New LCD Blanks Xine window!?!
 

Just got a new Gateway FPD2485w for my wife, and plugged it into the vga port on her notebook computer to watch a few of our home videos, only to find that the lcd seems to be blocking the xine window. It will not even display "xine" in the xine window, but only a blue screen.

The movie plays fine on my lcd simultaneously, and the lcd displays the surrounding desktop just fine, only pastes "blue" over the xine, movie player, mplayer screens.

Is this the "smart chip" in the lcd playing big brother for me? I am appalled if that is the case. Anyone with suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hardware: Sony Viao VGN s150, Ubuntu with the latest, etc.

Again, everything plays perfect on the notebook display at the same time, I just get a blue screen in the little window, or across the whole screen if I maximize.

Thanks,
Steve

Hi,

Are you using Xinerama? Some video modes, like rendering, can't be viewed on a second monitor with Xinerama, as far as I know.

Xine has different video output methods, xv, Directfb, opengl, etc. If you're using Xinerama and Xine is using opengl or the like, I don't think it would show a picture on the external screen. Go to the xine preferences, and try another video setting, like xv. If that doesn't work, just experiment with the other output modes.

Hope this helps,
Sam

ok, i'll have to hunt down how to do that. i don't see it in my xine settings/preferences, and i'm not very familiar with ubuntu (it is difficult to use their gui to set things). let me google xine and see if i can find how to change that...


-edited... not having much luck figuring out how to change these settings... any suggestions?

There are different ways to reach the preferences depending on what frontend you are using with xine. With Kaffeine, go to one of the scroll down menus, and select something like "Xine engine parameters". I think it's then the leftmost page that has the video driver selection.

With gxine (which is currently frozen in the center of my screen), go to "File" -> "Configure" -> "Preferences"

Change your "experience level" to "advanced", then choose the "video" page. Here, you can experiment with the driver to use.

With Xine-ui, I forgot how. Always preferred Kaffeine anyway. I suppose right-clicking on the application is the obvious choice, and trying to find xine "configuration" or "preferences", and going from there.

Sam

ahh, yes, you're right. for xine i set the experience level to "master of the known universe" and suddenly options appeared! the setting recommended by ubuntu on one of their forums was "xshm" which worked perfectly for xine, gxine, etc...

problem solved. many thanks sammy.

my wife will wakeup in the morning with her new monitor working and never know that it took me till 3:30am to get it working, and that only with your help.


thanks again, and my wife will thank you in her heart when she wakes up in the morning :D

niterz

That's good to hear. Best of luck to you and your family.

Sam