Really weird problem connecting PB to TV

[darcyh]

Hi!

I want to connect my Powerbook to my television so that the telvision screen displays the quicktime movie I'm playing on my powerbook.

I used the little PB to Video cable that came with my 15" AL PB, connect it to a video cable, connect that to the television, and the background of my desktop shows but no icons, windows, menus, or anything else.

Now it gets stranger: When I open up System Preferences, then click on Display, the Display window shows on the television! But it's the Display window from OS 9, *not* OS X. I started up OS 9 and opened programs in it, but those didn't show up. But when I opened Moniter preferences in OS 9, that showed up!

I tried this on three different tv's and two projectors. Anyone know why this would be happening?

Unfortunately for me, I planned an event around being able to show this .mov movie on a television screen -- an event that will draw 20-40 people! My other option is to convert the .mov to MPEG2? and then burn it to a DVD and play the DVD in a regular DVD player, but someone told me that will make the quality of the movie horrible. Also, I don't know for the life of me how to convert the .mov to a MPEG2 in iDVD -- the billowing curtains kind of confuse me.

 

[Logik]

Hi!

I want to connect my Powerbook to my television so that the telvision screen displays the quicktime movie I'm playing on my powerbook.

I used the little PB to Video cable that came with my 15" AL PB, connect it to a video cable, connect that to the television, and the background of my desktop shows but no icons, windows, menus, or anything else.

Now it gets stranger: When I open up System Preferences, then click on Display, the Display window shows on the television! But it's the Display window from OS 9, *not* OS X. I started up OS 9 and opened programs in it, but those didn't show up. But when I opened Moniter preferences in OS 9, that showed up!

I tried this on three different tv's and two projectors. Anyone know why this would be happening?

Unfortunately for me, I planned an event around being able to show this .mov movie on a television screen -- an event that will draw 20-40 people! My other option is to convert the .mov to MPEG2? and then burn it to a DVD and play the DVD in a regular DVD player, but someone told me that will make the quality of the movie horrible. Also, I don't know for the life of me how to convert the .mov to a MPEG2 in iDVD -- the billowing curtains kind of confuse me.

in all likelihood the movie burned to a dvd as mpeg will look almost identical to what you have in the MOV... on a tv.. well traditional tv you won't notice a single bit of difference as they're grainy as hell anyway. if it's an hdtv you may notice the difference but i doubt it'll be that big of a deal.

you can simply import the video into iDVD and burn.. not really complicated at all.. give it a shot.

 

[aricher]

bring the movie into iMovie and click the "create iDVD Project" button on the bottom right. This should open the whole thing as an iDVD project. Don't worry about the billowing curtains - that's just one of many possible themes.

In iDVD click on "Customize" at the bottom left - this will give yo useveral themes to choose from - you can change titles by clicking on the text and, if there's a placeholder that says 'drag photos or movies here,' you can put your own picture into that area or the film you are about to show - it will come out as a chapter index on your final DVD.

I hope this helps.

 

[JeDiBoYTJ]

Im not sure if this is irrelivant, but when you go to Display Propertys, look on the main screen for an option to "mirror" the display, thats how I got mine to work.

 

[Logik]

Im not sure if this is irrelivant, but when you go to Display Propertys, look on the main screen for an option to "mirror" the display, thats how I got mine to work.

you can also do this on a powerbook (my 15 rev c anyway) by hitting F7 key.. that toggles between mirror and dual desktops or whatever it's called

 

[darcyh]

Thanks so much for the help. I will try burning the cd tonight!

 

[bankshot]

Anyone know why this would be happening?

It's quite simple. The PowerBook is using the TV as a second display. The PowerBook's screen is the primary display and the TV sits "next to it" as an extension of your desktop. If you move the mouse cursor past the edge of the screen (left or right, I'm not sure what the default is), you'll see it show up on the TV. Additionally, you can drag windows past the edge of the main screen and onto the TV screen.

If you look in the Displays preference panel, there's a tab called Arrangement. There you can drag the two screens around to specify how they get put together to make up the extended desktop.

Don't bother with the DVD. All you need to do is drag the QuickTime window to the TV screen and play. If you have QuickTime Pro, you can even play it full screen on the TV (QuickTime will know that the window is on that screen and maximize it there when you select Full Screen).

I use this method all the time to play movies or show pictures on my TV screen. Works great!