I am looking, for research purposes now, for small touchscreen LCDs. Ideally, I envision in-wall LCDs throughout the house that would display the Media Center theater view and be controled by touch.
After searching around, it appears that just about every touchscreen LCD starts at $300+ at any size. I could buy a 15" touchscreen for approximately the same money as a 10" or 6" LCD. I was hoping to find 15" for $300 and then, obviously, find smaller for less and less. But, it isn't working well.
As far as resolution, it really needs to be a quite high resolution. The panels will only be used when people are right next to them and there has to be enough space to display page up/down/home/scroll buttons, etc., since there will be no keyboard shortcuts (like page up button). Everything has to display on screen. It is tough to scroll the MC theater view buttons (on left side) down without a down arrow.
I was thinking it would be great if there was a way to use the MC zone control for this. I would need an easy interface for controling what zone the audio would go to, though. This way, one panel on main floor could play music (different music, too) over three separate sound cards. One would play in the kitchen/main eating/living room. The second would play in the back yard on the deck. The third would play in the garage and driveway.
Upstairs, there would be one in every bedroom (four) which would also be able to play music in it's bathroom (three) and the fourth unit could be in the hallway and would have a zone for the fourth bedroom (which would be less used)...or the unit would probably work better in the bedroom.
Otherwise, I was thinking about only one zone but then splitting the audio out to multiple speakers and adding a on/off switch for different areas like I mentioned above.
For the computer, I would like to simply install the LCD up top in a slightly larger wall opening with a good, strong mount and then put some trim over it to cover the gap. Then, run the powercable and VGA/DVI cable down below and build in a little cabinet unit. There, I could store the computer. This way, it would be easily accessible in the event that it needs fixed, upgraded, whatever. I can still remotely control it from a service like Logmein for updates, etc.
Each computer in the wall could be named a name: Kitchen, Bedroom1, etc., and then with any computer, we could start any content! This really is the perfect audio system. The built-in one they showed us in a home cost $1,0000 and really didn't have any way to change the content...just select an input and the audio would come from the main box. And the control units were worthless. You sure as the wind blows couldn't watch a show in your wall...nor view the cover art of your song you just chose...you listen to what's playing (radio), etc. This system is completely amazing. And I really think it would cost significantly less. Supposing $300 for the LCDs, with 6 units, $2000 for LCDs and maybe another $2-3 K for the computers. Then $2-3 for the speakers (who knows how much)...We're still less expensive but we can watch our favorite episode of <insert favorite show here> in the wall! Literally, video would play in the wall!
Author
Topic: Small Touchscreen LCDs (Read 2164 times)