Control power on and off over network for two projectors

[skinnayyy]

I work at a school and we(the IT department) are trying to streamline everything to make our systems idiot.. i mean user proof.

One of the more recent items are our projectors.
We use NEC NP1000 projectors in all of our classrooms.
NEC has supportware called PC Control Utility that we are using in two of the classrooms to turn on and off the projectors. It's a button on the desktop that you click on that turns the projectors on and off over the network. Works really well on single projectors.

The problem we are having is that we have 1 classroom with two projectors in it that we want to have the same control over. We want to be able to power on and off both projectors at the same time with a click of the button. We don't need control singly over either of them. They are always displaying the same content and they are always both on, or both off.

Any ideas on how to have a control like this? we want to do this over the network as the cable runs that we would have to go through if we were to run more cable isn't exactly... fun.

Also in the future we will set up the projectors to turn off at a specific time, or if they've been idle for x amount of time.. etc. so if there's an all in one solution to this that would be even better.

Thanks in advance!

 

[cpf]

The (hardware) "all in one" solution you speak of is Crestron, AMX, and the like. Most require expensive programming using software that is restricted to Manufacturer-approved dealers.

When you say there's an icon that people click to turn on an off the one projector - I assume this is a shortcut on the desktop of a PC? Is it actually a single doubleclick to change the power state? Can you create two of these shortcuts - one for each projector - and have them work independently? If all of these are true, it should be quite easy to write a .bat file to trigger the power on/off on both projectors at once, based on the targets of the individual shortcuts.

 

[skinnayyy]

The button that I was referring to is a small piece of software that NEC has. It's call PC Control Utility 3.0. We have the projectors connected via network and the software runs on start up and just has a small button that is just a power button. When you want to turn on the project you click the power button, when you want it off, you click the power button. The only downside is that with this you can only have one projector selected at a time so having both projectors turn on would require to turn on the projector and then set up the other projector to turn on. Having the "Users" do anything other than push a button is troublesome for them so we really need to make this the simplest we possibly can for them.

Also, we don't really have a budget for hardware. We had a proposal for a different expenditure for other projector hardware that got shot down so I don't think we'll have any money for new hardware.

 

[museav]

Have you asked NEC about this? PC Control Utility is intended to be used for a single projector while PC Control Utility Pro supports multiple projectors, but may let any users to see and control all projectors. It looks like the latest version compatible with your projectors, PC Control Utility Pro 4, allows creating groups that could be used for something like grouping multiple projectors in a room so you select the "Room XYZ" group and only the relevant projectors are shown but I do not believe you can eliminate someone having access to the 'All Projectors' group.

I believe the general concept was that PC Control Utility might be used in a room and PC Control Utility Pro by a technician or administrator supporting multiple rooms. But NEC may have some hints on how to make it work for your application.

 

[skinnayyy]

Have you asked NEC about this? PC Control Utility is intended to be used for a single projector while PC Control Utility Pro supports multiple projectors, but may let any users to see and control all projectors. It looks like the latest version compatible with your projectors, PC Control Utility Pro 4, allows creating groups that could be used for something like grouping multiple projectors in a room so you select the "Room XYZ" group and only the relevant projectors are shown but I do not believe you can eliminate someone having access to the 'All Projectors' group.

I believe the general concept was that PC Control Utility might be used in a room and PC Control Utility Pro by a technician or administrator supporting multiple rooms. But NEC may have some hints on how to make it work for your application.

After reading more and more into we are putting the PC Control Pro on a network server to always be running so we can have the scheduler running. And then we can set up the rooms like you said. That's the main solution we are looking for. I didn't even know there was a different version of the PC Control Utility.

One thing that I'm really intrigued about though, is if there is a way to set up the projector that it will turn off if the computer it's connected to goes to sleep? Or is that something that is usually built in to projectors where if it displays the blue screen for long enough it turns off?

I'm really new to all this stuff and I only have so much time to read about it in between doing everything else.

Thank you again for your help.

 

[ruinexplorer]

Most projectors will have a setting in the menu to power down if no signal is present. Usually the default time is five minutes. I'd look at Power Management in the Options portion of the menu.

EDIT: page 97 of the manual (107 in the pdf)

 

[skinnayyy]

Most projectors will have a setting in the menu to power down if no signal is present. Usually the default time is five minutes. I'd look at Power Management in the Options portion of the menu.

EDIT: page 97 of the manual (107 in the pdf)

thank you very much. i don't know why i didn't think of that! i guess that solves all my issues!!