MCE and XP Pro connecting to actual televisions?

[Guest]

Hello.
I believe the following is true - can someone confirm?
1. In XP Pro you cannot successfully connect a television as a multiple
monitor, or, if you do, you will not get anything to play on it.
I connected a 13" lcd tv, found it ok in Multiple Monitors, even saw it
as a tv, extended desktop to it, and did get my wallpaper to show, but no
desktop icons. I started up WMP11 and since my laptop panel was primary, it
showed on that. I found the place where you change which is primary and tried
to set TV to primary. I got a half second of the dvr-ms which was playing,
and then just white. If, in fact, a TV simply cannot be an XP Pro monitor,
that would be the explanation, but I can't find that anywhere.

2. I will not have this problem when I get this TV connected to my XP MCE
machine with another monitor also.

I will connect by s-video, double check the MCE settings under TV, and
then everything will work fine.
or - will I need to work within Control Panel/Displays to set these two
correctly?

3. I will not have this problem when I get this TV connected to my XP MCE
machine all by itself, and I still will be able to use basic Windows
functions like updating this PC.
In fact, if this works or if #2 works, I will get a nice big TV and
dedicate an XP MCE PC to this. (Yes, I have an extra.) I'll use wireless to
get XP updates and Guide updates. Our connection by wireless wasn't really
good enough to stream video.

Thanks for any comments. I couldn't believe MCE would be as smart as the
Microsoft instructions indicate, ie. "Connect the TV to the PC". That's it;
that's all it says. Nothing about settings etc. Yikes.

Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Sorry - I should have included that info - but the XP Pro laptop is a Dell
with some ATI thing. The XP MCE Desktop has an Nvidia 6300 LE, and is a dual
processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 with 2gb of memory.
Thanks.

 

[Jim]

Sorry - I should have included that info - but the XP Pro laptop is a Dell
with some ATI thing. The XP MCE Desktop has an Nvidia 6300 LE, and is a
dual
processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 with 2gb of memory.
Thanks.

Unless your "ATI thing" has output cable connections for either S-Video, the
15 pin cable, or the three RGB cables, you won't be able to access a TV set
with either XP Pro or MCE. In short the video controller must support more
than one output device at a time.

My MCE laptop will send output to both a separate TV and its internal
screen. My XP Pro won't because it lacks hardware support.

Jim

 

[Guest]

The laptop's docking station, which I am using, has svideo, which is how I
connected to the tv, (and also it has vga and dvi, unused presently). I got
the wallpaper to show on the tv, just nothing else.

Thanks for any more thoughts???

 

[Bob I]

Are you sure that you didn't just "Extend the desktop" onto the tv? That
would explain only the background. You would need to move the icons to
the right hand side of the desktop to see them on the tv if it was
extended.

 

[Guest]

Hello. Thank you - what you say is completely possible - I am not even sure I
understand it. Do you mean, on the laptop's tft panel, which was showing the
desktop and a WMP11 video, 'extending the desktop to the secondary (tv)
monitor' shouldn't do anything in and of itself? (I also found the place to
make the TV primary). What's special about the right side of the tft panel
desktop? I had assumed that when extended, the stuff on the tft panel would
magically appear on the TV. Then, I supposed I could start a program from the
TV and its output would also show on the tft panel. And vice versa. I have
seen people with monitors connected to laptops, and their laptop's lid
closed, and assumed if they opened the lid, there would be the same programs.
Again, the laptop is XP Pro, and I am unclear as to whether MCE will work the
same way (or not work!). Thank yoU!

 

[Bob I]

Two different settings are possible, Extend, or Clone. Clone shows the
same view an all monitors. Extend, extends the desktop area to include
the additional monitors. In the Extend mode, there will be nothing on
the additional monitors(other than the background) if you don't place it
there. Drag items to the "extended" monitor and they will be seen on the
additional monitor.

 

[Guest]

Hello. I have never seen anything referring to clone. Just Extend, on the
settings screen I found. I was ready to go to the next stage testing, that
is, forget about the laptop's XP Pro puzzles, and bring the XP MCE computer
down to the family room, when completely nutsily, that XP MCE (a Gateway) for
no earthly reason stopped playing videos and produced no sound at all. It had
worked perfectly the previous night. I had sound all day yesterday. We
started WMP11 for a video and got beautiful designs, and sound, but no video.
Stopped it, started again, no sound. No sound on anything. I went to an
XVID.COM site and downloaded a codec, have video again, no sound on anything.
Speakers are tested good on another machine. My isp is dandy.net if you have
any insight on this; email same as this display name. Sound components look
ok in Device Manager.

 

[Bob I]

See, "Where did my sounds go" at link below. (sorry, no e-mail)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/top10faqs.htm

 

[Guest]

Hi - this is the second reply for the day. I decided to unintall Nero7
Essentials, on the silent Gateway. This software was part of an ill-fated
D-Link DSM-510 experiment. (I have a brand new one if you are interested, in
box ) (also a LInkysys wmce...) Upon rebooting, and not having had a
bsod, I was nevertheless told I had recovered from a serious error. I copied
all the levels of detail. And magically, after continuing the reboot, my
Volume icon showed muted. I never do that, had not done that, and this a.m.
and last night, it was not the case. But, unmuting solved this mystery. And
to think, if Dick Pick had been at his booth at the 1982 or whatever Comdex,
when Bill Gates stopped by, we might all be using Pick.