In fact, when looking at the technical specifications of a product (be it a monitor or any other), there are many acronyms and abbreviations that manufacturers use, so either you bother to find what they are. are exactly, either you have done it before in the past and that is why you know them because otherwise they will be overlooked and you might have a product that can do a lot for you without you knowing it. This is precisely the case with PiP technology.
What is PiP (Picture in Picture) technology
PiP is of course Picture in Picture in English, or translated into Spanish, picture in picture. As its name suggests, it allows just that: when a monitor has several video inputs, allows you to use both simultaneously and insert one image into another. In other words, with PiP, you necessarily have a main image that takes up the entire screen and a secondary image that occupies a small box in the main one; A comparison would be when you watch a streamer play live and see the game as the main game and in a small box the person themselves.
As a general rule, if a monitor is compatible with PiP technology, it will be configurable, so that one can choose both the position of the frame with the secondary image and its size, even if it is true that in relation to to the latter, we usually can’t completely customize it, but just select whether we want small, medium, large, etc.
We repeat the fact that for this to work two video sources are needed with the same monitor, and this is important to consider for the next two sections which we will discuss next.
And what about the sound?
A reasonable question that may arise when using a monitor’s PiP mode is: if the monitor has built-in speakers (as can also be the case with a TV), to from which of the two video sources the sound be heard? Will they mix?
The answer is very simple: from any video source of your choice, but never both at the same time. Due to the existing hardware and video connections and as you may know, for example, an HDMI cable is able to carry video and audio signal at the same time, and when setting up PiP mode on the monitor, you must necessarily select one or the other video source as the main one. There are some monitors that don’t let you choose and use the audio from the primary video source, but there are others that let you select the audio from the secondary if you want to.
In short, since we are talking about digital audio and video, we have to choose the audio from one or the other video source, but never both at the same time.
What can you use PiP technology for?
We could really say that this technology isn’t exactly “necessary” as such, but it can be useful for many things, such as:
- See the moving image on the screen while you are working on the PC.
- Watch a TV signal on the monitor while using the rest of the screen for work.
- Watch a recording from a camera in a small box while taking notes on the main screen.
- When playing the console on the main screen, you can see the image of your PC recording in PiP.
The possibilities are really quite large, always keeping in mind that you have to have two independent video signals by necessity, and by that we mean that it would be useless if, for example, you connect the HDMI output and a DisplayPort of the same to your graphics card, since the image would be the same and, in fact, the computer would detect it (the monitor would too).