thoughts about new setup (12 CRTs screens)

[georgesgeorges]

Hi everyone!

I am currently working on an electronic music live show, with 6 CRT screens. Looks like this: https://youtu.be/alcR5PdpkM0

Here is my setup:
One Macbook Pro M1 pro runs Ableton Live + EMU (light software) + Resolume Arena.
I have connected two Matrox triple head, and then the video outputs go to some cheap VGA/composite converters. Then go to the CRTs.

My all composition is 1920x880
The final resolution of what I send to a CRT screen is about 256x192. Pretty lo-fi lol.

This solution works, but it's not so reliable. Not a big fan of having all this running on one laptop.

I would like to work with a second computer, which would process only the video. And would like to have 6 more CRTs eheh

So my question is:
What graphic card would you recommend to do that?
Maybe I would need two (6x2 outputs) to do that: is it reliable to do that?
I don't want anymore to use some of those cheap converters. Ideally, I want to output from my graphic card and go straight to the CRTs. I saw the Blackmagic decklink, and thought: why not? But apparently they produce some latency, and I really really want the less latency possible for this project: a lot of the video is sync with the music.

And last: If I find a graphic card with some SDI outputs; is it possible to make a cable with SDI from one side and Composite (RCA) from the other side? Or not at all?

Thank you for your time
Théo

[Zoltán]

The resolution of the crt-s sounds like one output would be enough to run them.
a few triple heads, or datapath fx4s, and many composite converters could do it.

SDI is a different format than composite video, a simple cable won't convert the signal from digital to analog.

What's the unreliable part in your setup?

[georgesgeorges]

Thanks Zoltan, and sorry, the question about the cable was a bit silly

About the option of the triple heads: For my new setup (12 crt-s) I will need 4 of them, so my graphic card should have 4 different outputs, right?
For the moment my computer have the possibility to output two external screens, but with an other one, why not!

About the Datapaths: I understood that you can run them in a series, so I would only need one output?

Not a very reliable setup for several reasons. Firstly, the HDMI port on my laptop is shitty (thanks Apple). Quite often when I am playing on stage, with the vibrations and stuffs, it disconnects. So I have to tape it to the computer, but even taped, I'm not very confident.
Secondly, a friend of mine who worked in video shows told me that it was better to have a special computer only for the video applications. So I'm a bit scared that my laptop will not be powerful enough to process all those tasks.
And to finish with, I was a bit scared of the quality of my converters, but maybe I shouldn't... What converters would you recommend? I use the model "Mini AV2VGA" but wondered if something better existed.

[Zoltán]

It's a while back since I had to use analog converters, so can't recommend a specific one.

HDMI from a macbook is still the most stable connection, if you can run a desktop windows machine you'd have the option for locking displayport connector.

Datapaths can indeed be chained each can take a specific area of the input then.