Having your desktop appear on your TV. How?

BTP

There are two ways I am aware of. One way is to simply extend your desktop to the TV, and you can just drag windows of anything from your main display to your TV. This method I am fully aware of and have used for years.

It's the other way that I can't remember how to do. I've only seen it done once and it seemed slightly more difficult to do. It was literally making your desktop appear on both your display and the TV at the same time. Whatever appears on your display will be exactly the same on the TV.

If it makes a difference, this is to be done on a laptop where it is connected to the TV with an S-Video cable.

Teach me, O Arcade of Pennies!

Cycophant

I know in my display settings somewhere (probably in the "Advanced" section of the Display Properties) there's an option to "clone" my display onto my secondary monitors and tv's. I assume that's what you're looking for. Where exactly the setting is for your computer I'm not sure, but I know I was able to do it with your standard, run-of-the-mill drivers and whatnot, so it should be there for anyone.

Zeon

Cycophant wrote: »

I know in my display settings somewhere (probably in the "Advanced" section of the Display Properties) there's an option to "clone" my display onto my secondary monitors and tv's. I assume that's what you're looking for. Where exactly the setting is for your computer I'm not sure, but I know I was able to do it with your standard, run-of-the-mill drivers and whatnot, so it should be there for anyone.

Yep, pretty much, go into the display properties, and then the advanced menu and you should see 2 monitors available (The second will be grayed out if its not attached). Basically dont click the check box that says "Extend my windows desktop to this monitor" and youre good to go.

Note though, that some applications (Windows media player is what comes immediately to mind) wont display properly on a secondary monitor, only on the primary monitor, unless theyve changed something in the last 3 years. When i tried to hook up my old CRT tv with an s-video cable, movies would only display on the "Primary" monitor, which kind of defeated the entire purpose for me. I think it might be any applications that use directshow, but im not sure how it works.

wenchkilla

Zeon wrote: »

Note though, that some applications (Windows media player is what comes immediately to mind) wont display properly on a secondary monitor, only on the primary monitor, unless theyve changed something in the last 3 years. When i tried to hook up my old CRT tv with an s-video cable, movies would only display on the "Primary" monitor, which kind of defeated the entire purpose for me. I think it might be any applications that use directshow, but im not sure how it works.

There is an option to switch which monitor is primary and which is secondary, at least on my laptop. Plus you can clone the display to both screens as described above. The laptop is an IBM R40, so it isn't new stuff by any means.

BTP

The only thing I'm not seeing is "clone". Obviously I'm not looking for the exact word, but you know what I mean.

Here's what I'm doing.
Display properties > Settings > Advanced (while on the "1." display) > Monitor > ???

Am I close?

imbalanced

If you get Ultramon then this dual monitor stuff would be small time. Really, for anyone using dual monitor setups, you MUST get it. I mean seriously. Get it.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

wenchkilla

It appears that the "clone" functionality, which is actually presentation mode or whatever is not a part of Windows OR the video card drivers, but is actually controlled by other software.

In my case, the laptop has a function key for this, which brings up a menu. See if there's a similar funtion key on your laptop, anything having to do with monitors. Mine even asks me where I want fullscreen videos to be played to, secondary or primary monitor.

If you don't have one, the software above does exactly what you want:

imbalanced's link wrote:

Mirror your main monitor to secondary monitors for a presentation

BTP

That single word, presentation, has just made me aware of another way unique to my laptop that may do what I need. I completely forgot about it because I haven't needed to even think about it for a couple of years now. It wasn't what the way I saw it done before, but it should still work. I won't know until later today, but at least there is a Plan B with that link. Thanks.

All I know is the way I saw it just that one time was within using Windows XP. There should be some way to make it happen.