hello all. I'm in the process of making a HTPC. I just started planning and got an idea. I want to use TV out to wiew movies and such things, and set up another monitor (17" LCD) to view player stats, songticker and general navigation. is there any program that can do this? i want everything on the monitor, but i want movies to be played on TV out. do you understand what i mean, and have anyone got any good ideas?
Depending on your graphics card but it is possible to set your second monitor (tv) to display overlay fullscreen so all your videos, or movies goto that screen.
I might go for a fireGL Z1 card. (the computer itself will be made from old parts i have laying around) the system is based on a P3 550MHz CPU... i'm a bit worried that this could be a tad to slow.
You could use S-video. The Windows taskbar etc are slightly blurred, but the movies are perfect quality. It does depend on the quality of the TV sometimes most I think it'll be fine. P3 550MHz, I'm not sure if it's gonna cope with movies, but theres only one way to find out, test it.
yeah.. i was planning to use svideo for tv. The monitor will be using DVI or VGA (depends on what GFX card i'll put in)
I used a Pentium 3 450Mhz for along time, while running AIM, Honestech (tv appt), FF and the usual unseen programs running (firewall, antivirus).
Using the driver software for Nvidia cards you are able to use two monitors on a dual head card and can set one monitor to be the default monitor for full screen video. When you play full screen video it opens on that monitor and the other is left for whatever you want.
Smilodon - What socket is that Motherboard/CPU? If its a 370 you can find a cheap 933MHz-1.2GHz Pentium for it, or a VIA C3.
