[Marksman397]

i just recently got a lcd tv and am trying to hook it up to my computer. i have a laptop pc and a 32'' vizio 720p television. i got them to connect using a vga cable seeing as both my laptop and tv have inputs for it. after a while i got it to show up on both, perfect on the tv and the laptop screen was stretched. but the stretching isnt what i car about thats just cuz the resolutions dont match. the problem is i cant get video on my tv. everything else works fine, except when i play video. the video comes up fine on my pc but the video player has a purple screen on the tv. the only time it works is w/ windows media center and youtube. but media center doesnt play mkv, divxx and so on.

any1 kno the problem?

[rgreen4]

There seems to be a mix of issues. If the video plays on the laptop screen then there should be no reason for it not to play on the TV.

Now playing a video on the laptop requires certain elements. If this laptop came pre-configured with Vista Home Peremium, then everything should be in place. Fist make sure all videos play normally on the laptop on the internal screen.

Then hook up the laptop to the TV by connecting not only the VGA ports on both, but also the audio cable. The VGA connection contains no sound information. To get sound, you need to connect an adapter cable to the laptop's headphone port and then connecting the two RCA plugs on the other end to the Red and White audio inputs on the TV. Here is an example:


!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!


Newegg has them from 6" to 25 feet.


If the videos do not play properly on the laptop, please post back with the details on laptop, make and model (never the serial no.) and which OS version. Also give up details of which formats are giving you problems.

[Marksman397]

i know that the vga cable does not produce sound, i have a cable for the sound. i am able to play those videos on my computer no problem at all. i use windows media player classic w/ the k-lite codec pack so i can play anything on my pc. but even avi files which can be played on WMP do not show up on the tv unless used by media center (which cant play anything else).

here are my pc (laptop) specs:
windows xp media center edition (sp 2)
gateway mx6445
1.8 GHz, 1Gig ram

[smax013]

Marksman397 said:

i know that the vga cable does not produce sound, i have a cable for the sound. i am able to play those videos on my computer no problem at all. i use windows media player classic w/ the k-lite codec pack so i can play anything on my pc. but even avi files which can be played on WMP do not show up on the tv unless used by media center (which cant play anything else).

here are my pc (laptop) specs:
windows xp media center edition (sp 2)
gateway mx6445
1.8 GHz, 1Gig ram

When first reading your first post, my initial gut response was HDCP...but since you just mentioned that your are running XP Media Center...NOT Vista, I don't believe that should be an issue. As well, in reality it does not sound like an HDCP type "reponse"...HDCP to my knowledge will still let you play stuff...just not a full resolution, I believe...AND it would not affect something over a VGA cable to my knowledge. In case you are wondering, HDCP is a DRM/copyprotection that is part of HiDef stuff. It will definitely affect Vista computers especially if connecting to a display by way of an HDMI cable.



Back to your problem...



How are you running the TV as the second monitor? Is it in mirrored mode? Or extended desktop mode?



I have to admit that it kind of has me a little stumped, but maybe something will "click" as we go forward.

[Marksman397]

it is not in extended mode, im pretty sure its in mirrored mode, as in both are identical. and im not running any copy-righted stuff, so that isnt the problem cuz all my videos no matter what format (avi, mkv, mpeg-4, quicktime, divX...and so on) run perfectly on my computer just the windows where the video is on the tv is purple!?!?!?

[smax013]

Marksman397 said:

it is not in extended mode, im pretty sure its in mirrored mode, as in both are identical. and im not running any copy-righted stuff, so that isnt the problem cuz all my videos no matter what format (avi, mkv, mpeg-4, quicktime, divX...and so on) run perfectly on my computer just the windows where the video is on the tv is purple!?!?!?

I have a suggestion...don't know if it will work or not, but it is worth a try. Try switching to extended mode and making sure that BOTH the laptop screen and the TV screen are set to their native resolution. If you don't know how to do this, then we can help you with that. Once done with that try playing a video in a window on the TV portion of the extended desktop. I am wondering if the TV is not set to it native resolution and it is "screwing" with the media player...

[rgreen4]

Okay, from your original post, I under stood that you had video on the TV but no sound, which was only on the laptop.

Each laptop when playing video in the normal Windows mode has a toggle to transfer the video from the laptop to the external port. On an HP laptop there is a key between the space bar and the left control key with a blue fn on it. Holding that key and pressing the F4 key (which has a blue TV icon on it) toggles between internal monitor only, external monitor only and both.

You will have to check to see if your Gateway has something similar.

[smax013]

rgreen4 said:

Okay, from your original post, I under stood that you had video on the TV but no sound, which was only on the laptop.

Each laptop when playing video in the normal Windows mode has a toggle to transfer the video from the laptop to the external port. On an HP laptop there is a key between the space bar and the left control key with a blue fn on it. Holding that key and pressing the F4 key (which has a blue TV icon on it) toggles between internal monitor only, external monitor only and both.

You will have to check to see if your Gateway has something similar.

It sounds like the problem is not no video as in no computer desktop displayed on the TV at all...but rather no video as in no video/movies will display when played in a media player...everything else in the Windows interface works fine on the TV, but the content of the video being played in the media player will NOT display within the media player window on the TV screen, but will on the laptop screen when in mirrored mode. At least that is what I understood the problem to be.

[Marksman397]

[quote name='smax013']
>

rgreen4 said:

Okay, from your original post, I under stood that you had video on the TV but no sound, which was only on the laptop.
>
> Each laptop when playing video in the normal Windows mode has a toggle to transfer the video from the laptop to the external port. On an HP laptop there is a key between the space bar and the left control key with a blue fn on it. Holding that key and pressing the F4 key (which has a blue TV icon on it) toggles between internal monitor only, external monitor only and both.
>
> You will have to check to see if your Gateway has something similar.


It sounds like the problem is not no video as in no computer desktop displayed on the TV at all...but rather no video as in no video/movies will display when played in a media player...everything else in the Windows interface works fine on the TV, but the content of the video being played in the media player will NOT display within the media player window on the TV screen, but will on the laptop screen when in mirrored mode. At least that is what I understood the problem to be.

yes, that is correct. the video will not play in the media player itself, even though the time bar, play time and all work, the actual image is blank. i can do everything else on the tv screen (internet, youtube...etc). i tried to make it into an extended monitor previously and for some reason it wouldnt work.

[smax013]

Marksman397 said:

i tried to make it into an extended monitor previously and for some reason it wouldnt work.

You mean you could not get it to shift to Extended mode? Or that you had the same result (i.e. videos not displaying)?



If the former, how did you go about shifting into Extended mode? Just want make sure we are talking about the same thing.

[rgreen4]

Fellas, in a standard situation playing a movie, it will only display on one screen. If for example using a power point slide with an embedded video clip, on one screen you will have the power point frame with the video clip, on the other you will have the power point screen with a black square.

If you have the "bug" for playing the video on both screens, but the clip only shows on one, then you need to toggle to switch to the other screen. After all, we know the connection works as everything else displays. It's not the settings of two vs one screen as again everything else displays.

Find what the Gateway toggle is and try it, as you don't have anything to lose.

[smax013]

rgreen4 said:

Fellas, in a standard situation playing a movie, it will only display on one screen. If for example using a power point slide with an embedded video clip, on one screen you will have the power point frame with the video clip, on the other you will have the power point screen with a black square.

To my knowledge, this is ONLY true for PowerPoint. PowerPoint has a special setting that will allow the presentation to show on one screen and have the presentation notes with a smaller version of the slide on the other. This is to allow the presenter to see his/her notes while not showing them to the people seeing the presentation. I am not aware of a similar function in anything else (maybe in competing presentation program, but not a media player program). I could be wrong...don't have too many occasions to put a computer into mirror mode...although I will note that my MacBook Pro display video just fine on BOTH screens when in mirror mode...but since that is the Mac OS, that does not really help...I might try booting up in Windows on the MacBook Pro to see what I can do...never tried multiple screens in Windows on the MacBook Pro. I shall experiment and present back...in the name of science and what not!

[smax013]

smax013 said:

TI shall experiment and present back...in the name of science and what not!

Experiment completed...booted into Windows in Bootcamp with screen mirrored to my projector down in the family room. Video played fine on both screens at that same time. I did not have any content in Windows Media Player to test, but my SlingPlayer (connects to my cable box to display my cable picture on the computer)displays the video picture on both screens just fine. And going to YouTube and playing YouTube videos works just fine.

[Marksman397]

hey guys i finally got it to work. if i had only one screen on at a time the videos worked wich is fine w/ me. and the toggle thing helped as well, seeing as its much more convinient then having to go into properties everytime i want to do this. thanks for all your help!

[smax013]

Marksman397 said:

hey guys i finally got it to work. if i had only one screen on at a time the videos worked wich is fine w/ me. and the toggle thing helped as well, seeing as its much more convinient then having to go into properties everytime i want to do this. thanks for all your help!

Might be that your laptop's graphics system could not fully drive the two monitors at the same time when you ran some thing more "complex". The other possibility is resolution bit. You might be able to kind of verify the second one...run it with the laptop screen only and see what resolution it is using, then run it with the TV only and see what resolution it is running, and then run it in mirror mode and see what resolution it is running. If it was an incompatible resolution, then the second and third modes will have different resolutions most likely...with the third mode being the resolution that is NOT likely the native resolution of the TV.



Anyways, glad you got a solution.