Overview
What do you do when you just need more desktop space to see all the parts of a project at the same time to keep things coordinated? Get a bigger desk. This is the concept behind multiple monitors and screen spanning. Several Mac models did not come equipped to support this concept, while the installed OS did. Enter the USB external monitor adapter. On a Mac Mini, when reading the directions for a process and you are called to launch the application, it often covers the directions. A second (or third) monitor can be a big help in these instances.

Performance
iMovie is simple enough to operate in basic mode, but if you are trying to make a title slide in Photoshop to import, and audition a few sound effects that are on CD and not in your iTunes Library (why would I load up my iTunes library with thousands of sound effects?), you just don't have the screen real estate to manage the process efficiently. Application swapping is available, but you lose the visual when your sound application is foremost. In this case you really need three screens. The iMac 20" has one internal screen and one External Display port, which does support spanning. You have to use the USB adapter to get a third monitor. The SEE2, the included software and the monitor seemed the solution. Although the current level of performance of this product is limited, I'm optimistic that it will improve.

Package
The package is very complete. The Tritton SEE2 Xtreme adapter is about the size of a digital pocket camera; there is a USB (A) to USB 5 pin mini cable, a DVI to VGA adapter, the CD with installation software, and a Quickstart Guide.

The box clearly defines the contents and their use. It has to be read carefully so as to not read into the specifications what you would like the product to do. Things like "Up to" and "Max" mean just that, not that every configuration will do every thing. The box clearly states "Mac OS X" and "1.5 GHz or higher processor".

The Quickstart Guide and Manual on the CD were much more detailed and helpful than the older printed version in the box.

On the CD are:

1. SEE2 Xtreme Quick Start Guide
2. TRI-UV200_Manual.pdf
3. The Mac Drivers Folder with DMG inside
4. The Windows Install Folder (9 files inside)

Installation & Setup
Installing the TrittonSEE2XtremeMac_080808.dmg driver went smoothly. I then connected the VGA-DVI-SEE2 Xtreme together, then the USB to the iMac and last to the SEE2. The Logo on the SEE2 Xtreme lit yellow and flashed a few times, then stayed lit. All I got was a small white box in the upper left corner of the Oberhofer Monitor. I uninstalled, restarted the Mac (which cleaned out memory and caches) and tried again. After the second Install, I connected the USB, the Yellow light on the SEE2 flickered and the display came up in XGA as hoped for. Next I tried to tune in the color as best as I could. I could not get a match, but that may very well be due to the limited controls on the Oberhofer. There are no refresh rate options, and only thousands and millions in the "Colors" selection. I'm using millions at 1024 x 768.

Once set up, I proceeded to run a series of QuickTime movies with many different compressors and formats, from Truevision6 to avi and H264 to Divx with Perian and Flip4mac. By splitting the movies between both screens I could watch the attempt to refresh and try to keep up to the internal video board. All things considered, Tritton has made vast improvements from their earlier versions. The movies played at the frame rate specified, but the USB monitor could not keep up with the graphics board. In Tritton's defense, most videos with frame rates under 15 and native sizes 320x240 with average motion, played quite well. Clearly the SEE2 is not intended for gaming, but more to give extra screen real estate for more normal uses. This it did well.

I opened QuickTime 7 Pro and set up a "New Recording" of video from the internal camera and moved the window around during the recording. At first the SEE2 side went black when the movie's window was half on that screen. After several drags across the two screens, it started working as desired and I could see the audio and image as it was being recorded. At 640 x 480 it kept up the frame rate quite well, certainly useable. Even when stretched wide across both screens it still played fine.

Upon opening Sound Studio 3.5.5, to attempt spanning a window across the two screens to have a wde view of an audio track, the background screen on the Tritton shifted right 240 pixels and the wrap went haywire, any attempt to drag anything onto the screen went badly and drew strange bits of various open windows in various incorrect places. Switching from XGA to SVGA and back left the same broken refresh on the screen. Detect Displays did not help. The Displays Preferences no longer showed the second screen. Disconnecting the USB, then reconnecting and about 40 seconds of gyrations on the 2nd screen did resolve the issue. My Text windows spanned both screens OK, but the Sound Studio window did not. A second attempt to open Sound Studio went perfect. The screens spanned and the Audio waveform went from screen to screen smoothly. Record, Play and edit all worked well.

I opened Firefox3 (via Airport and FiOS) on the main screen; then a "New" window on the 2nd Monitor. It repeated the performance of Sound Studio and scrambled the screen. Having learned, I disconnected the USB and reconnected, waited for the USB connection to figure things out, and it stabilized. The second time I placed the "New Window" from Firefox on the SEE2 screen, it went just fine. There appears to be a pattern here. Once a setup is tested, the system somehow remembers or adjusts to the new demands and all is OK. In this case I'm using the SEE2 screen to watch Stock tickers and trends, while setting up trades on the other. For this, it's quite well suited. The refresh is plenty fast for stock tickers. Also if you are managing multiple portfolios, you can follow many at a time.

With Airport Connected to Firefox and the Web and three Browser windows open with ads and tickers, I let it go to sleep to see how it would do upon waking with new data on the screens. I even let a piece of the second window span across both screens. Ooops. OK, so it didn't like sleeping with the browser open and locked up the 2nd monitor. When I tried to recover by reconnecting the USB it locked up both screens and the Finder, requiring a ten second power button-forced restart. When restarted, the screen came up correctly. I restored the browsers and relaunched the text docs (save often) and was back in business in a few minutes. I then ran for about 20 minutes before freezing the SEE2 screen again. Reconnect the USB; 25 seconds later, back in business.

Another use is to keep art visible in Photoshop on the main screen while building a PowerPoint presentation on the SEE2 screen. The transitions appeared choppy and animations simply don't all play. In some cases the three bulleted text blocks that preceded an image never made it to the screen. in another case, the title came up but the object's animated zoom only started to zoom in, then stopped about 10% transparent. It became obvious that this arrangement doesn't work. I needed the true color profile for Photoshop on the main screen but had too few adjustments to calibrate the SEE2 screen, so a swap was not acceptable.

Some Mac users build TextEdit rtfd files (text and Multiple media), but when I tried to drag media into a text document on the SEE2 Screen, I got one image on the screen with a paragraph of text, then it froze the screen, with the document fragmented all over the screen. Reconnecting USB solved the issue. A second attempt to build a multimedia document also failed, as did a third. It appears there are limits as to how complex a document one can be (video memory requirements).

Bugs
- Some windows disappeared when dragged to the SEE2 monitor (cursor still visible)
- Occasionally the SEE2 began a series of events leading to total freeze of the OS
- The cursor stutters and soon after, the screen freezes
- Screen drawing splits and fragments
- Sleep mode failed on both my configs. (PPC G4 1.25 dual & Intel Core^TM2 Duo)
- Limited resolutions on some monitors. Only SVGA and XGA were allowed on the Oberhoffer monitor