[SLUG] VLC/video output on secondary devices

[Stephen O'Neill]

>Best dvd software that I have found is VLC (video lan client).
>
But don't be silly and upgrade to FC2 beta versions of various shared 
libraries once you have it working ... because that will likely break it 
and you'll spend a whole afternoon thinking the problem's in your 
xorg.conf file after you upgraded to an ati driver *blush*.

Anyway, speaking of such things... I have an ATI graphics card with TV 
out. I wish to display video on occasion my primary display - TFT 
monitor, but mostly via the TV out.

By default I can see video on my TFT, but only see a black box instead 
of video on the TV. I believe that the problem relates to the mysterious 
subject of 'overlays' which, it seems are used by dvd etc, and most 
graphics cards are only able to show on the primary display.

I have been unable to find a way of  'toggling' the primary display 
between TFT/TV to show video output.

The only way I have found of showing the video on my TV out is to 
disable 'video overlays' in my xorg.conf (read 'XF86Config') ... the 
result of this in VLC is that you get a completely different playing 
window in VLC (without a lot of functionality, e.g. menu on right click 
amongst other things), however it is visible in both displays 
simultaneously.

Has anyone had any similar battles and found more satisfactory 
workarounds? (bearing in mind I'm lazy and don't want to restart X just 
to use a different display ;) )

Steve