Playing to TV Issues with VLC

poploser

Guest

So, I connected a TV to my PC for movie watching and after getting everything worked out I watched a DVD using PowerDVD. It worked great. Then I tried to watch some TV I downloaded, which I’d normally watch on my monitor with VLC Player, but the image doesn’t transfer to the TV. It’ll show the desktop, the open VLC window, but where the video is playing on my monitor, the TV screen just shows black.

I’m sure it’s probably a setting somewhere I have to change, but I can’t figure it out. Thoughts or suggestions?

poploser

Guest

Anyone?

poploser

Guest

Um... please help?

Regular
Rep: 6

Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,286

You can only use DirectDraw on one device at the time. DirectDraw basically sends video data straight to the output device (monitor/tv/whatever) without going through the video buffer (in the video card i presume) (so as to speed up performance). (That’s why when you hit print screen for directdraw surfaces you get a black area - print screen only gets data from the video buffer).
OK enough about the intro. As I said I think you can only use one device at the time for DirectDraw. What you’d have to do is switch main display device. Right click on your desktop, go to properties, then go to the settings tab. If you click on the drop-down menu for your display you should have two devices. If you select the other one it will make it the default device.

If this doesn’t work, or you want the video to be displayed on both devices, you can turn off directdraw. Right click your desktop, choose properties. Go to the settings tab, then click advanced. Then click on the troubleshooting tab. Drag the tab all the way to the left (or far enough left to see video on both devices).
Note: Disabling DirectDraw globally can take a big hit on video performance, so i would avoid that method unless there is no other choice.