used the Optoma WHD200 wireless HDMI extender before. The device should be in the $130 to $170 and there are tons of comparable devices from other suppliers for around the same price. There are more expensive units available for higher bandwidth/higher resolution transmissions, but I doubt it's useful for your purpose.

The problem with those wireless thingies is that you never know if they work in your particular setup. If you need to pass some walls, you're probably better off with a unit with some external antennas.

Another solution I was thinking about was by simply putting a PC in that space, one that connects to your ticket machine via VLC. The problem here is that the VLC connection needs to be manually initialized, every time you start the PC, unless you invest the time into scripting such a thing. This PC could use a standard WiFi signal, if available, to connect to your other machine.

[Mike Blakesley]

Well, there's not much room out there.... it's just a classic style ticket window with about a 4' by 1' on the customer facing side. It has the traditional glass with the half-moon hole at the bottom and the "voice" hole in the middle - we take that window out in the summer but this year we have elected to leave it in.

I like the idea of mirroring a small monitor but there is no easy way to get a cable through the wall, which is why I'm wanting something wireless if possible. But, not wanting to spend a lot of $ on a solution either... we could probably get by fine with a paper map in a stand. I already came up with the idea of dividing our seats into four "zones" of different colors, so once people get used to it they'll be able to say "anywhere in the green zone is fine" etc.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Dell has an entire line of wireless monitors, but they are pretty pricy. There are also 15 inch wireless monitors on Epay starting at about $160 dollars.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Most "wireless monitors" only work with the latest version of Windows 10 and require a very beefy CPU and/or GPU, as they cast the screen over wifi. The resources are required to compress the stream, as a raw data stream would never work over most wifi connections.

I like the idea of mirroring a small monitor but there is no easy way to get a cable through the wall, which is why I'm wanting something wireless if possible. But, not wanting to spend a lot of $ on a solution either... we could probably get by fine with a paper map in a stand. I already came up with the idea of dividing our seats into four "zones" of different colors, so once people get used to it they'll be able to say "anywhere in the green zone is fine" etc.

Sometimes you can find a good deal on e.g. Ebay for those kind of devices. I guess running one or two UTP cables is also almost impossible?