Multiple Monitors? (1 Viewer)

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Anonymous

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I have a Radeon 9200 card for my HTPC build and I'm curious if anyone has used the 'Hydravision' support to drive multiple monitors while MediaPortal is running.

What I have in mind is to connect both the TV monitor using S-Video and a spare 15" LCD that I have using the VGA output. It APPEARS that the HydraVision tool with the Radeon would allow the system to be configured so that MP and any of its functions would always be directed to the S-Video output (Monitor 1) while any other display output would be directed to the VGA/LCD (Monitor 2).

This way MP would continue to operate unimpeded while other "non-MP" applications such as backups, CD burning, etc., would display on the LCD.
I've played with MP running in a window on my Thinkpad so it is clear that MP does not demand the entire desktop.

I'm curious if anyone has done this and knows that it will work with MP running.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
i have a 9200 and i've noticed that the video output is a bit picky how you set up the display. i tried to have it set up so that the tv was a clone of the main display* (left the main display at 1024, the tv was at 800) and whilst most of the display was output to the tv ok, any video did not (i tried mp, WMP on it's own and The Core MP)

i had to set the tv so that it wasn't in "clone" mode but in a similar mode where the same signal is simply output to the two devices. for some reason i can still leave the main display in 1024, but it appears squashed on the monitor when i do this. when i switch back to a single display the main monitor regains its full size.

* - i'm doing this because i have a video sender transmitting the AV from the pc upstairs to the tv downstairs and don't have a serial IR receiver yet (hopefully a couple of days) so i need to be able to control MP from the keyboard upstairs whilst the display also appears on the tv downstairs. and yes, changing the music is a good aerobic workout right now!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I also have a 9200. I have tried to set it up as you suggested and eventually gave up in frustration. I was trying to do this using Catalyst. I haven't even heard of HydraVision. Does it come on the CD? This is my first ATI card... I usually use Nvidia...

Cheers!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
HyrdqVision comes with the ATI cards and it provides all sorts of configuration options for the card. My ThinkPad has a Radeon chipset and it has HydraVision although I don't often use it.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
EvilDreamer said:
I also have a 9200. I have tried to set it up as you suggested and eventually gave up in frustration. I was trying to do this using Catalyst. I haven't even heard of HydraVision. Does it come on the CD? This is my first ATI card... I usually use Nvidia...

Cheers!

i installed hydravision from the driver cd that came with the card (actually, i think it was installed as part of the driver)

my settings are as follows (under the settings tab of display settings)
Display 1 Radeon 9200 - Use this as primary monitor
Display 2 Radeon 9200 (secondary) - I don't have extend onto this monitor selected.

Under the advanced options is a Displays tab (only availble when you have the main monitor selected) - Have both displays in Primary mode (the blue icon with the circle in it), the clone mode (the blue icon with two rectangles) doesn't output video to both. after reading the help file, it says that there is only one video overlay chip in the hardware which is why the video is only shown on the first device. i've noticed that there is another option to show the video in MP, vrm9? i haven't read much about this yet though.

i've set up two schemes, one with just the primary monitor active and another with the above setup, this way i can switch between the two with a hotkey.

hth,
hideo
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hmm... I never even put the CD in my system.. I just downloaded the latest driver (w/ Catalyst) from the website. I went through a very similiar configuration that you outlined (if not the same.) I found that I could not get MP to run in full screen mode on the secondary output. And when I moved the window over to the secondary display I could only see a fraction of the window.. I gave up.

Sounds like to me HydraVision is the same as Catalyst. I'll do some research and figure it out.

Cheers!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Ok.. did a little research... Catalyst is the core control panel that allows you to tweak the driver/card settings. HydraVision is specifically for multi-monitor use. The controls you defined above sound a lot like what I did in Catalyst. I'll have to try them again in HydraVision.

Thanks for the tip.

Cheers!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Guys, this has been discused a few times before:

http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=466

http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6817#6817

To cut a long story short, DirectX doesn't support multi-monitor. MP is very DirectX dependant and therefore it doesn't work. Even some of the experienced DirectX/Directshow programmers like frodo and OB2 aren't very interested in trying because they know how complicated it is. Sadly this isn't going to happen soon. I have tried HydraVision and it wouldn't cope with MP. Clone and Theatre modes are as good as I can get right now.

The only light I see at the end of this tunnel is possibly Sam's and Machine's work on an external/web interface. I think this might be an answer. Or wait for Direct 10. But then your card will be out of date :wink:
 
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Anonymous

Guest
forbes said:
Guys, this has been discused a few times before:

{SNIP}

The only light I see at the end of this tunnel is possibly Sam's and Machine's work on an external/web interface. I think this might be an answer. Or wait for Direct 10. But then your card will be out of date :wink:

Rats.

Well, if the multi-monitor solution is out how does MP cope with Remote Desktop? Normally I'd use VNC but VNC displays the actual console application which in this case would be the MP screen. RDP on the other hand opens a 'pseudo' desktop that should allow control and execution of other apps such as CD burning without shutting impacting the MP display. And XP Pro supports access from an RDP client.

The downside is it takes a networked PC to be the RDP client but in my case I have a Thinkpad 600 with Windows 2000 Pro that isn't doing anything so could serve as the RDP client.

I ask this as my MP system is not finished as yet so I can't try it 'hands on.'

Thanks
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I think I found the answer for myself.

I enabled Remote Desktop on my Thinkpad T40 where I have been playing with MP. I then enabled Remote Desktop on this system. I created a Terminal Services/Remote Desktop client on another Thinkpad under W2K and tried to connect to the MP machine. I was able to get the login prompt from the MP machine but once I logged in I got an exception from .NET showing a problem with DirectX and that crashed MP.

So, it looks like MS's RDP tool does not work with DirectX :) Now all I have to do is refer the problem to Microsoft so they can fix it (he says pouring another drink and laughing himself silly ...)
 

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