Using an N770 as a Monitor?

[SugarPeee]

Heya friends........I just received my N770 in the mail and was impressed with the screen's resolution and touchscreen capabilities. So it got me to thinking......is it possible to use the tablet as a monitor and hook it up to a laptop? There are a few vga to usb adapters on the market. I was thinking of using the tablet as a monitor for a nice gps/mp3 system in my car routed through a laptop under the seat. I've been googling this all morning, and can't seem to find anyone that's done this before. Any help would be appreciated :)

-paul

[Slakker]

I'm not sure the 770 supports any sort of video-in...

[SeRi@lDiE]

No is not possible.

[Slakker]

Would it be possible to connect the 770 via bluetooth to the laptop and then control media playback from there?

[SeRi@lDiE]

Would it be possible to connect the 770 via bluetooth to the laptop and then control media playback from there?

No not with bluetooth.
You could using a upnp media server in the system you want to control media..

[Slakker]

that's unfortunate...seems like bluetooth networking the 770 to the laptop would make this so simple.

[sdrman]

N770 won't work as a monitor. However, you could create that appearance by connecting the 770 to your laptop with wifi and use vnc or rdesktop to display your laptop's screen and control it.

[tom61]

Would it be possible to connect the 770 via bluetooth to the laptop and then control media playback from there?

I saw a YouTube video of someone using a 770 to control their Media Center PC, and looked like the bandwidth of bluetooth could do it (no real technical details were in the video)

Ah, found the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CII2crrTEe0

Unfortunately, it appears to be a closed beta application, and would only work if your laptop was running Media Center Edition: http://www.mceguru.com/

VNC or other graphical link over Bluetooth would be slow, but you should be able to press buttons on players and the like. I controlled WinAmp over rdesktop via a USB serial link on a Windows Mobile PDA without much trouble.

[robbh66]

VNC or other graphical link over Bluetooth would be slow, but you should be able to press buttons on players and the like. I controlled WinAmp over rdesktop via a USB serial link on a Windows Mobile PDA without much trouble.

VNC over BT is very doable, but noticeably slower than WiFi in my experiences.

[ZapWizard]

I don't know the name of the program, but there is a VNC like program that will make a VNC window on a PC that looks like a 2nd monitor.

Also doesn't vista have some sort of "Mini-monitor mode" (specifically for PDAs)

[Dominic]

I would just use vnc over wifi. Worked fast for me. If it doesn't work make sure the firewall on your computer and the firewall on your router are set to allow the port for vnc.

[HumanPenguin]

Not as a full monitor. But if you are running Linux on the Laptop. You can set the DISPLAY of any application you wish from the laptop to display on the monitor.

You would need both the laptop and monitor to be networked either wifi or blue tooth.

Then set the 770 or n800 such that when you launch certain apps it ssh -X -e s into the Laptop and runs on the laptop.

-e will select the program you wish to run -X will tunnel its output back to the device.

I do similar things with my linux boxes at home all the time. It is just a matter of getting the devices networked efficiently. You can then run wine or vmware on the laptop and do the same with windows apps etc

[cptvitamin]

The problem with rdesktop or VNC is that you are actually taking over the remote computer. If the resolution is greater than 800 x 480 on that machine you have a lot of scrolling to do to interact with the desktop.

HumanPenguin's got it right with forwarding X to the tablet. I have been using this method to control Rhythmbox on my home PC which outputs its audio to my wireless home speaker system. By forwarding X from the desktop to the tablet, I am free to create playlists, next track, rate, submit tracks to last.fm, fetch lyrics, etc all from tablet, anywhere inside or outside of the home. And since X is so well thought out, resolution is not an issue. The application is automatically resized to the size of the tablet's display. To me, this is a much more elegant solution than rdesktop or VNC.

[HumanPenguin]

And the extra cool feature. When you park your car in front of you house/appartment you can have it connect to your home wife. Walk in press a button on your desktop linux PC and have the app open their.

Sit at you desk drinking coffee and watching breakfast news while you choose your playlist for the long morning commute.

Move appropriate maps to your navigation system before a long trip.

Or what ever else you choose to do with your car PC.

Yeah XWindows got it right all those years ago. At the time it was planned to support a mainframe mentality with small X Terminals displaying the app but the huge data centric software running on the big mainframe.

Now I have 4 PCs at home with 1x22 inch monitor. And just run the apps where I like. Windows RDesktop/VNC just dosent cut it.

[glabifrons]

To avoid the size issue pointed out above, and to improve performance...
1. connect via wifi
2. launch vncserver -geometry 800x480 on the notebook (running some form of *nix)
3. connect via vncviewer in fullscreen mode on the Nokia

The note about some form of *nix is because I don't think that the windows version of VNC can initiate a new session, where you can have as many as you want (at whatever size you want) on *nix systems (within memory and CPU constraints, obviously).

If security is a concern, tunnel the vnc session via ssh (from the Nokia) using -L 5901:localhost:5901 (if running vnc using display :1) and use -c blowfish-cbc to improve performance (but not -C!). You will then point your vncviewer at :1 (or localhost:1) and let ssh tunneling handle the connection. :)

Note that I have not tried this yet (may tonight) as I just got my 770 recently, but I do tunnel vnc through ssh whenever I need to use it.