Screen goes black in mplayer when connected to an extended external monitor

anishjp · #1 14th February 2011, 06:26 PM

Hi guys

I am so glad to say that Fedora recognized automatically when I connected my external HP LCD monitor to it. Its an extended display by default. When I tried to play a movie I found that mplayer starts playing, i can see the scroll bar moving but nothing is being displayed. Its just a black screen. When I disconnected my VGA cable, its started showing the display. What can be done now, I want to watch movies in my extended monitor.

Regards,
Anish

David Batson · #2 2nd March 2011, 11:28 AM

I believe you need to install xvattr and run the following or similar command as in the post below.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpo...01&postcount=7

anishjp · #3 2nd March 2011, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Batson

I believe you need to install xvattr and run the following or similar command as in the post below.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpo...01&postcount=7

I have connected to my external display through the VGA port and not via S-video port. My xrandr -q shows that it has detected my external LCD monitor and uses the correct resolution and refresh rate. Problem occurs only when I play mplayer with external monitor connected, which I believe is due to the difference in the resolution used by primary display and secondary display.

Name

xvattr - Query/Set X11 XVideo Setting(s)
Synopsis

xvattr [options...]

This program is used for getting and setting X11 Xv attributes such as XV_BRIGHTNESS , XV_CONTRAST , XV_SATURATION , XV_HUE , XV_COLORKEY , ...

For this program to work, you must have a version of X11 with the XVideo extension and a graphics card that has Xv graphics acceleration.

All these parameters in my Laptop are perfect!

David Batson · #4 2nd March 2011, 02:52 PM

It is unclear to me from your previous post if you got it working or not.

To the best of my knowledge, it is xvattr that enables overlay mode for videos on an external monitor; whether via S-Video cable, VGA cable, or other connection. AFAIK, the type of connection is irrelevant (once you can see any reasonable output on the external display).

Note part of your post: "For this program to work, you must have a version of X11 with the XVideo extension and a graphics card that has Xv graphics acceleration.". This could be an issue in your case.

EDIT: I am not really familiar with the xvattr options and switches. I copied the command below from another forum post somewhere sometime past.

Code:

xvattr -a XV_CRTC -v 1