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How to use two monitors with one PC
Virtually every computer, even a laptop, has a VGA output for a second computer monitor. Depending on your video or graphics card, whether your computer is a desktop or laptop, you might also have an output for a television. You can find this out by looking at the back of your computer and studying the various jacks and outputs. Typically the output for a TV uses an s-video output, but there are also other types. If you do not know, you can take a picture of the suspected outputs with your digital camera or draw them on a piece of paper and take that to your local video store, to see if they sell the cables for it. If plugging into the TV, you will also need to know what kind of inputs are available on your TV. This can get a bit complicated and require a certain amount of computer geekness, but with a bit of saviness and experimentation, you should be able to figure it out. Depending on the sophistication of your video card, you could even use more than two screens, such as two computer monitors and a TV. For our more simple case, lets take the standard situation of two computer monitors. Whether you are using two computer monitors or a TV, the settings on the computer are generally the same. Go to the Start menu, Control Panel, Display, and press the Settings tab. You should already have your second monitor plugged in and turned out. Remember to never plug in a device, such as a computer monitor, while it is on. Make sure it is off, plug it into the computer, then turn it on. You should also take the precaution of screwing it in moderately tight, to prevent it from accidentally disconnecting while the monitor is on. Such a mistake could accidentally fry a part of your motherboard and destroy your computer. If the monitor does not show up properly in your Display settings, you can always restart Windows while keeping the second monitor turned on. This can often resolve most problems. When in this window you should see your two monitors numbered as 1 and
2. There are some basic principles you should keep in mind:
Extending your desktop is good if you want to view different programs on different monitors, as such increasing your workspace. If you attach a large LCD second monitor, you can size certain programs next to one another, such that many programs are visible to you at the same time. But for watching movies on a TV, I found I often had to extend the desktop and drag the movie viewing program into the extended desktop space, which would be your TV or larger LCD monitor. I found I often ran into problems when double clicking on the movie program (meaning it maximises to the entire screen) and had to leave it in reduced window size for it to work properly. In such a case it should not be a great problem to size the window so that it fills up most of the screen. For viewing movies I often found Windows Media Classic rather useful (should be freely downloadable from the internet), because you can adjust the size of the image (stretch horizontally etc.). With this program you can even time shift, in case the sound is not perfectly aligned or in sync with the video image. This is something you may have to piddle around with, but piddling is always where you learn. You can download this free software as part of a pretty useful codecs pack. It comes with FDD show and Divx extensions (they appear in your system tray once you run a movie), I haven't had any problems opening a video file, and it is quite versatile. I was told VLC player was also quite good. * * * * * *
Published - June 2010
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Legal Disclaimer Site Map |
There
are several reasons why you might want to use multiple monitors with your
computer. One might be for work reasons, if you need to spread out your
programs on several screens. Another might be for display purposes, if
for example you are making a presentation to a customer, so that they
could watch the same image as you but from the comfort of their own chair
and not have to crowd in next to you. Or you might want to hook up a TV
to your computer so that more of you could comfortably watch a movie,
while you use your computer's sound card to create excellent surround
sound, plugging that into your stereo system.
