[RandomGuy]

I have two monitors, one is a HDTV that supports 24Hz and other "exotic" resolutions, and the other is a regular monitor that does not. Due to my setup, I tend to do all my XBMC maintenance/setup on the monitor, yet watch almost everything on the TV.

Now, I have been running with mirrored monitors, but in doing so, I wasn't taking advantage of the framerate capabilities of my TV (and XBMC). Upon discovery of these features, I tried forcing it with the mirrored setup, but experienced poor playback on the TV and no signal on the monitor. When I tried it with the extended desktop and XBMC playing only on the TV, the playback worked perfectly.

So, with a "mirrored" desktop, can I get the menus to show up on both monitors, but the video only on the TV (by say intentionally putting the monitor to sleep)?

Barring that, using an extended desktop, can I get the menus to display on BOTH screens with the video only appearing on the TV?

Thanks

[PatK]

With a similar set-up and short on your info (O/S, monitor gfx details) I'm using windows 7 and the shortcut key Win+P (actually it's a script) to choose the TV as the main display in full screen mode and shutdown the monitor, on exit of XBMC a returns to monitor at focus. I have noted that if I twin/duplicate the display, because of resolution differences between the monitor and TV, the image is soft on both screens and overscan size becomes an issue.

Considering the interface is almost totally independent of the player.. it should be possible to use XBMC on one monitor to control an external player and have that player default to open on a second screen. I wouldn't have a clue how this is accomplished with the internal player.. though a skinner might.

A lot of this depends on the O/S and graphic card + settings and what resolutions are you using.

[RandomGuy]

I have win7 64x, ATI 5770 graphics card with the "problem" monitor being an ASUS MS246H.

Your solution sounds like something outside of XBMC, is that correct?

[PatK]

I have win7 64x, ATI 5770 graphics card with the "problem" monitor being an ASUS MS246H.

Your solution sounds like something outside of XBMC, is that correct?

Ok we have just about the same set-up, Win7/64 5770 gfx. My solution can been seen as outside XBMC, but you're still using XBMC, just calling an external player like Media Player HomeCinema with a monitor location switch which minimizes XBMC to play your selection, then pops back-up after it's finished. Did you want multi-tasking within XBMC, so that you could call other media?

Not the ideal solution from your standpoint, looking at the CCC it appears you can have different frame rates, resolutions and sizes, but in practice it may not hold.