Using a TV for monitor. Movies will not play on TV?

(@Timbuk4: Seriously? Just installing VLC won't do the job, you need to configure it as well to deal with the TV..., as I explain below. But, besides the part that matters, great suggestion.)

What you'll need to do is either configure your video card to overlay on either/both screens of your choice or configure your video player to output to the screen you want.

Since ATI and Nvidia both use their own control panel, and you never specified what card you had, I'll have to give you the per-player instructions.

I'd HEAVILY recommend following the second set of instructions, unless you REALLY REALLY want to use/need to use WMP for some insane reason. Therefore, I have also included instructions for WMP for your convenience. Keep in mind the best way to do what you want is by configuring your video card "directly", that way you can avoid configuring every application that uses hardware-accelerated overlays for video.

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- WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 11 INSTRUCTIONS (not recommended, but included for your convenience)

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So, the following is for Windows Media Player 11 on Windows XP (other version's/OS's should be more or less the same)

So, to get the menu up in WMP11, you'll need to right click like on the top tile bar to bring up WMP's menus. In WMP 9 (and I think 10 also), you'll need to just hover your mouse up there and it should appear.

Then you need to go to "Tools - Options..."

Go to the "Performance" tab, and click "Advanced" at the bottom. Then, in the following dialog, uncheck "Use Overlays". THIS WILL POTENTIALLY SLOW VIDEO PLAYBACK AND USE MORE PROCESSOR TIME. This SHOULD make video appear on whichever screen the WMP window is in, but as I don't have a dual monitor config right at this very moment, I can't verify. However, in the event that it doesn't (or even if it does work) I'd also still recommend to use VLC for everything.

So, here's how to do this with VLC

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- VLC 1.0.0 INSTRUCTIONS (recommended).

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Firstly, if you don't have it, you should download and install VLC here:

http://www.videolan.org/mirror-geo.php?file=vlc/1....

After installing, go to the start menu and find the "VideoLAN" folder, and open "VLC media player"

In the main VLC window that will open, click "Tools - Preferences".

In the next dialog, click the third button/tab on the side that says "Video". In that tab, change the output dropdown from "Default" to "DirectX Video Output"

Then click on the "All" radio button on the bottom left under "Show Settings"

Then in that dialog, click on and expand "Video".

Expand "Output Modules"

Click on "DirectX"

In that dialog, change the "Name of desired device" dropdown from "Default" to something like "\\.\Display2" or whatever display device looks like it'd be either a secondary display or a TV. It might look somthing like "\\.\TV" or whatever (thought it's doubtful that's what it'd look like. Then, click "Save" to confirm your changes.

You can drag VLC into the TV if you want (or already did) but it should always display on the TV instead of the monitor now (the monitor won't show anything).

You can then play the video by either dragging it on to the main window and clicking play, or by going "File - Open" like you normally would/might.

If you need any additional help, or would like to tell me/everyone what video card you have so you can "hard-configure" the change, please either provide "Additional Details" or email me (preferred) at zjblabs@zjblabs.co.cc

Thank you, and you're welcome.

Use VLC it will play them

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/