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Comment by doctorhandshake | Hacker News Reader

I have an OG JetKVM and it works solidly but the thing that prevents me from using it is no video pass through. The awkwardness of an ‘invisible’ monitor connected to windows at all times is hard to live with - windows and apps open there and I’m constantly having to pull them back to an another monitor. My next KVM will be pass through for this reason, but the consumer ones seem to top out at 4k30, which is not great either.

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why not just configure Windows to mirror the displays? That seems a lot cheaper and more flexible than pass through. And you wouldn't need to worry about matching resolutions and refresh rates

In that case I’d need a 1080 physical display on the machine mirrored to the KVM. For the type of stuff I’m doing that’s a bad use of monitor / desk real estate.

Same complaint. The 1080p cap when mirroring is annoying and when it acts like a third screen it becomes a real nuisance.

Would a HDMI dummy plug work?

Then you can’t see what you’re doing. It’ll run with the HDMI unplugged but at that point you’re undoing a core reason for using it to begin with.

I think I misunderstood the original problem

it doesn't seem like Windows makes it easy, but it's not really required that mirror'd displays must have the same resolution. Sure can throw fancier and more powerful hardware at it, but this is something software could rather easily do

HDMI splitter that supports downscaling

The higher-end GL-iNet Comets have passthrough. I have the 5G cellular equipped one connected to my OpenBSD home router so if I lose Internet connectivity at home while I am traveling, I can still debug and do something about it.

Yeah that’s what I have my eye on but 4k@30 is just shy of the full 4k@60 goal.

Look at the nanokvm pro. 4k@45 with pass through.

In all my years of pixels, never before has 45p come across my transom

Would a splitter fix this?

Only if these KVM accepted higher resolutions and refresh rates than their expected ~1080p60

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