Primary vs Secondary Monitor

[RKennison]

I have my widescreen monitor setup as primary, and my HD 42" plasma setup as my secondary.

I can run BTV just fine on the primary, but when i move it to the secondary monitor, the screen goes black. Any idea's? I'd HATE to use it as primary. every screen that pop's up will go over to the tv. I've tried using WinTV2k etc, none of those programs seem to have the same issues.

Also, I'm noticing that my cable box , using coax to the HDTV, shows up looking pretty sweet, yet when i do it though the pc using 720 or 1080, it get's "jitters", soft picture, and in general just looks like hell. Do i need to set my pc to treat the HDTV as a lower resolution device to make the picture look good again?

[thundermax]

what video card do you have?

providing other specs would be helpful too.

I'm thinking that you may not have enough to power both. When I run dual monitors, I can use my PC fine, but with BTV running I can only use the clone option for my setup.

[RKennison]

I have a AMD 3800+ with 3gig ram, PCI-E 6800GT, and 1.5 TB of SATA2 storage. If i flip it so the TV is primary, i get picuture, but never on secondary.

[Bigbird999]

BTV has to run on the primary monitor. The best you can do if you have an ATI vid card is run in clone mode.

BB

[Kilrsat]

http://snapstream.helpserve.com/inde...articleid=1436

[kramsauer]

Uh, this is the exact opposite of what I experience. I have a second display (straight up old school TV) that I run BTV in overlay mode on. Works without a problem. Did I just jinx myself?

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by Bigbird999

BTV has to run on the primary monitor. The best you can do if you have an ATI vid card is run in clone mode.

BB

I'm just wondering after reading the SS article about using two displays does clone mode (ATI Video Cards) use more CPU then just primary display? I'm thinking of trying to switch my output to just the TV (primary display) on the BTV Link machine and see if it solves the jerkiness issues I've been experiencing on it due to CPU spikes on it.

I don't have issues on the server BTV machine even though I use clone mode on it also so I'll probably leave that alone.

[Bigbird999]

kram
When you say overlay, do you mean full screen overlay without the controls, just the video, while BTV is running on the primary screen in a small window?

BB

[tscales]

No, overlay is just a way to display video.

I've never had good luck with BTV on the secondary. But I dedicate machines to TVs, so I don't care

[Bigbird999]

tscales
With ATI video cards, there is a theater mode option (used to be called overlay in old software) When selected, you output whatever video is playing on any software (BTV, Link, VLC, ATI MMc, etc) to your secondary monitor (or TV) in full screen mode -just full screen video, no OSD etc. Your video player stays on your primary monitor in either windowed mode or full screen. It has all the controls and OSD. It does not have to stay in focus so you can do other work on your PC while BTV runs in the background and whatever file you are playing continues to display full screen on the secondary monitor. When you want to change channels shows etc, you click the BTV icon in the task bar and bring it in focus change channels and send it back to the background. I have been doing this for years on my all purpose computer.

In fact I often watch 2 football games at the same time one in ATI MMC - full screen on my secondary display and one in Link windowed mode on my primary display and surf the net or work on documents at the same time.

It is not useful for a dedicated PVR due to no OSD, but to watch TV while using your computer it is a perfect solution . There are no CPU or other issues - IT JUST WORKS!

BB

[kramsauer]

Originally Posted by Bigbird999

kram
When you say overlay, do you mean full screen overlay without the controls, just the video, while BTV is running on the primary screen in a small window?

BB

No. Overlay as in the setting within BTV (as opposed to 3d accelerated). The window is on the secondary monitor, complete with all the controls, EPG, etc. I've fiddled with settings before and gotten the thing you've described above, and this is different.

[risen]

Originally Posted by Bigbird999

BTV has to run on the primary monitor. The best you can do if you have an ATI vid card is run in clone mode.BB

Actually I don't think this is true. I have an ATI X1300 and was able to play BTV on the secondary. I did have to spend a good deal of time fiddling around in Catalyst to do it though.

Once I got it working, BTV would give me a few error message boxes, saying "using reference rasterizer", "warning, nothing will be displayed", etc. 3 in all. But after I hit OK, it would play just fine regardless of the warnings.

If I remember correctly, I had to be using the "Hardware" option in BTV (as opposed to Overlay), and in Catalyst right-click the secondary and use the "Swap Displays" option.

Maybe if you try a few times you will figure it out too. If so, please write it up here for other people. If not, I'll try to do it again and post it here. (I no longer need to do that, it's been a couple weeks since I had it working)

Just thought worth mentioning that it is possible because I've done it...

[richfiddler11]

I'm able to get video on my second monitor with some decode options, but not others.

My secondary monitor works fine if either 3D Acceleration is turned on or if I use the Snapstream basic decoder or either Intervideo (NonCSS/normal).

I get a black screen on the secondary (but not the primary) monitor with either the SnapStream Video/SP Decoder or the Nvidia Video decoder.

FYI, yy setup is a PVR-250, Nvidia GeForce FX5200/256MB with dual VGA outputs, 3GHz P4/Intel965. BTV 4.5.

[mlomker]

Originally Posted by richfiddler11

My secondary monitor works fine if either 3D Acceleration is turned on or if I use the Snapstream basic decoder or either Intervideo (NonCSS/normal).

The Snapstream basic is the only one that works for me on the secondary display. It uses twice the processor as the primary. My understanding is that the basic decoder is able to emulate direct3d in software and that's why it takes more processor power.

Vista doesn't have these issues, so whenever Snapstream updates for Vista we won't have to deal with this.

[hpmoon]

Related to this issue, I am trying to get a multi-monitor (more than two) setup going, using two video cards. I started a new thread, but am hoping for input from anyone who may be able to help. Thanks!

Problem with two video cards, more than two displays