Dual Monitor Support - but not the usual! (1 Viewer)

[csimon]

Reading through past threads, it seems that people usually want dual monitor support so that they can have MP on one screen and the desktop on another. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone yet who's requested what I would like. I'm sure I've seen a skin somewhere that does it, but can't find it again...

What I would like is MP to be controlled from the first screen and then the second screen displays the actual output.

In other words, you get all the menus and playback controls on the first screen, and the second screen receives the video playback, the picture slideshow, the TV display, or the Now Playing screen for music.

My idea is for the first screen to be a touchscreen LCD (that you have at the side of your sofa...) and the second screen is your TV. Essentially, it would look as if you've got a very sophisticated remote control! You're controlling your TV set and hi-fi from the touchscreen. You could have one video playing on the TV and still be browsing your catalogue on the first screen while leaving the video playing on the TV unaffected.

Is this a case of skinning rather than doing something technical a with dual monitor configuration? You set up your desktop so that it's twice as wide as normal and spans two monitors. MP opens up on the primary monitor as normal but it's actually twice the width that it should be. The skin has to separate out the controls from the output - the playback overlay for example should appear on the primary monitor not the second.

 

[Khris]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I really doubt this would be available from MP without a lot of modifications.

 

[csimon]

Is there any particular reason you have in mind? I don't know how MP is coded nor how the skinning works so I don't really know what's possible or what isn't. But the more I think about, the more this "remote control" mode of operation would be a killer app for a HTPC.

The problem I have with media players at the moment is that they're hard to use. With things like Streamium (and MP3 players generally) it's a case of scrolling through a very long list of tracks (500 CD album collection anybody?). On-screen apps that work by a remote control are also a bit awkward. They can be slow to respond, and browsing is done by up and down or left and right key presses - so again it can take ages to find something. And it's all a bit indirect.

There is nothing more direct and intuitive than pointing at what you want with your finger. No need to work out which of up or down you needed to press, and how many times in order to get to the Next Page icon, then press the Select button, or is there a special "Page Down" button on my remote, oh wait, I can't remember where it is, I'll take my eyes off the screen while I search for it on the remote, ah it must be that one, oh damn, that's the Back button and it's gone back to the previous menu. That's why a touchscreen would be very nice...but then you need to duplicate it on the TV. It would be neater if the TV only displayed the actual playing output rather than all the menus and popups.

 

[MrSensitive]

I would also think this requires a lot of work..

another problem I see is that both displays need to be running in a directX environment, so far I know of no cards that can handle two directX devices..

I'm currently in the process of writing a PocketPC client that pretty much does what you describe, only on a small screen..
currently it is possible to navigate the musicdatabase, playing or queueing audio tracks and send general commands to MP (up down etc.)

I wrote this primarily because I hated it to turn on the TV to play a CD..

 

[dreadycarpenter]

seems to me the feature your looking for is already there, kinda...

here is my configuration:

dual display cloned
medai portal using "overlay mixer"
nvidia gforce 6600GT set to "full screen video-video mirror"

and media portal shows up in full screen on my second monitor, while on primary display can be full screen or a window, still will always be full screen on 2nd display

the only thing that is, you see the navigation on the second display, but works well for me considering i use a lcd touch screen and an mce remote.

 

[csimon]

Well, I've found out why I couldn't find the MP skin that I thought was along the right lines. It was actually a Meedio skin! Have a look at http://www.meedio.com/maid/detail.php?mode=detail&plugin_id={1E2AA2E6-B782-4609-9169-88D996D4E71F}

It does actually seem quite simple - it's just a question of re-organising the elements on the screen. Except someone mentioned above that graphics card do not support DX9 on both displays??

 

[Callifo]

Its a DirectX limitation that can only use dx on one monitor at a time. But you could do it if all the fancy DX stuff is done on the main screen (gui) and use overlay with absolutely nothing but the video on the second screen. Not a developer though so I could be wrong.

 

[Phaser_Burn]

I know this is an old topic, but I would very much like to do this with my setup as well. I wouldn't even care If it required multiple computers.

 

[RickWesh]

Make DUAL MONITOR a reality

I feel exactly the same way... Thank you for bring this up. I was coming into the forums to mention this exact configuration ability in mediaportal. I'd actually yell it out my window to any programmer out there, really. We've used dual monitors for how long now. Many applications would truly benefit from such. Fruity Loops, Bryce, Photoshop, Paintshop, but, Mediaportal would truly shine if the ability to have the menu as it is normally, while selecting a video/Play DVD pushes the output to the secondary display while the primary display would remain or even displayed user controls, output data. In My Music it would be nice to have the Now Playing output on the secondary display or possibly enabling the visualization. Display the menu for My Tv on the primary display with the output on secondary. Selection of the TV Guide would appear on the primary display while leaving the TV output undisturbed.

As a FORMER programmer published in PC-Magazine vol. 12#7 for directly manipulating the display board back in 1990 I can't believe no-one has been able to overcome such an obstacle. My example code published was in MS QBasic 4.5 complier (NO NOT QUICKBASIC), and I have not delved into Visual C++ enough to take on the task myself given the current line of work and time I have to devote to such a task, BUT I HEAR YA........

Other than that great job. Now over to the 'My Music' area for some thoughts there.

 

[guytpetj]

Going back to the past, version 0.1.1, 0.1.2 etc. I had this working exactly as CSIMON requested, MP controls/menus on my computer monitor and full screen TV or Video on my TV. Then a big change to MP happened, and this option was no longer available.