Playback of DVD's on multi monitors not working

[cozment]

I've got a PC at church that runs our multimedia powerpoints, etc. We have a dual monitor out Geforce card. 1 output goes to the main monitor and the second output is split amoung 2 46" Toshiba TV's. Everything works perfect except some DVD movies. If I play a DVD using realplayer, windows media player, or several other free DVD player software packages, I can see the video window just fine on the main monitor. But if I take the video window that is currently playing a movie and move it to the second monitor which represents my TV screens, I can see the video window on the TV screens but it does not show the video. The window that I'm moving over is blank on the tV's. I move the window back to the main monitor and the video is showing just fine. I"m totally confused about this one! Help! The same goes for any type of video playback software i work with.

[redwudz]

That sounds like a video overlay problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_overlay It's commonly a problem with video playback. Windows screens usually aren't affected. Other members can probably give you a better explanation and some ways to deal with it.

And welcome to our forums.

[Baldrick]

Yep, it's probably because of overlay. You can test it by try turn off overlay/hardware acceleration in windows media player, under Tools->options->performance->video acceleration and drag the slider to none and then play the video.

You can also set the secondary monitor to the primary monitor in the display properties and the video should then work on that monitor.

[Bjs]

Have you enabled cloning in the nvidia display properties ?

[cozment]

Sorry guys. I was wrong about the video card. It's an Radeon HD4870 and not nvidia.

[Bjs]

Well what ever it is ... if it has tv out funtion and to save much time and effort Id say for you to go find and a/v break out box type

One with single input ... and splits the incoming source out to multiple screen's ... this avoids annoying problems with media players and hardware acceleration overlay fiddling about.

As for the system, ati control panel should have cloning features, but there's a limit ... this break out box is simple to construct from parts acquired from tandy electronics, dick smith, radio shack, ect ... simple soldering skills required or do it the old way dick smith kits used to be assembled on board.

I have the circuit here somewhere if you want it ... includes anti ghosting feature ... last time I made it cost $30.00au

[lordsmurf]

Overlay can only work on one monitor at a time on my dual setup.

[olyteddy]

Overlay also works with only one program at a time so you can start an instance of VLC (for example) and that will use the Overlay. Any subsequent player will be forced into a non accelerated mode.