DisplayLink LCD Controller [closed]

Question

I want a small portable monitor (7 in) that can connect to my USB drive for power and picture (DisplayLink). I've found some cheap lcd screens, such as http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1024x600-Resolution-7-inch-LCD-Display_60134896431.html . I've been researching controller kits and have been somewhat confused on what I need to connect the lcd screen to the usb port on my computer. I know I'll need to use a displaylink somehow, but I haven't found any kits that incorporate the displaylink chip. Any ideas on where to start on this?

Answer 1

Most of the DisplayLink USB video controller chips are designed to drive a computer monitor type video interface such as VGA or DVI. The small video display that you show appears to have a generic OEM embedded type interface. These will not connect directly to most of the DisplayLink chips.

Use of the DisplayLink video chip is not going to generally work in a dedicated embedded type environment. They are intended to be used on main stream computers with specific operating systems supporting a high performance HOST USB software stack. And then you would have to make use of the DisplayLink drivers for that OS. I have found in the past that the DisplayLink drivers are tightly coupled to the Graphics Device Interface layer in the OS. In fact if one tries to configure an OS such as Windows or Windows/Server as a headless system without generic video board support the Display Link drivers do not even work......so it is not possible to get off the shelf plug and play standalone USB video capability.

You would have a HUGE HUGE mountain of software to write in order to get the USB interfaced DisplayLink controller to work on an embedded system. Is it possible to do it? - technically yes but it would not be a walk in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon.