Are there any external KVMs that allow a PbP mode?

burburbur

Weaksauce
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Mar 14, 2017
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I'm looking for a KVM switch that will allow two computers to display side by side on the same monitor and be controlled by the same KB/Mouse. Similar to the built in switches in large displays that have PiP and PbP features. Does anything like this exist? The new 48" OLED seems to be ideal for my usage, but I need to be able to use two computers on the same display.
 
Either of these should do your trick

https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/

https://symless.com/synergy

Personally, I use Multiplicity.

And I like Synergy because it's cross-platform, and in the Ubuntu repos; but the latest versions for windows are paid software.
I occasionally think about paying and updating.

If all the machines are Windows there is always Mouse Without Borders: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460
 
Either of these should do your trick

https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/

https://symless.com/synergy

Personally, I use Multiplicity.

And I like Synergy because it's cross-platform, and in the Ubuntu repos; but the latest versions for windows are paid software.
I occasionally think about paying and updating.

If all the machines are Windows there is always Mouse Without Borders: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460

Do these programs let you see 2 computers on 1 screen?
 
Barrier is a fork of old free Synergy, ShareMouse is a paid one but has a better UI than the others. All the apps mentioned will just allow control of mouse and keyboard across multiple computers, nothing to do with displaying things.

For showing multiple computers on one screen, the easiest way is that the display itself supports Picture by Picture mode. Note that some monitors implement this in a stupid way so if the display is for example 4K, they will scale down two 4K images side by side when what you really want is 1920x2160 + 1920x2160. It's often really hard to find any reasonable information about PbP performance because nobody reviews that so monitor manual is the best source of info.

I looked into this as I am also considering the LG 48" model and its lack of PbP features is disappointing. These large TVs would be perfect as they have the inputs, resolution and size for this but manufacturers have completely ditched the feature.

There are devices called "multi-viewers" that will take in X number of inputs and output to a single screen but a lot of them are bulky rack units, don't support high resolutions like 4K @ 60 Hz. The ones that do seem to be very expensive as these are mostly regarded as professional gear.

Another option is running your main OS and then using remote desktop to a Windows machine so you can then just scale that window to half of your monitor. This seemed like the most cost effective way as multi-viewers that do 4K 60 Hz are as expensive as the TV itself.

Finally if you have the space you can just put up more monitors. You would probably want a heavy duty monitor arm for the LG TV in the first place so another arm holding a smaller monitor you can push out of the way could work. On MacOS casting the screen to an iPad using MacOS Catalina's Sidecar feature also works pretty great.
 
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