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[Pete]

Hi All:

Hopefully someone can give me some help/advice. I'm at an impasse.

Is anyone using the dual-monitor w/ TV-Out support capabilities of the GeForce4 card SUCCESSFULLY with either Media Jukebox or any other multimedia app (e.g., PowerDVD4)?

OK. I've bought a Gainward GeForce4 440 MX video card hoping to use its dual monitor capabilities and nView to eventually setup MJ9 with my A/V system. For those who have not been following my saga, last week I bought a 50-foot A/V cable (s-video and audio plugs) and connected my new GeForce4 and Soundblaster card to my A/V receiver's Video Aux jack on the other side of my living room.

Anyway, I can't get the dual-monitor capabilities to work as I would like optimally. This is what I can do:

1. I can "Clone" my primary monitor (flat-panel display running at 1280x1024, 75 Hz) to my TV monitor through my A/V system. The display is not great quality (different problem), but it works - kinda. Because the TV S-video display is 800x600, I have to pan the desktop display around the TV screen. This is not what I want to do with MJ9 anyway.

2. I can set up "Horizontal Span". This will span my desktop display across my flat-panel monitor and TV screen. This does NOT allow for independent desktops and display resolutions. My video adapter is automatically changed to 1600x600, giving me 800x600 on each display which acts as a single display. Not what I want to do with MJ9.

Obviously what I want to do is setup up two different independent desktops on the two monitors with two different resolutions. This will allow me to run MJ9 main application on my primary (flat-panel) display (1280x1024) and send the MJ9 windowed display with file properties and cover art to the secondary display (TV) to be displayed hopefully in full screen mode (800x600).

I can not figure out how to do this. However, all the NVidia GeForce material and Flash demos and tutorials on the NVidia web site indicates I should be able to do this. I simply have not been able to setup the card to use the TV as a secondary non-clone independent display.

Is anyone using this technology and can give me some help/advice? Is there anything I need to setup in Windows XP to enable this? Anyone want to suggest a card that is perfect for what we're trying to do here? (I know someone mentioned the ATI All-in-One. I just wanted an nVidia-base card becasue nVidia appears to be the industry leader, but I'm rethinking that if I can't find a solution.)

Thanks in advance for any advice/help.

Pete

[David]

I have the the exact same setup as you but am limited to the same settings with the drivers that I have installed (3.0.8.2).  I am using a GeForce4 TI-4200 based card connected to a ViewSonic VP181 18.1" LCD Display @ 1280x1024 DVI and the TV out @ 1024 x 768 connected via a RadioShack 2.4 GHz transmitter to my Large Screen TV downstairs.

I just got the card two tweeks ago as an upgrade from the ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder card.  Don't get the ATI card it's DirectX performance (MJ Visualizations) is lackluster compared to the nVidia chip.  Besides you can overclock the GeForce card using a software application.

There were some beta drivers on the nVidia site that I installed when I got the card but I got a horrible error (AGP bus support driver) that caused me to have to re-install WindowsXP.  I think that it was caused by switching from the ATI card over to the nVidia card but I have not tried to install those same drivers until they are out of beta.  They definitely had more options for the TV out.

David

[Pete]

Ah, David. I'm so glad to meet someone else who's in this with me.

Yeah, I saw the beta 40.41 beta drivers. I also saw on the alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia newsgroup that people were railing against the drivers, saying things similar to what you've experienced. In fact it was implied that nVidia had taken the drivers off the site, but I checked and they're still there.

What concerns me is the driver description says that nView 2.0 is included with these drivers - which is the same nView version with our 30.82 drivers. But you're saying that they definitely had more options for TV Out?

Are you experiencing the exact same limitations I am?

Thanks for responding David. Please keep me in the loop if you find out anything.

Pete

[Mirko]

I'm actually using the GF4 with dual monitor support in a way you want.

If you do the horizontal span, you can select how to handle these. E.g. you might want to open a window on _one_ screen and maximize to only this one. I'm doing this quite successfull. I run outlook on the second display and MJ on the first one.
If I would like to have MJ use the second display, I select in the visualization-options to use the "display #2"
The first desktop runs with 1024x768 (working space) and the second one with 1280x1024 (outlook).

Is you problem related to the explicit _video_ output of the second display? You might need to have an amplifier for the video-signal (normally this will not cost a fortune), because if you have to have a couple of meters distance from videocard to display the signal fades (and so does the quality of the display).

I set this using the "desktop wizard" (maybe this is not the exact name, but you know how to start NView-Display?). I checked "span desktop horizontal" and some other options, that let's started applications stay on the desktop they are started at. You are also able to save the setting where to display an application using the system-menu of the application window (it's the menu you get if you click in the upper left corner of a window (with the app-icon)).

Did you carefully read the NView-Display-dialogs? I found them as quite helpfull.

HTH,
Mirko

[Pete]

David:

A couple more questions for you.

You say you've got the TV-Out configured at 1024x768? With the 30.82 drivers, I was only given the option of 800 x 600 on the slider bar as the highest supported resolution for TV-Out.

And are you happy with the 2.4 GHz Radio Shack transmitter? I currently have a 50-foot 3-in-1 cable (s-video, and audio jacks) running from my computer on one side of the room to the A/V receiver on the other side of the room. I've had to pull up my carpet to hide them. I hate the cables and I don't think I'm getting good quality (signal noise, interference, etc). Would you recommend I try the 2.4 GHz system? Has your experience been good with it? I hate cables and I'd rather go wireless if it's practical and good quality.

Thanks for your help and advice.

Pete

[Pete]

OK All:

I have finally resolved this issue satisfactorily !

There are actually two ways to use the dual monitor features of GF4. However, they are mutually exclusive of one another.

One is Windows Dualview which is pre-configured with Windows 9x and Windows XP operating systems. (Strangely enough however, not Windows 2000.) In essence, these Windows OS will automatically detect a second display device upon startup attached to your system. If Windows XP has detected a second monitor on startup, two monitors will be displayed in the Display Properties setting of Windows and you can configure each as independent desktops with independent resolutions.

The alternative way of using dual monitor with GF4 is Scan/Clone Mode. This mode is specific to the NVidia GF driver. This is the mode I was getting stuck in as explained in my previous message.

I'm guessing the reason that I was not enabling Windows Dualview mode is that I did not have my TV-Out connected when Windows XP started up. Once I did that, XP booted in Dualview mode and I have my two monitors showing on the display properties setting page where I can configure each independently.

There is a straight-forward explanation of this on page 24 of the NVidia Display Properties User Manual .

So now I have what I've been aiming for. With MJ9 Preview, I'm able to send the MJ windowed display to my secondary monitor (TV) and play in full screen mode.

I'm still not happy with the image quality of the full screen MJ display on the TV. It is blurry; the cover art is not bad but the MP3 properties (Artist/Album etc) can not be read because the font is small and blurry. So I need to find a way to increase the image quality (I'm running 800x600 on the TV and can't seem to change this is the display properties in either direction). Are there ways within MJ or different skins which give good/better results? This may best be left for a different forum thread.

Thanks to David, Mirko, and JimH for all the help.

Pete

[JimH]

Increase the font size in both Windows and in MJ.

On the display window of MJ right click and choose "configure display" and "enlarge menus".  This right click menu has a lot of options that should help.  You can also get the same menu with an icon on the control bars of the display window.

[David]

Pete,
Glad you got it working the way you want.

As for your other questions...

I only have a 64MB card but have two options for the TV out 800x600 and 1024x768.  Oddly enough the 1024x768 looks much better on the TV than  800x600.  I would much rather have used an s-video cable but the TV is downstairs and the PC is upstairs in my Home Office. Way too long as you have discovered.  I can't use the spanning option and must use clone.  Spanning mode played havock with my DVD authoring software as it refused to stay on the LCD portion of the screen and spread itself across both the LCD and the TV (weird looking to say the least)

I wrote my own Track Info screen specifically for 1024x768 that shows the Comment and Custom info so that King Sparta's Chart Finder info shows up when playing.  I also scan all my cover art at 350x350 so that it displays crisply on the TV.

One thing that could stand improvement is that the MJ screen visualizations hickup when transitioning between themselves.  WinAmp, RealPlayer and MS Media Player play flawlessly.  I'm hoping that version 9 is better at this.  It the first thing people notice when I show it to them.

The 2.4 GHz works well but with some caveats.  You have to point the antennas at each other and the greater the number of objects between the two devices the greater the chance of interference.  Good luck keeping them aligned if you have cats who like to play with them as I do.  RadioShack also has one the takes the TV Out and sends it through the telephone line to the TV.  So it would be a wired connection and not RF.  This should produce an even better picture.

As far as the MP3 properties.  I notice that if I run the Visualizations using DirectX instead of the MJ default (Standard) the text is much sharper.  You can play around with the DirectX properties in the Dispay Properties and also set MJ to use Highest Quality.  My DirectX mipmap is set to Blend.  High Performance works well too.  The nVidia card should be able to handle it without slowing down too much.

You can overclock it using CoolBits if it does.

David