WMP won't display on TV output

[syc0pathic]

I just upgraded to WinXP from Win98 (yeah I'm right on the cutting edge!) and now I'm having a weird problem. I have an ATI vid card w/ a TV output. When I play a video clip in WMP, it shows up fine on the computer screen, but the WMP window is black on the TV screen -- everything else (desktop, open folders, etc) shows up fine on the TV. I tried Xvid, Divx, mpg, wmv, DVD, and even an old asf, and none of them show up on the TV. I also installed RealAlternative (which piggybacks off WMP) to play a rm file and that did the same thing. But they all show up just fine on the computer screen!

More weird stuff to consider: when I used PowerDVD to watch a DVD, that shows up on the TV. And when I used VirtualDub to open an Xvid clip, that shows up on the TV too. BUT, when I opened a VOB file w/ DVD2AVI, that shows up on the computer screen but not the TV. And once last thing -- when I play a music file w/ WMP, the video visualizations show up on the TV.

So what do WMP and DVD2AVI have in common that VDub and PowerDVD don't? Could it be some kind of post-processing that's causing the problem?

One more thing... I used an older driver for my vid card. When I try to install the latest driver, it can't complete the installation and says something about installing a standard VGA driver 1st. I think that has more to do w/ a conflict on the mobo, but I thought I'd mention it.

[ilovejedd]

I think VirtualDub doesn't use video overlay by default. Can you try playing a video using VLC with overlay turned off (Preferences >> Video >> uncheck Overlay video output)? Then try playing the same file with overlay turned on. What specific card are you using? Maybe you can email ATI support?

[olyteddy]

You can also turn off acceleration in the DirectX control panel (DXDiag). I've had to do that once or twice with my ATI chip. FWIW, WMP9 allows you to choose overlay or not too.

[DAvenger]

Right, switch to something else than Overlay (e.g VMR9 renderer) and you should be fine or disable your monitor so that TV is the only active device.

[syc0pathic]

I think VirtualDub doesn't use video overlay by default. Can you try playing a video using VLC with overlay turned off (Preferences >> Video >> uncheck Overlay video output)? Then try playing the same file with overlay turned on. Sure enough, turning on overlay caused VDub to stop displaying video on the TV. So I went into WMP and turned the overlay off and now it works fine. The only problem is that I usually use WMP Classic (the old school version that Win98 has) and there isn't any option to turn the overlay off in that version.

I also played around w/ switching my primary monitor to the TV. That works, except that when I reboot, I have to turn on the TV becuz the computer monitor doesn't show anything! Extending the desktop works fine though, so that's what I did.

When I used to have Win98, I couldn't choose different refresh rates -- I would normally have the monitor at 85Hz. But when I changed modes to watch something on TV, both the monitor and TV would have to be set to 60Hz becuz that's the only rate the TV supports and apparently Win98 isn't sophisticated enough to have 2 different refresh rates at the same time. W/ WinXP, u can have separate refresh rates -- u can set the monitor to 85Hz while the TV is at 60Hz at the same time. But maybe the overlay setting can't handle the different refresh rates -- that would explain why u can't show the vid clip on both the TV and monitor at the same time. Tonight, I'll try setting both of them to 60Hz and see if it works.

But in any event, even though it doesn't work quite the way I want, at least I can watch vids on my TV now... thanx guys!

[GenoSV]

The only problem is that I usually use WMP Classic (the old school version that Win98 has) and there isn't any option to turn the overlay off in that version.

you can try media player classic, since it looks pretty much exactly like WMP classic, except it packed with a ton of features (that are mostly great btw). And you can set it to use the WMR9 rendered, which won't use overlay, and therefore show the videos on both the tv and the monitor.
(go to Options -> Output (under playback) -> DirectShow Video and change to VMR9 (windowed), or (renderless) usually works too) hope that helps.

here ya go: :)
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/guliverkli/mpc2kxp6490.zip?download

[syc0pathic]

you can try media player classic, since it looks pretty much exactly like WMP classic, except it packed with a ton of features (that are mostly great btw). And you can set it to use the WMR9 rendered, which won't use overlay, and therefore show the videos on both the tv and the monitor.
(go to Options -> Output (under playback) -> DirectShow Video and change to VMR9 (windowed), or (renderless) usually works too) hope that helps.

here ya go: :)
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/guliverkli/mpc2kxp6490.zip?download
Yeah, RealAlternative uses Medial Player Classic, so actually I already have it. But I didn't know that it could use the WMR9 renderer... I'll try it out -- thanx!