I have just got my second display and got everything set up. Figured i would see what movies are like on 2 17inch lcds. But when i full screen the movie, it only shows on one screen. I have the movie playing in videolan, on xp mce 2005. It happens on everything, powercinema, media center, wmp. Wha is going on? Is it fixable?

I think some cards have an option to break one monitor image over two screens. That would mean it would act as one large monitor. Using dual monitors it's only possible to get the image across both screens if you have the movie in a window. Then it seems dependant on the codec as well as the player to what happens.

I've tested it and in media player classic DivX movies would only show on one side of the screen at a time, quicktime (.mov) movies played fine across both screens.

It should be related to video overlay functions working only on the primary display.

Check if the following applies to your gfx card too, I cannot test it at the moment. I had a problem related to overlay too, but this was on my primary display: I couldn't capture screen. All I did was turn off Windows Media Player hardware acceleration to solve my problem (btw, I have an ATI Radeon). Check if clone display mode works, too. Be sure to write down or remember changes you apply in case you want to roll back to the previous state.

Certain video files which use video overlay may not display properly on a secondary monitor when running in dual monitor mode . To enable video playback on your secondary monitor or TV, Full Screen Video should be enabled. Please follow the directions below to enable Full Screen Video:

1) Right-click on your Desktop and select "Properties."

2) This will bring up the Display Properties control panel. Click on the "Settings" tab and then click on the advanced button.

3) Click on the tab corresponding to the graphics card installed in your computer. For example, if you are using an NVIDIA based GeforceFX 5700 graphics card, choose the GeforceFX 5700 tab. A pull out window will appear to the left of the panel. Select "Full Screen Video" from the left pull out window.

4) The "Full Screen Video" panel will appear. If you are running in Dualview mode, select "Auto-Select" from the "Full Screen Device" drop down menu . If you are running in Clone mode, choose "Secondary Display" from the "Full Screen Device" drop down menu option,

Click the OK button to confirm these changes. When a video, which uses video overlay, is running, the video will now appear in Full Screen mode on your secondary display.

i have the 7600gt and i have it set up now to be one big monitor (horizontal) and when i play a movie, it goes full screen on my seconday monitor, and what ever i tell it to do on my other monitor. I went into the control panel and chenge it to fullscreen on my secondary monitor, but thats the only option there is aside from the one that wont let the moie play. Is there a way i can have the movie show up on both of my monitors as one big screen?

I had this problem when i ran dual monitors. The easy but slightly crude way of doing it is to (download if you need to) and run media player classic, load your movie of choice, then load another instance of media player classic, place it on the 2nd monitor, and load the same movie. Then play the movie in the first player, maximise it, and you should have it spanned across both windows.

very clever. I could have thought of that!