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Techie Question: What is the best way to split your VGA signal?

2 way VGA cable
Posted: October 18, 2010 at 12:04 pm   /   by   /   comments (0)

One of the challenges with splitting your VGA signal is the ability to maintain the video quality and aspect ratio of the original video source. There are a number of ways to split your VGA signal and the main purpose of doing so it to display the same video content across to multiple screens. This basically means a cost savings as you will only need to purchase 1 PC/digital signage player rather than having multiple players for each screen. The only limitation is distance, the VGA video quality degrades for longer distances.

Here, we will look at 3 ways of splitting up the VGA signal (assuming you just want to split 1 video signal to 2 screens):

2 way VGA Cable

2 way VGA cable


When we used this we noticed that the quality was pretty poor. Especially when adding a second VGA cable you immediately notice a difference. No power is required hence the reason why the degradation.

2 Port VGA Splitter

VGA Splitter

Required power to be connected to it. For the video input it requires a VGA extension cable that has a male on one end and a female on the other. Better than the 2 way VGA cable but noticed fuzzy lines running through the screen and some ghosting.

Video Card with dual output (for PC’s)

VGA video with dual video output

You will need to find a video card that supports two VGA outputs. The Radeon x300 video card is one that we’ve tried and tested. Video quality was perfect or as good as the video card can output. The advantage of using this video card was that you didn’t need an additional power point and you are also able to change the video configuration to clone or extended.

For implementations of more than 2 screens then you will need to get a splitter that caters for more video output ports, there are many brands and model in the market but just make sure you test it before installing it at your clients sites.

Are there any other methods people have used to split the VGA signal?

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