KVM Switch Recommendations

[csduke]

I\'m looking for a reliable KVM switch for two computers. Any suggestions based on experience? Thanks.

[JonFairhurst]

I\'ve got a tried and true setup. It\'s the IOGear USB Miniport III CGS-1714 (four ports). I use the Microsoft Natural Elite keyboard and Logitech Optical mouse. Works 100% with Giga. No PS2 involved - USB all the way.

One person at the Tascam forum was using a PS2 setup that would crash giga. He ended up unplugging the mouse and that solved it. Now he has four mice on his desk.

[csduke]

Thank\'s Lee and Jon.

[Sapkiller]

I don\'t know what you should get, but I do
know what NOT to get: TrendNet!

The electronic switching is done in a round
robin way: 1->2->3->4->1 etc. and you can\'t
see which PC you choosing - you just have to circle until you find the right one - and the
screen switches display mode each time regardless
the fact that all PC\'s run in the same resolution. And thats just the minor cons:
How about every time you boot, you can be shure that one or more PC turns up with out mouse, keyboard or both, so you have to reboot that PC
maybe even several times before it gets the hang of it. If you haven\'t got all your PC\'s turned on
the round-robin will fail when it comes to a PC not on. images/icons/mad.gif

Anyway if you decide you must have a TrendNet
because the design is soooo cool - just let me know, you can have mine cheap, very cheap images/icons/smile.gif

Bjarne

[Scott Cairns]

I don\'t bother with a KVM at all. I use a free remote desktop program and log into my second DAW over the network.

Works great.

Scott.

[JonFairhurst]

RDP can take significant resources to employ - on the net, from the processor and in memory. Then again, if it works for you and was free, that\'s excellent. I won\'t complain. KVMs aren\'t free, but it\'s nice to know that they don\'t take any additional resources to run.

[Sapkiller]

Hi Scott
I\'ve considered that solution too, but I\'m afraid
it will mess up my MidiOverLan setup.
Do you use MidiOverLan? Problems?

regards
Bjarne

[Scott Cairns]

RDP can take significant resources to employ - on the net, from the processor and in memory. Then again, if it works for you and was free, that\'s excellent. I won\'t complain. KVMs aren\'t free, but it\'s nice to know that they don\'t take any additional resources to run. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Certainly the Microsoft Remote Desktop has a lot of overhead. I think from memory that it uses Active-x Controls and ASP. Of course if it\'s runnning ASP it then also has to run IIS. So that is a pretty huge overhead for one measly application.

I am using Real VNC (\"http://www.realvnc.com\") it\'s about 150k in size and has very little overhead in its operation.


Hi Scott
I\'ve considered that solution too, but I\'m afraid
it will mess up my MidiOverLan setup.
Do you use MidiOverLan? Problems?<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Hi Bjarne I also have MOL but have only been using it to create a named pipe. i.e. to midi up two applications on the same machine.

I admit that I havent tried running VNC and MOL at the same time but I dont think it would be that much of an issue with my setup. My second DAW just runs Giga. If I want to make changes its not in the middle of a song so I dont think VNC snd MOL would really compete as such.

Why not try it? VNC is free so if it doesnt work out you can always scrap it.

Cheers, Scott.

[JohnnyP]

I use Ex.Tend.it it\'s great and my clients are very impressed.
It does take a couple of seconds for keyboard and mouse to respond, BUT midi and audio are not affected.


Sincerely,

[JonFairhurst]

One advantage for the remote desktop solution that the KVM doesn\'t offer is the ability to see two screens at once. (Well, part of two screens anyway - the remote PC is shown in a window.) With a KVM it\'s one or the other.

Sometimes things to wrong, and it\'s nice to be able to send a midi event from one PC and see if it gets received by the other. It\'s tough when you can only see one screen at a time. With an RDP-type solution you can have multiple windows up, press a button to trigger an event on one PC and simultaneously (with a hint of delay) see that the event is received by the other machine.

I\'ll download VNC and give it a try. I\'ll still use the KVM for most of my work, but will be able to use VNC for troubleshooting multi-PC problems.

Thanks for the tip.

[csduke]

Originally posted by JonFairhurst:

... it\'s nice to be able to send a midi event from one PC and see if it gets received by the other. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I have this device call ShuttlePro. It is a USB device which I use to control my sequencer - SONAR in my case. I can PLAY, REC, move fwd abd backwards incrementally (jog & shuttle) or back to the start or finish or set points, unrecord, etc. It has a thirteen programmable buttons in all and very solid. So, I can have GigaStudio displaying and control my sequencer from SP. ShuttlePro (\"http://www.contourdesign.com/shuttlepro/index.htm\")

[JonFairhurst]

ShuttlePro looks very cool. I don\'t think Sibelius supports it though :-( But my Sonic Foundry products do :-)

Recently I had some problem with MidiOverLan. You can press a button on the window in the sending computer and watch a faux-LED on a window in the receiving computer. Luckily one of the PCs on the KVM is a laptop, so I could look at that screen, but the KVM and ShuttlePro don\'t solve this as nicely as the RDP-type solution... But I still would like to have a ShuttlePro :-)

[Scott Cairns]

One advantage for the remote desktop solution that the KVM doesn\'t offer is the ability to see two screens at once. (Well, part of two screens anyway - the remote PC is shown in a window.) With a KVM it\'s one or the other.

Sometimes things to wrong, and it\'s nice to be able to send a midi event from one PC and see if it gets received by the other. It\'s tough when you can only see one screen at a time. With an RDP-type solution you can have multiple windows up, press a button to trigger an event on one PC and simultaneously (with a hint of delay) see that the event is received by the other machine.

I\'ll download VNC and give it a try. I\'ll still use the KVM for most of my work, but will be able to use VNC for troubleshooting multi-PC problems.

Thanks for the tip. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Hi Jon, I forgot to mention that I have left a monitor (an old 15\") plugged into my second DAW so that I can view things directly. One reason was that I have no keyboard or mouse set up on DAW 2 so with the monitor plugged in I can at least see when it has finished booting up and is on the network.

As you mentioned, there is still the viewing window on the main DAW but I just minimize this when I\'m not using it. I have noticed with VNC that there can be a slight delay in picture so by looking at the 15\" monitor directly I dont have to worry about it.

Although not perfect, I\'m happy with the set up and it still beats some of the problems I\'ve heard of when dealing with KVM\'s. And of course, it was free images/icons/smile.gif

Cheers, Scott.

[csduke]

Originally posted by JonFairhurst:
ShuttlePro looks very cool. I don\'t think Sibelius supports it though :-( But my Sonic Foundry products do :-)
<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">ShuttlePro has a configuration app that allows the programming of each of its 13 keys and the shuttle and jog. What you are programming are normal keyboard key stike combination for each key e.g. Key1 = SpaceBar, Key2=Ctrl-P, KeyN=F2, etc. If Sibelius can perform operations, transport or otherwise, from a keyboard input, it will work for you. It just so happend that Contour has some pre-made configurations for Sonar, Sonic Foundry and other.

[JonFairhurst]

Thanks for the tip Craig. I think Sibelius might be touch and go with ShuttlePro. Sibelius is fairly modal - what it does depends on its last state. Also, it\'s not really time-cursor based. It\'s current time is based on the selection of a particular note on a particular staff.

The UI for note entry in Sibelius is really good. You can get things entered quickly without much, if any, mousing around. But the UI for scrolling around and transport control aren\'t nearly as sweet.

I\'d still like to have ShuttlePro for SoundForge, ACID and Vegas. The UI for those products (especially ACID and Vegas) rock.

[csduke]

So I purchased a KVM - IoGear GCS84B MiniView SE 4 port Desktop PS/2 KVM Switch. $99 - $30 mail-in rebate. Works flawlessly so far. Quick switch-between. Good graphics clarity. Nice fit and finish with a solid stand so it can sit upright.

http://www.iogear.com/products/product.php?Item=GCS84B (\"http://www.iogear.com/products/product.php?Item=GCS84B\")

Thanks for all the recommendations gentelman.

PS. I assume I am not violating the NS \"no price\" policy since no NS advertisers sell KVM - to the best of my knowledge.