Tv and TV only

[chromium]

I'm planning to setup a PC conected to a TV all the time. No monitor whatsoever, just the TV. So far so good,
..but there is something very frustrating.
When i play a DVD or an mpeg file, I always get full screen. And I lose all control over what's happening,right-clicking, using the keyboard.. nothing works.
By sheer frustration I hitched up a monitor as well and was surprised to see that when a movie is playing on my TV and I try to get to the controls, they show up on the monitor and I can set anything I want. Meantime the image on the TV stays frozen until I continue the player (by checking the monitor)
this is quite frustrating as I wanted to be monitor-free and just use the TV.
Any ideas how I can solve this ??
I tried disabeling DVDmax and this time I do get the movie in a window on my TVscreen, but the window stays black. Very weird. The movie plays fine on the monitor but at the same time the same window on the TV-screen is just a frame with nothing inside...
My ideal setup would be to have full screen DVD / avi /mpg on my TVscreen that I can configure by right clicking or using the keyboard..
I use WinDVD for DVD viewing and MicroDVD or Mediaplayer for Mpeg/avi files

[Indiana]

Simply turn off DVDMax. You can still adjust the screen-size to get rid of the black borders.

[chromium]

I tried that...
What I got was a windowed display which i could adjust (which I wanted) but the window where the Mpeg or the DVD should have been playing was just black..
When I hooked up a monitor to the first head to check, the video was plaing fine on the monitor. The TV screen was an exact copy of the monitor except that the window where the movie was playing showed nothing.

Danke shön für ihren hilfe (or something like that)

[Indiana]

Oh yes, seems I didn't read your first post to the end...
But, strange enough this setting (Clone mode w/o DVDMax) works here exactly the way you want it to (and this is as it should, I suppose).
Which OS are you using? I guess in Win2k due to the damn M$-caused dualhead restrictions you might not get Overlays working on the secondary output. I never tried that myself, although I nearly only use Win2k, watching DVD is - together with gaming - the only reason for booting into 98SE. When will Creative finally get the SP/DIF working in Win2k??

If you're using Win98 you should probably try to lower your resolution/depth.

Joachim

P.S.: It's "Danke schön für Ihre Hilfe"

[chromium]

Hmmm..
I'm using Win98 because I know it's still the best platform with a working drivers/universal support platform.
The PC I'm typing on right now is using WinME and the server is using Win2000.

I'm having a little brainstorm...could it be that the video I was trying to show on the TV was a Divx in the 'wrong' resolution ??
Hmmm Could be. I set up the PC next to the TV again tonight and try a DVD or a VCD...
Maybe they dissabling DVDmax will work

thanx for the reply... and hey I was pretty close with the German phrase wasn't I ?

[Indiana]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by chromium:
I'm having a little brainstorm...could it be that the video I was trying to show on the TV was a Divx in the 'wrong' resolution ??
</font>

No, I don't think so. If it were a "wrong-res." DivX it wouldn't show up when using DVDMax (cause then it would NOT use Overlays), but should appear on the cloned second head in any case.
I had the problem that an Overlay could not be created sometime when the resolution/bit depth I selected was too high - I have a 16Meg G400DH and those overlays seem to need quite some onboard RAM - then with the DH enabled you only have 8 Meg per "head"...
Try 800x600x32 or 1024x768x16 if you've not already done so.
Maybe you should also try another driver version...

[Indiana]

Update: I just wanted to view "Eraser" on my big TV and guess what: I got the same behaviour as you report. This was with the newest 6.21 drivers for Win98. I tried another PD6.x (6.10) which had the same bug.
Then I reinstalled PD 5.52 and since then everything is fine...



[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 14 January 2001).]

[chromium]

Aha...light at the end of the tunnel

I have no idea which drivers are installed actually... I got my card 10 days ago and installed the ones that came on the CD.
So here are my ?????

How do I check which version I have ?
I seem to be getting 4.12.01.1630 dated 8-24-2000

Where do I get the 'good' drivers ?

Any guidelines I have to follow updating the drivers ?

thanx

[Greebe]

Goto Settings/Advanced/Information and tell us which "Matrox driver package" it's running.

[chromium]

Hmmm
this is the info I see when I follow the
Settings/Advanced/Information path

4.12.01.1630 (1.63.026)

Is this the info you were after ?

[Greebe]

no

[chromium]

Hmmmm well there is no sign of a "Matrox driver package" at the Settings/Advanced/Information path.
So I have no idea where to look else.

Matrox G450 16 DH

[Indiana]

Oh dear! Don't say you have a G450!

All PD6.x drivers I tried had this bug, while the 5.x drivers are working as supposed. Unfortunately the PD5.x only supports the G400(Max), but not the G450 - when the G450 hit the streets the Matrox display drivers already were at 6.x, so no old 5.x drivers for the G450 exist.

Seems you're stuck, at least until Matrox fixes this bug in a new driver-version. How about reporting it to Matrox' tech support, just in case they don't already know?

Still, you should give the latest drivers a try, maybe they work for you. Get them at:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/dr...atest/home.cfm



[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 15 January 2001).]

[chromium]

I forgot to mention I had a G450 ?, drat drat drat and double drat...

I guess begging the Matrox support guys for a fix is my only avenue right now
Any idea on how to go about doing that ?...
a simple email to support@matrox.com probably won't yield any results..
Anyway thank you for all your help..
Until the 'bug' gets fixed my next step will be a bit more radical. I still want the PC to have a place in my living room. The PC case is highly modified, black Micro-Atx case, looks just like a part of the stereo tower and I just do not want a monitor in the living room, not after having spent hours modifying new material to make it not look like a PC.
So what I will do is use a 10Inch monitor (have a few in the garage) which is hidden away in a drawer in the entertainment centre. I'll use the TV to controll the PC (playing Winamp with the plugins, surfing the net, doing some html-ing etc..) and when I want to watch a DVD full screen and puase/rewind etc..it, I just open the cabinet and flick on the small monitor for a few secs, do what I have to do, and close the damn thing again.
So I failed creating a multimedia-box without a monitor, but I got the next best thing, a monitor that stays hidden (and stays off) 99% of the time.

[Indiana]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by chromium:
I guess begging the Matrox support guys for a fix is my only avenue right now
Any idea on how to go about doing that ?...
a simple email to support@matrox.com probably won't yield any results..
</font>

You could post the problem at Matrox' tech support forum

http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/mgaforum/Ultimate.cgi

There's a special forum for DVD and TV-Out. When reporting you can add a link to this thread so you don't have to describe the whole situation again...

Sometimes Haig (one of M's tech support) answers to posts here on the MURC as well, but I wouldn't rely on that.

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 15 January 2001).]