You Can Add a Second HDMI Port to a Laptop with Raspberry Pi
After buying a brand new laptop computer, Pierre Couy realized it was lacking an vital function: DisplayPort over USB-C. This prompted Guoy to create his personal digital display screen streaming resolution powered by a Raspberry Pi 3B.
The proposition is straightforward, switch the show knowledge to the Raspberry Pi utilizing Ethernet after which output the show by way of the Pi’s HDMI port. Nonetheless, this venture required many various processes and expertise.
Cuoy’s earlier laptop computer might output concurrently by way of VGA and HDMI. Nonetheless, solely HDMI was obtainable for his or her latest buy, prompting Cuoy to mud off an outdated Raspberry Pi 3B and zip it into providers to stream an extra show. The selection was easy because the Raspberry Pi was free, however there have been some compromises that included getting the proper steadiness of image high quality, latency and framerate given the 100m Ethernet port and quad-core CPU.
The objectives Cuoy set had been easy:
- The lag shouldn’t be noticeable when scrolling or transferring the mouse.
- Picture high quality ought to be excessive sufficient to learn small textual content.
- Since I used to be planning to make use of this primarily for static textual content content material, I made a decision to set a low goal of 10 FPS and cargo up on myself.
- If the receiving finish of the stream lags behind, it should catch as much as dwell as quickly as doable.
- To make use of Direct Build Manager to view the stream on the Pi as a substitute of being related to an X server.
- I reviewed distant playback instruments and VNC as a result of they appeared straightforward to make use of low latency options. Nonetheless, I used to be not involved with the backflow inputs from the Pi to the laptop computer.
Moreover, Cuoy wished to arrange a DHCP server on the Raspberry Pi, launch the mandatory software program at boot time, and configure the laptop computer to start out streaming display screen knowledge. This finish purpose required its use. xrandr to create a digital monitor.
Cuoy’s first process was to create the video pipeline and he selected to make use of ffmpeg on his laptops. After putting in a DHCP server (udhcpd), Cuoy configured the 2 machines to speak to one another. As soon as the connection was confirmed, the primary actual check was an unoptimized stream over Ethernet. The check was profitable, however failed on all targets. Cuoy continued undeterred. Lastly, by way of a collection of iterations, Cuoy was in a position to optimize the move to the purpose the place it met the objectives.
The last word purpose was to increase the laptop computer display screen utilizing a customized bash script that may create a digital monitor configured to satisfy Cuoy’s wants and streamed to the Raspberry Pi’s IP deal with. On the Pi, one other script stops the stream and outputs the playback over the HDMI port.
In fact, that is all overkill; a USB DisplayLink adapter works simply as nicely with little or no work. Nonetheless, the entire course of is fascinating. It reveals what might be achieved with low cost {hardware}, just a little Linux data, and plenty of iterations.
Cuoy’s full blog post within the course of and all config information might be discovered associated GitHub repository.
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