Playback of PC video files through LCD tv

[zad1]

Hi
I have a Uniden 32" LCD tv, and it's not as straightforward as I thought to plug it into the PC. It only likes two resolutions, 1280x720 and 720x480. Any other settings it gives you a black screen.

So I decided to only use it if I'm watching an avi or mpeg on the PC, and I can flick it up onto the big screen. The problem is, some of them play on it and some of them don't.

With some files, I can see them playing on the PC monitor, and the TV shows the computer desktop fine. But where there should be video image, there is just a black square.

Once I recorded a tv show on the hard drive with WinPVR, as an mpeg, and when I played it back on Windows Media Player, I got a black screen on the TV. But when I played it on PowerDVD, it played on the TV fine.

Some avi files won't play on either Windows Media Player or PowerDVD.

It's very puzzling. Can anyone help?

[anonymez]

either set the LCD display as the primary display via your graphics card's drivers, or disable overlays in your software player. in WMP you can do it under options-->performance-->advanced. in other players set output to VMR9

[zad1]

Thanks for that. I'll give that a try.

[zad1]

Anonymez; "in other players set output to VMR9..."

Any idea how to do that in PowerDVD..?

[olyteddy]

In Power DVD 4.0, on the config -> Video tab, turn off acceleration. It's probably similar for other versions.

[zad1]

Hm. It wasn't on. Which might explain why a couple of files that wouldn't show on the TV using Windows Media Player did work on PowerDVD. But there were some .rmvb files I tried to play. I erased .rmvb and put .avi on the end and PowerDVD played them fine, but I couldn't see them on the TV.

[zad1]

Okay, I disabled overlays in Windows Media Player, but the first one I tried (an mpg) still didn't show on the tv.

"...set tv as Primary monitor".
Not quite sure how to do that. It just says 'multiple monitors' on Radeon 9250.
I've tried fiddling with the settings but it just seems to think they are both the same monitor. For example, if I click 'identify' both the PC monitor and the TV have a giant 1 come up on the screen.
I'm really in the dark there.

[anonymez]

Any idea how to do that in PowerDVD..?

i don't have powerDVD. last i checked it only supported VMR7, but that was long ago.

easier to use media player classic or zoom player, they both allow you to specify which renderer to use