Hello all, I have my laptop (latitude cpx) hooked up to my old tv using the s-video out on the side of the laptop. I go to play a movie through ANY software on my laptop. These include Windows Media Player, PowerDVD, winamp, etc. I get the movie to play find on laptop, but all my tv shows is a black screen. (it shows the skins and controls, but no actual video) The setup is a bit trickier than explained above. So, here goes. I first have a converter cable connected to my laptop's s-video out that converts to AV inputs. I connect the yellow audio cable to that. I connect a "splitter" to the headphones port that will allow me to split into the typical red and white audio cables. Now, my TV is ancient, so I have to go through an RF converter because I have no component audio/video. So, I plug all into the rf-converter, and then into the coaxial cable on the back of my TV. Like I mentioned above, the movie plays perfectly on laptop, but I look over on TV... I see my desktop, etc and the skin for whatever player I chose to use but just a black screen where the movie shoule be playing.
i just had the same problem and luckily found the answer! there is prolly a function key that has a picture of a monitor or just a box on it. maybe F4 or F5. its F4 on one of my compaq's but F5 on the other, you have to hit the function key plus the F4 or F5 key. that will disable your laptop monitor, but then fully enable your tv. like magic the once blank dvd player on the TV became populated with my fav Saumrai Champloo dvd! and it even worked for Lucas' protected Episode III!!! try it out True Believer!
I just hit the fn and f4 at the same time now my computer screen won't even show up on my tv like it was doing before.
