Simultaneous video display problem

[rbyham]

I am new here and did a couple of searches but did not find an aswer thus I post

I have a two week old T42. In a recent presentation, I was running a video clip with Windows Media Player sending signal to the projector. Projected image was fine. But image on the screen showed WMP menus and frame but the area where you would normally see the clip was just a dark square. Any ideas? I need to see clip at both places. Is this a T42 or WMP problem or both? Thanks.

[christopher_wolf]

Did you set it up correctly with the Presentation Director?

[rbyham]

I am new to PD but I was seeing an image on both the projector screen and the laptop. The problem was that on the LCD I saw only the menu frame of WMP and the window where normally a clip would show was a dark square...

[rbyham]

Can others here verify that a clip can be seen at both proojected end and WMP on their T42? I am asking because one of our IT guys has indicated that he thought the T42 video card might be unable to manage both...

[christopher_wolf]

It depends on what card you have in there, actually.

[dansu]

It's possible on my 2378FVU, not a projector though, a TV. Though I imagine that difference is negligible. To get it to display video on both screens, you need to have overlay turned on. This is a feature of the video card which can be turned on from the advanced display settings tab.

[christopher_wolf]

But Overlay is locked down, isn't it? The video file itself has to support Overlay. I assume it is always turned on, and I have an x300...But I had a Dell that wouldn't do that for that very reason, Overlay. If you have an ATI, I don't think it should be a problem.

[rbyham]

Thanks for your thoughts... in playing around with PD thidmorning I noticed that one about page three of the wizard, you have to select "display device for movie playback". You can choose either the LCD or the monitor/projector but not BOTH. Could this be the problem? I would find that disappointing... I put lot of clips into PPT and would find it much easier to look only at LCD during presentation...

[dansu]

That's interesting, I always asssumed that video overlay worked for any type of video file. It's always worked for me with avi files and dvds. What video file are you trying to playback?

rbyham, try connecting an external monitor on monitor mode and change the clone mode options in the overlay tab of advanced display settings. you probably want the overlay display mode on "same on all". This tab wasn't available on the driver that came with my T42, so make sure you have the lastest drivers.

[christopher_wolf]

You can play both at the same time, but I know of that for only my machine...It really depends on the video Card and how it is setup; what kind of video card do you have, rbyham?

[rbyham]

I have the radeon 7500 32 meg... does that help? Checking the overlay tab on advanced settings, I do not have access (grayed out)

[dansu]

it will be grayed out until you have a monitor, projector, or tv hooked up with clone mode, NOT extended desktop mode. So give that a shot.

[rbyham]

Thanks for all the help. I did get this to work fine this afternoon. And yes it was the overlay setting for the video card. Thanks folks. Works like a charm. Can't wait to tell my own IT folks what the solution was.