Wall mountable, thin (smallish) monitor

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:31 AM, RK <rayklossmac.com> wrote:
> I have an electric piano in our guest room and have thought about hooking it up with my Mac Mini for some recording and arranging. The thing is, this is a guest room at times, and the last thing my wife wants is some goofy computer setup in the guest room.
>
> So I figure I can hide the Mini behind the Piano, get a smallish (12-14") flat monitor and mount it to the wall. I could even set up a screen saver with nice family photos, buy a frame to put over it, Viola! But I cannot find a small monitor that fits the bill. I see some small ones (15-17") but they are 6 inches deep. Should I consider a thin TV screen instead? I really want it to be thin and be able to not stand out in the guest room. Ideas?

As long as it has an HMDI input, the TV should work. The problem is
that you should get a 1080p screen for computer work, but I think any
TV screen that small is going to be 720p.

Try http://store.mp3car.com/Monitors_and_Touchscreens_s/21.htm. These
are for cars, so they should be flat and small.

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

On Feb 3, 2010, at 3:31 AM, RK wrote:

> I have an electric piano in our guest room and have thought about hooking it up with my Mac Mini for some recording and arranging. The thing is, this is a guest room at times, and the last thing my wife wants is some goofy computer setup in the guest room.
>
> So I figure I can hide the Mini behind the Piano, get a smallish (12-14") flat monitor and mount it to the wall. I could even set up a screen saver with nice family photos, buy a frame to put over it, Viola! But I cannot find a small monitor that fits the bill. I see some small ones (15-17") but they are 6 inches deep. Should I consider a thin TV screen instead? I really want it to be thin and be able to not stand out in the guest room. Ideas?
>

This HP is bigger than you indicated, but I bought one when I had a similar need. It packs a lot of pixels in a small frame, looks decent (black), and is wall-mountable.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/product_detail.do?storeName=storefronts&landing=display&category=display&orderflow=1&a1=Brand&v1=HP&product_code=FN773AA%23ABA&catLevel=2

The HP model number is w1858 if that link doesn't work for you.

Nick Pappas

Your best bet on connecting to a TV may be with a DVI-to-HDMI cable, rather than attempting to convert the mac mini's output to an NTSC composite signal. Keeping the display connection DVI/HDMI will result in the most readable display

Note that the pre-2009 minis (Intel 950 Graphics) only support a single display output, and if you wanted to connect to a TV you'll need a Apple M9267G/A adapter to convert to a NTSC output.

The post-early-2009 minis (Nvida graphics) support dual display operation, via both the mini-displayport and mini-DVI connectors.

One strong caution is the older Apple mini-DVI-to-video adapter will NOT work on the 2009 Nvidia minis. Apple dropped NTSC video support over the mini-DVI when they went to Nvidia graphics.

In a similar vein, I've starting to see electronic sheet music displays show up in professional piano performances, notably on PBS's broadcast of "From The Top". I found out FTT is using "estand" brand music stand, <www.estandmusic.com> which offers a 20" display reminicent of Apple's acrylic Cinema Display Line.

Good Luck in your search

When I did my search, it seems that LED TVs are the thinnest and may be my best bet. They also come in "smaller" sizes, as most monitors are getting bigger and bigger. The monitors for the car were intriguing, but I was not sure what electrical input they would take (probably 12 v DC) and most of them had screen input instead of using a mouse.

The Mac Mini I have lying around to use has a HDMI output (PPC) so it may work alright for the TV, but I remember in another Mac Mini I had I bought a HDMI switch to fool the TV into thinking the monitor was on all the time, or I had to restart the Mac to get the TV to see it.

I'll look at the music display software as well. Thanks.

On 2010-02-10, at 07:03, Ray Kloss wrote:

> When I did my search, it seems that LED TVs are the thinnest and may be my best bet.

To be pedantic, these are probably LED-backlit rather than true LED TVs -- though the industry is propagating this incorrect terminology.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED-backlit_LCD_television>

On 11/02/2010, at 1:02 PM, Tom Robinson wrote:

> To be pedantic, these are probably LED-backlit rather than true LED TVs -- though the industry is propagating this incorrect terminology.

Makes me wonder what they're going to call the real thing when it does finally become commercially viable in a few years. I guess they can call them OLED and get away with it :)

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND. http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger