Does anyone understand hdmi cables please ?

[DRD]

I run a not for profit community cinema. I use a 3yr old BenQ projector which has 2x hdmi inputs.

One of these hdmis is connected to the blu ray player which the movies play on.

The other is connected to a laptop that I use to have an intro powerpoint slide when people arrive (dates of next shows etc). I also use the laptop to screen trailers that I take from the film distributors on the web.

Yesterday the laptop worked fine before the show. The blu ray was also working fine. I tested the movie, the trailers and the intro slide at 7pm before the punters arrived. I then put the intro slide up and left the computer alone for 30 minutes.

When it came to showing the trailers at 7.30pm the projector would only display the laptop's desktop - but with zero icons on it. The laptop's own screen was showing the trailers playing as you would expect, but the projector had this "clean" desktop image. I have never even seen a clean desktop image before as it is covered in icons like files, computer programmes, dowoads etc. I rebooted the laptop and the projector but the problem persisted and I had to abandon the trailers.

At the interval I discovered that if I unplugged the blu ray player and used its hdmi cable in the laptop, I could get the trailers to project properly.

Does anyone know what happened here please and how I can avoid in the future?

Thank you

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

Have you tried holding down the “Windows Key” and pressing P? That gives you options for video output. Screen mirroring, extend desktop over 2 (or more) screens, which screen is the primary, etc

 

[kev a]

Sounds like the laptop went into extended mode (2x individual desktops) rather than duplicate (both showing the same thing)

 

[DRD]

Thanks. I will give it a go. What blew my mind was the clean desktop it was displaying

The start up page/ desktop has never been clean. Even when new. It has always had some icons on it.

 

[DRD]

How do I get it off the extended desktop thing pls ?

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

Win + P again? Each time you press P I think it moves to the next option, all Windows versions are the same more or less.

 

[Fubar]

The desktop was empty because your desktop was extended over 2 screens and all the icons were behind the video.

As mentioned above win+p will let you switch back to mirrored displays. You can also configure this by right-clicking the desktop and going into display config.

Another useful shortcut when using multiple displays is win+shift+left.arrow (or right) which moves the active window across screens.