The CinemaView Duo Lets You Connect Two Displays to One Mini-DisplayPort

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Posted March 31, 2010 at 3:16pm by iClarified

The CinemaView Duo lets you connect two Apple LED Cinema Displays to one Mini-DisplayPort. Both displays must be exactly the same model and resolution; e.g, two CinemaView 24 units, or two Apple 24-inch LED Cinema Display units, or two exactly matching Mini DisplayPort input displays up to 1920x1200 pixel resolution each.

- Two displays of different models or resolutions will not work.
- Does not support closed lid operation on MacBook/MacBook Pro.

The CinemaView Duo reads the resolution data from the two connected displays, combines the two into one horizontally extended virtual display, and then transmits this virtual display resolution -- twice the width of one of the connected displays -- to the Mac.

Two 1920x1080 resolution Mini DisplayPort displays will behave like one horizontally extended 3840x1080 resolution virtual display. Two 1920x1200 resolution Mini DisplayPort displays will behave like one horizontally extended 3840x1200 resolution virtual display.

The CinemaView Duo costs $149.00 including UPS Ground Shipping to USA and Canada. Estimated Delivery Time is on or before 28 April 2010.

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The CinemaView Duo Lets You Connect Two Displays to One Mini-DisplayPort

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y371 - March 31, 2010 at 5:38pm

I am currently doing this very thing with a Matrox TripleHead2Go DP Edition. It works exactly the same way. The model came out back in September and it does the job with some limitations (if you have a nVidia 9400-only Macbook: forget it, that card doesn't work at full resolution for some reason). There is a DualHead2Go model for about the same money as the one shown here. I don't see how these copycats are improving on this, though: it's still one giant display to the macbook, with all the little kinks and problems this causes. Still, it's pretty nice, though: the more I work this way, the more I find myself wishing to get something like this for work as well. It would have been remarkable if they managed to tell the Macbook it has two displays attached so that each one is configured independently. Anyway, I know who Matrox are and I don't know who CinemaView are. I will stick to my Matrox.

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Jack Campbell - April 7, 2010 at 3:31am

Actually, Matrox does not manufacture a Mini DisplayPort equipped product at all.

Jack Campbell - April 7, 2010 at 3:36am

And... the one model they do offer that has regular DisplayPort (not MIni) has a street price of about $230, not "the same as" our Duo product at all. FYI: We have a year of cooperative original engineering with our semiconductor supplier invested into the Duo design. It is a 100% original development, so is in no way a "copycat" of anyone's product.

y371 - April 7, 2010 at 8:37am

Jack, Matrox apparently has been doing cooperative engineering for longer, they have had gadgets like this for various interfaces for years. I run the DP model with a bunch of adapters (mini displayport is electrically identical to displayport). As a consumer, this is a device doing the very same job with the exact same restrictions. You are not convincing me to upgrade, I am afraid, all you told me is "we built your adapters right in". Here is something somewhat different for you to consider, something not even Matrox has (and probably won't have anytime soon, if ever). It would be wonderful if you make at least part of it work. The next model of Macbooks will almost certainly have mini DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. This means double the bandwidth of current models and the ability to daisy chain displays, provided they support it. I am not an electrical engineer, but when I did my research for the Triplehead box, the "support" part is by means of an extra chip to switch signals made by some Chinese company (I am sorry I cannot be more specific, but you can google "displayport switch" and it will be somewhere in the first 15-20 hits). There is the promise to run multiple displays off a single (mini) DisplayPort output, all independently, not as one giant screen, and all at full resolution, which doesn't have to be exactly the same for all displays. The catch is your displays have to be DisplayPort 1.1 or 1.2 and explicitly support daisy chaining, which means if you have top of the line displays you like today, you are out in the cold. I don't see very many people changing all of their multiple expensive DVI and DisplayPort displays just because someone invented a new version of an interface, however wonderful. If you can get this switching chip in a box (I was left with the impression that chip supports it), similar to the device above, and include a bunch of DVI adapters, you can give people a solution to a problem they will have in a few months, when they realize the next model up has all the features they really wanted: a multiple monitor DVI-D/DisplayPort switch for everyone who doesn't have one built in. I hope this helps.

Jay - March 31, 2010 at 4:17pm

AWESOME! Now I just wish I could afford 2 Cinema Displays!