Video wont Play on second monitor

[aqctv]

We just reformatted our hard drive and put Win 2000 on our computer. I can get powerpoint to play fine on the second monitor but if I try to play a MPG Video file all I get is a black screen on the second monitor., same thing using Media Player 9 and Power DVD. I ran into this once before and fixed it but for the life of me I can't remember how

[wjferguson]

If your PC has a video/svideo out, try disabling them, so the only video devices you have are your 2 monitors.

Bill

[soulcast]

My bud Brian Busch helped me with the same issue. It's an activeX problem from what I remember. Some video cards can't display video out the second monitor or something to that effect. I'll find him and have him get in the loop...

[[Admin] osborn4]

If you can upgrade to WinXP Professional, it makes all things dual-monitor easier, particularly with dual headed video cards.

I don't know that it would fix this exact problem, but other things will just be easier.

[jcrocksmyfaceoff]

I have this similar problem with my laptop - it has a s-video out (or monitor out obviously), but the problem is - when i hook it up to a projector, to get any like video (mpg or dvd,.etc), i have to make the projector the primary display, and let my laptop be a blank screen while the video is playing. I have XP Pro, and the graphics card is a mobility radeon 9600. Anyone have any ideas?

[Mod: ebbersmom]

Clone? or TV/Analog. We have a similar problem in that it plays on the monitor in front of the operator & on the screen, but not on the stage tv monitors. I gave up trying for fear of messing up the projector. If it works close enough, don't fix it!

[jcrocksmyfaceoff]

it's being done as TV/Analog, because I can't get the stupid thing to setup as a clone, so i'm wondering if i could figure it out, if it would then work. But seeing as it's only my screen, and the projector, I want to figure it out, i'm almost positive it's a setting on my laptop, but I guess it could maybe be the projector, but yeah, I really want to get this figured out, cuz it's way too bazaar for me to just ignore, but I have run dry on ideas.

[[Admin] osborn4]

We had a problem like this with our ATI Radeon X300 SE card (Note: DO NOT let Dell talk you into one of these).....

Anyway, video would be fine on the primary, but when we dragged it over to the secondary, the video was all scrambled.

A new set of drivers from Dell took care of that problem.

I've found that keeping your video drivers up to date is generally a good thing.

[jcrocksmyfaceoff]

seeing as ATI Mobility cards are manufacturer dependent, and the manufacturer of my laptop doesn't update them, this would not be possible, unless ATI has released an updated generic version of the mobility driver.. (was there ever such a thing even, i do not remember), as soon as I am done with this post, i will be looking

[Bryan Surrett]

We just took delivery of our new VAIO Windows XP Media Edition, dual screen projection pc two weeks ago. I have run into the same difficulty of showing a video outside of EW, PP on the 2nd monitor. MP10 only shows MPEG on monitor 1. I am guessing all video programs will exhibit the same problem. This is extremely frustrating! My home pc has a Radeon 8500 with dvi & s-video out. I can only view videos on monitor 1, the tv screen (monitor 2) will only show a blank window. So much for dual screen functionality!!! I've read that this is a Microsoft limitation, don't know if that is true or not. Any help out there??

[jcrocksmyfaceoff]

I was using MP10 for mpg, and PowerDVD for the DVD, and that same thing happened for me - and yes, I also heard it was a microsoft issue, maybe i'll browse their help center, see if there is a fix, or hack or something that they know of (hack isn't the right word.. mod sounds better, yes, mod)

I'll post again with my findings

[TL5]

I run into this problem a lot (I'm a full time AV Engineer) with laptops. It's my understanding (but I could be wrong) that it is a function of the VGA Adapter. Some models (and/or card-driver combinations) can handle it, some can't. It was described to me by a PC engineer as having something to do with the way the VGA processes the data, integrated adapters being worse than card adapters. In some cases there's just not of enough 'horsepower' to operate two monitors with that much data.

On a laptop, you can ususally switch from primary, to secondary, to dual screen mode via a function/Fkey combination. This varies mfg to mfg (even model to model) but look for a monitor icon in alternate color or "CRT/LCD" on an f key. (it's F8 on my Dell Inspiron 4100). Press function and this Fkey and the machine will rotate through the display settings.

SOMETIMES, if you cycle through the settings back to dual screen mode then the display will work as you desire. In most cases, I end up switching to the projector display only, and having the black screen locally. The 'audience' gets to see the material. Any frustration is limited to just me.

If there's a software fix - I'd love to know what it is.