Duet Display Free Download
Silvio Orbino
We accomplish this by turning your mobile device into a second display using the USB to 30 Pin, lightning, or USB-C connection. It is far more stable than Wi-Fi, especially for people on the go. You don't have to worry about your 802.11n network, your router settings, whether you're on a VPN, or if you're downloading or uploading too much data to use your display. Duet just works.
Duet is (as you may have heard...) created by a team of ex-Apple display engineers. Our area of expertise is specifically doing what Duet promises. We build a very high quality product and stress-ease of use and reliability.
Duet Display has been around a little over two years. The software enables one to use an iPad or iPhone as a display when connected to a Mac or PC. At first blush, this seems like an expensive way to add a display to a music server, when one can be purchased for a few hundred dollars almost anywhere. However, I had other thoughts. The iPad is versatile and much more aesthetically appealing than any computer display near this price. It's also small and can be run off power straight from the music server (for better or worse).
I originally thought about using an iPad as a display by placing it on my equipment "rack" between the loudspeakers. This display would harken back to the days of placing the large LP cover where it was visible, while playing music. I could connect this iPad to any of my PC or Mac music servers, and place the servers out of visible range. Keep in mind that a wired Lightning connection is required from the computer to the iOS device.
Ideally, I would setup the music server to display the playback application on the iPad. Some applications feature really nice Now Playing screens, while others don't offer much that's appealing from 10 feet away. I tried Roon running on the iPad Air 2 display, but the visual is pretty underwhelming. Roon offers some information and a small image of the album cover. Certainly nothing I can't see with a glance over to my iPad while it's sitting next to me in my listening chair.
I tried the old standard iTunes, as well as Audirvana, and Amarra, but none of them really did it for me. I couldn't find a "Now Playing" type of screen that would give me the information I wanted on a display that would be 10 feet away, in between my loudspeakers. Just like the old album jackets.
The only app that really has anything going for it, with respect to an iOS display, is JRiver Media Center. I installed Duet Display from the app store on my iPad Air 2, and on my MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra / Windows 10 (Boot Camp). This way I could test both Windows and Mac on the same hardware and hardware that I would actually use as a music server.
The simplest view is Display View. This is very similar to the old school LP. It just displays the album cover at full screen. With the iPad placed between my speakers, it presents a nice visual, that also doubles as a touchscreen display if I want to get out of my chair to make an adjustment for some reason or another.
An even better use of Duet Display, JRiver Media Center, and the iPad is when JRMC is placed in Theater View. After getting help from JRiver's Jim Hillegass on setting Theater View to 60% in the JRMC options, the display was perfect size, even though the iPad is only 1024x768. There are several views within Theater View that can be used in this instance. The Now Playing screen and the Info screen are my two favorites. The Now Playing screen is for those with a bit more ADHD than I. It continuously rolls through images of the artist and the album cover of the currently playing track. Beneath the images, it displays the artist, track name, and total time of the tracks. This text is very small. Don't expect to see it from 10 feet away when it's displayed on an iPad. It wasn't designed for this scenario.
My preferred way to view JRMC on the iPad is the Info panel in Theater View. This very panel is customizable. I set it to display information such as artist, album, track #, track, time remaining, dynamic range, file format, bit depth, sample rate, and bitrate. Again, the text is small because I set the screen to 60%. Adjusting this setting increases the text size. Users will have to play with this setting because the text can be displayed larger at the sacrifice of cutting off some data at the bottom of the screen. If you're not displaying too much info, like I am, then setting it to 100% will be totally fine and the text will be large enough to read at 10 feet. In addition to the information and album art, the Info Panel displays artist images in the background. It's a nice visual.
How is this different from just running JRemote or Gizmo on an iPad? I kept asking myself this question because there are some similarities and some feature overlap. For some people the Duet Display solution doesn't make any sense, but for others it just might be what they need. The thing about the Duet Display, iPad, and JRiver Media Center combination is that it's a full functional display with touch capability that can operate the compute to which it's connected. Also, the remote apps running on iOS were designed to be displayed to your eyes from an arm's length. Placing them 10 feet away isn't that desirable.
There's one caveat to consider when using with a Mac Mini music server. Without a main display connected, you may need an HDMI display emulator. I was unable to test this or the need for it, I just know in some situations this emulator is needed. Here is a little discussion in the forum (link).
After using Duet Display for a few days, I realized it's calling may be for music lovers short of desktop space or at a coffee shop. I started using the app to display my music playback application of choice. Be that JRiver Media Center, Roon, Audirvana, Amarra, Tidal, iTunes, or Spotify. Connecting my iPad Air 2 to my iMac and attaching my iPad directly to my MacBook Pro with a Mountie by Ten One Design, gave me extra real estate that I could repurpose any time I needed. It's not a dedicated monitor, but it acts like one when I need it to and I can take it over to my listening chair to be a fully functional remote control whenever I want.
The ability to drag windows, ad use my mouse, from my main screen to this iPad second display was incredibly handy. Sure, I could have just launched the Tidal app on my iPad, but it's so much better to search using my full keyboard and mouse. In addition, the ability to attach any USB DAC I want to my laptop or iMac is much better than finding a DAC to work with the iPad. Duet Display as an extension of one's desktop / laptop is really where this app shines.
Roon worked when connected to my 5k iMac in landscape mode but not MacBook pro. In portrait mode the minimum roon windows size was too wide and maximizing the window turned the main display black on the iMac. Roon in portrait connected to the MacBook Pro was abysmal.
iTunes worked in portrait mode on iMac 5K but it's a touch too wide. Setting it to full screen turned the main display black. Note that in portrait mode and when viewing the Now Playing screen (as seen in the photo) Tidal offers a search box that's accessible on the iPad.
Duet Display is cool. I found it not too long ago. If one does not already have an iPad, ASUS makes a portable display that is a bit bigger ( ) for less money. This facilitates spreadsheets and other work items a bit better. Next time I am on the road I will be testing the triple monitor setup:-) Hmmm....I have a Galaxy Tablet also...Quad monitor?
Really? Not only are there wireless monitors. There are adapters to make a normal monitor/tv display a signal received wirelessly. If you wanted to get really serious you could hook up a projector and use the wall/speaker/floor/??? as an illuminated screen that doesn't place any electronics in close proximity to your audio gear.
One way to display ROON on a large screen is to do AirPlay mirroring with an Apple TV. Then whatever is displayed on iPad screen will be on tv monitor. One can adjust the screen size controls on your monitor so ROON gets the whole screen to display on monitor.
You've gone from small less than 10" iOS device to display album art, to running a noisy projector and displaying a huge image on the wall. If that's what you're in to, that's cool. It's just not what this article is about or what the product is for.
Well, I mentioned the full gamut of more up to date solutions and ended with an overkill example. Who am I to say the person with a 100K in stereo equipment didn't just replace their bedroom projector. Much less has an original ipad era square business monitor collecting dust they could plug a wireless adapter into. Setting up a second window in your preferred player software to just display album art is hardly rocket science.
Can you recommend a simple solution to display large album art and possibly other information, similar to the size of an LP jacket? This should be placed between the speakers on an equipment rack or similar.
I have experimented with VNC in the past, to create a virtual second screen to my Linux Notebook, then connect to it with a VNC client. It worked, but was complete trash to use, as there was a significant latency on the tablet-display which really made it hard to mark and edit Text for example.
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