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Home Forums Silverlight Programming Report a Silverlight Bug Fullscreen Mode with Dual Monitor
54 replies. Latest Post by Vincent Kruskal on March 2, 2010.
(1)
house_air
Member
2 points
2 Posts
12-31-2007 7:59 AM |
It's not really a bug, but I think it would improve the user experience if the behaviour of the fullscreen mode might be changed a little for dual monitors.
1. Silverlight fullscreen opens always on the main monitor, no mather on which monitor the "source" window is displayed. In my opinion it would be better to use the monitor on which the silverlight application is displayed in normal mode.
2. Changing to a different application makes the fullscreen mode disappear (I know, this is not a bug, but by design). It maked sense to let the user work on the secondary monitor (or the first, if silverlight fullscreen is on the secondary) and let him/her watch for example a video on the other monitor. Think about screencasts, where you could then watch on one monitor in fullscreen mode and work in visual studio on the other one.
swildermuth
Star
8320 points
1,546 Posts
01-01-2008 7:27 AM |
This does make sense, though the debugging of FullScreen mode needs to be taken into accout as well...currently its very difficult to debug FullScreen mode without dual monitors...
tomtaylo...
395 points
117 Posts
01-02-2008 9:29 PM |
Both good suggestions. Many people run multiple monitors (I do) but the majority of people only have one, and so much of the current experience has been optimized around keeping things simple and respecting the needs of a person with a single monitor.#1 was chosen because it turns out to be surprisingly tricky to tell what monitor the user intended to run in full screen mode (lots of corner cases) & so we decided to go with the straightforward solution of just using the primary display. For #2, the problem is security - you don't want to prevent a user from being able to get out of full-screen mode via [esc], [alt-tab/command-tab], etc. - lots of corner cases there as well. thanks for the feedback!-Tom
01-02-2008 10:08 PM |
I don't think it's that tricky. Take Windows Media Player for example. This application behaves exactly like i described it. Fullscreen on the monitor where the player window is in normal state, exit fullscreen on [alt-tab] only if the new active window is (at least partially) on the same monitor as the fullscreen video. And with [esc] you can also exit fullscreen mode. So it can be done!
UliA
23 points
17 Posts
01-22-2008 7:15 PM |
hello, i would also appreciate this feature. a lot of people are already using 2 monitors especially in companys! a second reason why it would be great to have this function - and that's my problem right now - is the problem that occurs if you want to present a show on a beamer
scgas
6 points
3 Posts
02-01-2008 1:31 PM |
I agree with you 100%, all my client's have dual / quad screens with many apps running. The whole purpose is to be able to multi-task and after all, is that not what Windows environment is supposed to be all about?
bluearc
Participant
1500 points
325 Posts
02-04-2008 9:05 AM |
Well i belive when working on web ..
every thing is dependent on the web browser..
either we use ie or firrefox..
the only way to get screen size is
Scree.width or scree.some thign aomething..
the point is
from browser we can only find the details of one browser.. soit is restricted..
if really we want to do any thin g..
we have to do changes in browser..
if MS or any body writes any codes which checks the no of display plugins... and then calculate the amount of width and height..
then only this problem can be handled..
but i belive this will never happen.. because in the priority .. this problem stands at bottom...
and another problem is ..
platform
like hardware conf s diff on diff. plat form..
another..
theristriction on accessing client's information...
last but not least
full screen
is just a popup window
which is handeled by silverlingt internally so that there could no security message on popup
any popup fullscreen only covers the current screen...
So finally we have to move on...
"If this answer helps you hten mark it as answered"
Pete Magsig
1 Posts
03-22-2008 12:26 PM |
I would like an option for full screen mode to take over both monitors in a dual monitor system. Is this kind of extension planned?
04-02-2008 9:01 PM |
Pete Magsig: I would like an option for full screen mode to take over both monitors in a dual monitor system. Is this kind of extension planned?
nycandyb
16 points
7 Posts
04-07-2008 1:41 PM |
I have a laptop running WinXP Prof. with an NVidia Quadro FX GO 1400 graphics card. It has a great feature that allows you to direct video applications to automatically give a full-screen image on what's defined as the second monitor. For example when I watch baseball on MLB.com using the Windows Media Player v11, as soon as the feed is started I get a full-screen picture on my second monitor, which happens to be a TV connected via an S-Video connection to my laptop. I don't even need to select full-screen in the media player. No matter what I have that sized at I get full-screen on my TV. If I do select full-screen in the media player I get full-screen on both monitors (Laptop and TV).
But Silverlight doesn't do this. It seems it's not completely compatible with certain video cards dual-screen capabilitiies. Maybe this dual-screen functionality is not a high priority - but it should be. After all Silverlight is a video player. It should be assumed that there will be people who will want to use it with their TV's connected to their PC's. NVidia seems to get it!
04-08-2008 4:52 AM |
After all Silverlight is a video player
i wouldn't reduce it to a video player!
the thing about the auto full screen mode: because of security issues this feature propably won't be implemented ever! <- statement of a microsoft employee
04-08-2008 6:36 AM |
I don't know much about what Silverlight is supposed to be. I'm not a developer; only a user and my only experience with it is as a video player. And Major League Baseball has decided to use it as the only way to get to their highest quality streams (1.2 mbs). With Windows Media Player you can receive only the 400 kbs and 800 kbs streams. So I'm forced to watch the lower quality streams if I want to watch on my TV (2nd monitor).
I don't understand what kind of security issue there could be with supporting auto full-screen mode. The microsoft employee who made that statement should explain why it's not a security issue with Windows Media Player but is with Silverlight.
Anyway, thanks for the information!!
04-08-2008 10:07 AM |
he told me the reasons. you also can find some statements in the webcasts about silverlight. i just don't want to work out the details :) i'm hurry
CoderX
160 points
92 Posts
04-09-2008 5:07 PM |
I have to put in my $0.02 here as well. The lack of multiple monitor support for fullscreen video is a royal PITA. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to watch a screen-cast tutorial on one monitor while I follow along in Visual Studio only to realize I can't do it with Silverlight videos. The default size (non-fullscreen) for most videos is way too small to read anything in the video (and they're not resizable). Then when I full-screen it, not only does it take over my center monitor (I have 3), which IS NOT where I had my browser, but the moment I click on Visual Studio, it exits full-screen and I'm back to square one. You know what I end up having to do? I have to load the video page up on my MacBook Pro, full-screen it there, and set the MBP next to my workstation so I can see it. Surely MS does not expect everyone to run out and buy a laptop just to make full-screen SL usable! My co-worker who doesn't have a laptop has no such option and I frequently hear him swearing from across the room about this (everyone in our office has at least dual monitors).
This falls into the category of "quit making excuses and just fix it"! IMO, SL video is pretty much useless without this being fixed.
04-09-2008 5:23 PM |
nycandyb:I don't know much about what Silverlight is supposed to be. I'm not a developer; only a user and my only experience with it is as a video player. And Major League Baseball has decided to use it as the only way to get to their highest quality streams (1.2 mbs). With Windows Media Player you can receive only the 400 kbs and 800 kbs streams. So I'm forced to watch the lower quality streams if I want to watch on my TV (2nd monitor).
I'll follow up with you privately about the MLB.com issue - I have some questions for you & then I'll reply all after that. - TomTom TaylorMicrosoft Silverlight
04-09-2008 5:52 PM |
nycandyb: I don't understand what kind of security issue there could be with supporting auto full-screen mode. The microsoft employee who made that statement should explain why it's not a security issue with Windows Media Player but is with Silverlight.
The "security issue" in this case is around three restrictions:1.) Silverlight requires a user-initiated action to go into full screen mode. This could be as simple as clicking a button or pressing a key. It won't happen automatically.2.) when Silverlight goes into full-screen mode, there's a brief message that shows the location of the user and says "press the 'esc' key to exit"3.) Silverlight doesn't allow keyboard input in full-screen mode, except for the 'esc' key. We still allow mouse input, though.What I think you're talking about is the fact that the Silverlight full-screen video is going to the primary monitor, rather than the secondary monitor. This isn't a security issue, just a limitation of the current implementation.
I can think of two workarounds for this:1.) on Windows, you could designate the other monitor as your primary one. This is done through the display properties control panel - there's a checkbox in the UI somewhere that says "Use this device as the primary monitor". Pick the monitor you want, select that property, and now Silverlight should show up on the other monitor when it goes into full-screen mode.
2.) on Macintosh, you could mirror the two desktops (show the same thing). This is done via the Displays control panel in System Preferences. Both of these come with side effects, but would unblock the primary scenario of displaying full-screen Silverlight on a specific monitor.
- TomTom TaylorMicrosoft Silverlight
gth816f
04-09-2008 6:12 PM |
tomtaylormsft:I'll follow up with you privately about the MLB.com issue - I have some questions for you & then I'll reply all after that. - TomTom TaylorMicrosoft Silverlight
I also have the same MLB.com issue, so any help you give nycandy would help me out greatly too. The difference between 1.2 mbps and 800kbs is a big deal. Thanks.
04-09-2008 6:37 PM |
CoderX: everyone in our office has at least dual monitors
everyone in our office has at least dual monitors
same as we have!
CoderX: quit making excuses and just fix it
quit making excuses and just fix it
unfortunately this propably won't be implemented in version 2.0!
04-09-2008 6:44 PM |
Thanks Tom! This is a good suggestion. I had already done this via my video driver and it worked.
But with this solution it's hard to do other things on the computer while watching the MLB.TV feed.
I really need my primary monitor to be my laptop, where I can check email, amongst other things, while watching the MLB feed on the TV. So if Silverlight could be modified in some way to enable full screen on the secondary monitor, whether manual or automatic, that would be an enormous improvement and I would then start using it.
Thanks again,
Andy
Vincent ...
8 Posts
01-05-2009 5:19 PM |
house_air:It's not really a bug, but I think it would improve the user experience if the behaviour of the fullscreen mode might be changed a little for dual monitors. 1. Silverlight fullscreen opens always on the main monitor, no mather on which monitor the "source" window is displayed. In my opinion it would be better to use the monitor on which the silverlight application is displayed in normal mode. 2. Changing to a different application makes the fullscreen mode disappear (I know, this is not a bug, but by design). It maked sense to let the user work on the secondary monitor (or the first, if silverlight fullscreen is on the secondary) and let him/her watch for example a video on the other monitor. Think about screencasts, where you could then watch on one monitor in fullscreen mode and work in visual studio on the other one.
01-05-2009 5:44 PM |
house_air:It's not really a bug, but I think it would improve the user experience if the behaviour of the fullscreen mode might be changed a little for dual monitors. [snip] 2. Changing to a different application makes the fullscreen mode disappear (I know, this is not a bug, but by design). It maked sense to let the user work on the secondary monitor (or the first, if silverlight fullscreen is on the secondary) and let him/her watch for example a video on the other monitor. Think about screencasts, where you could then watch on one monitor in fullscreen mode and work in visual studio on the other one.
[snip]
Vincent Kruskal: I'm having a similar problem using Netflix streaming using dual monitors. But in my case, Silverlight seems to work fine on the secondary monitor. It goes into fullscreen just fine. But the whole point of using dual monitors, in my case, is to use the primary monitor for normal computer stuff while watching a movie on the secondary. But as soon as I move the cursor (mouse) over to the primary monitor, the fullscreen movie collapses into non-fullscreen. Is this really working as designed?
Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately this is a limitation in Silverlight 2 but we're well-aware of the need to address this in a future version, for exactly the reasons that you both mention above.
thanks!
- Tom
Tom Taylor | Microsoft Silverlight
01-05-2009 5:57 PM |
tomtaylormsft:Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately this is a limitation in Silverlight 2 but we're well-aware of the need to address this in a future version, for exactly the reasons that you both mention above. thanks! - Tom Tom Taylor | Microsoft Silverlight
Vincent
01-06-2009 11:40 PM |
Vincent Kruskal:So in your mind, there are no security issues here, right?
There are security concerns that we need to take into account, but nothing that would prevent us from improving this behavior in the future.
MWK
4 points
01-10-2009 5:08 PM |
This week NetFlix finally seems to have forced the reslt of us off of the older movie player and onto the newer Silverlight based player. I guess I'll express my disappointment in this thread.
The older player used to let me make movies full screen on my laptop's screen while I worked happily on my external monitor doing what I need to do. This no longer works. Same problem that was reported by the original poster over a year ago in this thread. Even a single empty click on the Vista desktop of the secondary monitor causes the full screen Silverlight on the primary screen to stop being full screen. Instead of having 17" of movie I'm down to about 8" after all the useless Internet Explorer stuff surrounding it gets finished using up my movie's space.
I guess I can accept that software works the way it works, and that we, as users, can try to make inputs to Microsoft about our real world experiences. That's all I'm doing here. However what's harder to accept is that the original poster made this input over a year ago, the general tone of the response was that it was a good input and nothing really stands in the way of improving Silverlight, but here we are more than a year later and it still hasn't been addressed. It seems that these inputs have made no difference.
Disappointing.
Cheers,
danTHAma...
01-30-2009 5:18 AM |
To Microsoft/Silverlight:
I too am having problems with my Netflix, just like the others....I have my laptop doin what I want to do, with an HDMI ran to my TV where I would like to watch in FULL SCREEN movies from Netflix....however when I click anywhere the fullscreen automatically closes...
Please advise!
Daniel
Stefania
02-22-2009 8:49 AM |
house_air:It's not really a bug, but I think it would improve the user experience if the behaviour of the fullscreen mode might be changed a little for dual monitors.
It could be enough to have a Stand Alone Silverlight stream player...
Once catched the stream string (through tools like URLsnooper2 or other AirCap based apps), it can be reproduced on a stand alone player with no other annoyances due to code limitations.
Oh yes. Of course this goes outside the policy of Silverlight and the content provider wishes.
But, despite the justifications of MS representatives on this forum, being this a pure bug (disguised as a previewed and wished missing), a quick solution under the form of a desktop streamline player, would be fair and correct.
I don't follow any baseball match cause I'm in Italy, but our public television implemented a Silverlight solution for their main streaming site (http://www.rai.tv) since 20 days.
The site is beautiful and I use it to watch television when in bed, but I'm very happy to have saved a rtsp string for the Windows Media Player live streaming because of the dual monitor limitation....
So I strongly beg MS, to take on the right count these requests and create a small app for IE8, add a tab on the Silverlight config window, share a Stand Alone Player or whatever tinkering or trick to solve the issue.
Thank you
Stefania Castelli
secutanudu
03-11-2009 9:33 AM |
Please fix this! The lack of the video card recognizing Silverlight as a video and the fact that it does not turn off the screensaver are both highly annoying. My nvidia card (like all others) has the option to put all videos full screen on a designated monitor. I miss this feature when using netflix :(
Saliari
03-14-2009 11:50 AM |
Tom, you're a lifesaver! Even though it's a bit of a hastle, it worked! Hopefully they'll fix it soon to where it will fill the secondary screen automatically.
Thanks!
smitty_t...
03-31-2009 3:23 AM |
I must agree with house_air and others. What you do with another app on another monitor should have no effect on silverlight. I.E. if I want to play hearts while watching netflix (read: silverlight) in full screen I should be able to do so. However clinking any outside the full screen in silverlight causes it to return to regular size. It's a bug, and I want it fixed. I've already discussed this with netflix and they say its your issue, and I think they're right.
dualscre...
04-09-2009 8:13 AM |
I want to watch Netflix movies while I code :( Please fix this MS, please!
netflixuser
04-26-2009 1:00 AM |
I actually just canceled my Netflix account due to this specific problem.
I also let Netflix have it for not letting me Opt out of the silverlight player. I explained the issue to them clearly and told them if they don't figure out a way to fix it , I won't be back as a paying customer.
My main monitor is a small LCD screen and my secondary is my 37 Inch HDTV. This problem essentially ruins this whole setup which I had previously used perfectly with netflix.
Flash has this same type of problem (although at least with flash a workaround has been posted). When using free free services such as HULU there is not much to complain about. A paid subscription service like Netflix has a much higher bar to set. Offering a TV on PC service where users can't even use their LCDTV as a secondary monitor if they even so much as click the mouse is inexcusable.
SharpGIS
Contributor
3391 points
616 Posts
04-28-2009 3:32 AM |
What if you have different resolutions on your monitors? I don't see how that would work well.
The solution would be to use two Silverlight controls, and full screen them on each screen. Using Silverlight 3's inter-control communication, you can get them to interact. When you think of it, its really not that different from creating apps that run fullscreen for Windows Forms apps. In those cases you also need to create a window for each screen.
05-03-2009 12:52 PM |
tomtaylormsft: Vincent Kruskal:So in your mind, there are no security issues here, right? There are security concerns that we need to take into account, but nothing that would prevent us from improving this behavior in the future. - Tom Tom Taylor | Microsoft Silverlight
How many more years does the public have to put up with Microsoft's 3rd rate software being shoved down our throats? I pay a lot of money for my TechNet subscription and now I can't even view the material without installing SilverLight. I will not install this app until MS makes it usable. We've had enough of this.
05-03-2009 1:11 PM |
...but I bet you wouldn't install Silverlight either if it was one big security hole. SL is one of the most solid new things that has come out of Microsoft in years. It's been out there for almost two years now, and I still have yet to hear about any security holes. Flash however have had a ton of them. What a lot of you don't realize is that Silverlight runs within a sandbox, and that's partly why it's so secure. To disable the screensaver, get access to a list of available monitors etc, it would have to break out of the sandbox to talk to the system directly. I share the concerns Microsoft has with being able to do that. For years Microsoft just added whatever the customers asked them to, without stepping back for a second and think it through. It's nice to see that they learned from it and now values security higher than features.
05-04-2009 3:19 AM |
Security is important but Microsoft and others need to provide something useful. The bottom line is if you use your PC to stream video from the internet, you should be able to have it come up as full-screen on your second monitor (mine is a TV connected via S-video), and be able to do things like check email and Skype and whatever on your primary monitor without the Silverlight feed exiting full-screen mode. Flash has a similar problem - it also exits full-screen mode as soon as you click on something - but at least it's full-screen is really full-screen. Both are annoying. I don't understand why the functionality of Windows Media Player can't be duplicated. With Media Player, I didn't have to do anything to get full-screen on my second monitor. It worked very well with my NVidia graphics driver and automatically came up as full-screen on my second monitor - no dragging of window to second monitor; it was automatic. And it stayed in full-screen no matter what I did on my primary monitor. For some reason it's not being supported anymore by sites such as MLB.com, which uses Flash. Newer may be more secure, but how good is that if it's not also functional?
05-04-2009 3:32 AM |
It's really simple really: Silverlight and Flash are bounded by the sandbox within the browser where they are running. To do what you require, would most likely mean breaking out of that sandbox.
In other words, you shouldn't be complaining about Silverlight, but instead you should complain to MLB and other sites who are switching from MediaPlayer to Flash/Silverlight.
05-04-2009 3:56 AM |
SharpGIS:It's really simple really: Silverlight and Flash are bounded by the sandbox within the browser where they are running. To do what you require, would most likely mean breaking out of that sandbox.In other words, you shouldn't be complaining about Silverlight, but instead you should complain to MLB and other sites who are switching from MediaPlayer to Flash/Silverlight.
05-04-2009 4:33 PM |
Well this is how I understand it... To disable the screen saver while playing a movie, or sending output in fullscreen to a second monitor, or even to detect that a mouse click is on a different monitor than the one where the SL app is running full-screen on would require doing calls to some core parts of the system OS. Silverlight is completely blocked of from doing such type of calls. The benefit of this is that while your silverlight application might be compromised by a hacker, they wouldn't have any way of getting into your system. That's the basic idea of running in a 'sandbox'.
I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to see the features you are requesting. But I am saying that I would not want to see those features at the cost of security.
05-04-2009 4:45 PM |
SharpGIS:Well this is how I understand it... To disable the screen saver while playing a movie, or sending output in fullscreen to a second monitor, or even to detect that a mouse click is on a different monitor than the one where the SL app is running full-screen on would require doing calls to some core parts of the system OS. Silverlight is completely blocked of from doing such type of calls. The benefit of this is that while your silverlight application might be compromised by a hacker, they wouldn't have any way of getting into your system. That's the basic idea of running in a 'sandbox'.I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to see the features you are requesting. But I am saying that I would not want to see those features at the cost of security.
05-04-2009 8:28 PM |
scgas:How many more years does the public have to put up with Microsoft's 3rd rate software being shoved down our throats? I pay a lot of money for my TechNet subscription and now I can't even view the material without installing SilverLight. I will not install this app until MS makes it usable. We've had enough of this.
I don't agree with your characterization of Silverlight as a third-rate product, but to be fair, it sounds like the biggest problem is how TechNet's player works - you want to view a larger video than they provide out of the box so you go fullscreen, but Silverlight doesn't support interaction with the desktop when the video is in full screen mode.
If the TechNet player allowed for a larger video within the browser window, would that solve the problem in the interim?
05-04-2009 8:47 PM |
I hear you, but I don't think you can blame it only on M$. I hardly use Windows anymore as it's really a very disappointing environment. The OS itself crashes. Applications crash all the time.I had two today. Full reboots required. If I didn't need Windows to trade futures I'd hardly turn it on. For the most part I accept that the software is user-unfriendly because that's the way M$ has always presented themselves - not the people - the company. I have this Silverlight issue and put up with it like everyone else in this thread.
I understand others don't have the platform freedom that I do but you might consider something like Windows running VMWare on a really stable, Open Source operating system. I've used the NetFlix player in Gentoo Linux a few times and it works fine. When Windows dies it's a 15 second virtual reboot and not a complete system crash like really using Windows. The few windows apps I need anymore all run either in VMWare or even Wine. I have a couple of Gentoo machines that haven't crashed the OS in years. Windows Vista Home Premium crashes daily, and oh yeah, another $50 gone again for virus protection.
So, my point is don't only blame M$ for bad software. Yeah, it's *their* bad software, but it's our choice whether we put up with it. I stopped years ago and you can also. This thread was an eye opener for me about how bad M$ still is. This thread has been going on for 18 months (12/07) with no solution. Open Source would fix a problem like this in days.
Good luck,
05-04-2009 9:21 PM |
Tom,
I really appreciate the fact that you responded and are trying to get a better picture of my problem. My complaint is that my primary work computer is a 15 in. laptop and my 2nd screen is a 24in widescreen. I obviously want to use my 24in screen. I could use my large screen if the technet site wasn't trying to force me to install Silverlifght. By "forcing me", I mean that when I click on the links for the articles / videos that I want to see, Silverlight install comes up. If I close the install, the screen reverts back to where I clicked...non-ending cirlce without allowing me access to the material.
05-05-2009 3:25 AM |
Then Silverlight is not the software to use for streaming video to watch on a second monitor, which in my case is a TV. Living in Europe I watch both Major League Baseball and the NFL via the internet. In the past both supported Windows Media Player. I don't know how secure it was but when I started a stream, it automatically went to full-screen on my TV (connected via S-video). My NVidia graphics driver took care of this without any manual intervention by me. I could click on anything in my primary monitor, check email, whatever, and the picture on my TV stayed in full-screen mode. This is how applications that purport to allow users to watch video streamed from the internet need to work. No large windows. No pseudo-full-screen modes. Video on TV is meant to watch in full-screen mode.
Now that MLB supports only the Flash Player, clicking on something on my primary monitor forces it to exit full-screen mode on my TV. The fact that I have to first drag the window accross to my TV and then choose full-screen mode is already a step back in the marriage of TV and internet. But I can live with that. Exiting full-screen mode every time I click on something is just a poor application of the Flash, or Silverlight software. Their behavior makes both software packages unsuitable for viewing video over the internet on a TV (or any other second monitor).
I understand security is important but if having that security means the software can't really support the application it's intended to support, then the software, with it's very secure security, has not been designed properly or is being misused on an application it shouldn't be used for.
Microsoft should go back to the drawing board. Start with the current Windows Media Player and add security and upgrade it without changing it's functionality.
Silverlight may be the right software for certain applications where full-screen is unimportant but it, and Flash, are not what either MLB or NFL should be using.
05-16-2009 10:32 AM |
tomtaylormsft:1.) on Windows, you could designate the other monitor as your primary one. This is done through the display properties control panel - there's a checkbox in the UI somewhere that says "Use this device as the primary monitor". Pick the monitor you want, select that property, and now Silverlight should show up on the other monitor when it goes into full-screen mode. 2.) on Macintosh, you could mirror the two desktops (show the same thing). This is done via the Displays control panel in System Preferences. Both of these come with side effects, but would unblock the primary scenario of displaying full-screen Silverlight on a specific monitor. - TomTom TaylorMicrosoft Silverlight
Hi Tom,
I have health issues that avoid me from spending too much time in hacking the issue....
What do you think about a silverlighted IE8 on a XP or Vista OS guest on VMWare or Virtual PC running on the second screen?
In this case the sandbox should be related to the independent OS running on the VM, allowing the unfortunate Streaming addicted like me to view it in "Full Screen" Mode without being affected by actions on the Host OS.
Is there anybody that already tried it?
If I succeed in doing it (my geek energies are back...), I will drop a line in this desperate wall of crying....
Of course, old powerless systems could be too weak to bear a streaming flow with no graphic gaps etc...
Ok.
Bye
05-20-2009 5:09 PM |
NETFLIX SILVERLIGHT PLAYER (DUAL MONITOR) FULL SCREEN FIX !
There finally is a fix for users who would like to watch netflix on their secondary monitor while working on their main monitor.
Requirements : You need windows Vista for this to work !
Summery : Microsoft and Netflix recently got together to integrate Netflix with Windows Media center. If your Windows is updated you should see Netflix is now within MCE. When I first heard about the new app I thought this might be the fix I had been waiting for. It seems though that MCE has it's own unique dual screen problem in which it creates a bounding box for your mouse when MCE is full screen mode. The following is a fix that will allow you to run MCE and it's new Netflix app in full screen in a dual monitor configuration.
Step 1.) Open MCE , click on the Netflix logo install the app and then login. If your try to play a movie in full screen you will notice you can not move from the secondary monitor back to the first because of the mouse bounding box.
Step 2.) Go to google and type in "The Maxifier". This link leads to a freeware application called The Maxifier which allows MCE to work correctly with dual screen configurations.
Step 3.) After you install the app you will see an M logo in your tray to the right. Right click on that and your can open , and control MCE from this tray. This will allow you to full screen MCE without creating a boundary for your mouse.
There you have it , you are now running the netflix player in full screen on your second monitor while working on your first. Enjoy !
P.S You can now also run Hulu.com in full screen on a second monitor.
Hulu just released the "Hulu desktop app" which allows you to run full screen in a dual monitor configuration, something that was not possible before with their flash browser based app.
cutandpaste
06-18-2009 1:29 AM |
Netflixuser,
Thanks for the detailed workaround. It should help out a lot of people who are attempting to stream movies and events with Silverlight in a useful dual-monitor configuration, as long as they happen to have Media Center running under Vista -- which is probably a pretty big percentage of folks these days.
I, however, don't have Media Center. This bug (well over a year old now) still affects me. I'm running Vista Business x64 (I "upgraded" from Home Premium). Vista Business doesn't include Media Center.
So. I have the following almost-workaround for folks in my situation (or, I guess, running XP):
In Firefox, with the Silverlight plugin and a Netflix (or whatever) movie streaming, press F11. This will make Firefox full-screen on its current monitor. Now, click somewhere on the Firefox window (but outside of the area where the movie is playing), and press Ctrl-+ repeatedly until the movie fills most of the screen. And then, scroll up or down until it is mostly centered. Voila! One has a nearly-full-screen Silverlight video on one monitor, and the other monitor is free to do whatever.
I'm using this as I write this in a seperate browser window, with a video streaming from Netflix almost-full-screen on the other monitor.
But it's not perfect. Tom, you seem to be the resident Microsoft guy around here: This eats up about 80% of each core on my quad-core Q6600 SLI Nvidia machine to (poorly) accomplish a task which should be almost irrelevent to it. It's an ugly hack. It barely works. It's not even really full-screen (there's still a grey bar at the top, and a scrollbar at the side, and it's impossible to get rid of all of the black borders). Please implement a proper full-screen mode in Silverlight which does NOT revert to being postage-stamp sized when clicking on something on a second monitor. Just like Media Player has offered since forever. (And if you still can't understand the problem, please attach two monitors to your machine and give it a shot. It's ugly!)
06-18-2009 1:59 PM |
tomtaylormsft:[Clip]If the TechNet player allowed for a larger video within the browser window, would that solve the problem in the interim? - Tom Tom Taylor | Microsoft Silverlight
artsfish
06-19-2009 7:55 PM |
Just to add my voice to the chorus: I have an iMac hooked up (via DVI to HDMI, and digital audio) to a 42" plasma TV- my "second monitor" through a Yamaha AV receiver. Not being able to use fullscreen on my 42" TV makes the whole setup useless with Netflix. To add to the wish list, HD ( 720p ok ) and encoded digital audio would be much appreciated as well. Cheers Cherie
06-20-2009 2:41 AM |
cutandpaste:This eats up about 80% of each core on my quad-core Q6600 SLI Nvidia machine to (poorly) accomplish a task which should be almost irrelevent to it.
GPU acceleration (coming in Silverlight 3) should help this quite a bit. Right now all functionality is done on the CPU.
cutandpaste:Please implement a proper full-screen mode in Silverlight which does NOT revert to being postage-stamp sized when clicking on something on a second monitor. Just like Media Player has offered since forever. (And if you still can't understand the problem, please attach two monitors to your machine and give it a shot.
We definitely understand the request & why the workarounds aren't perfect. This request is logged for consideration in a future release of Silverlight but will not be addressed in Silverlight 3.
benjinih...
09-06-2009 12:09 AM |
By a problem with security do you mean that you do not want someone to be able to work out a way to record the stream? And someone did point out that you could create a stand alone silverlight app for netflix. Personally I don't think it is a good idea to run a cpu intensive plugin from within the browser. I disable acrobat, and have the pdfs automatically open outside the browser because its smarter. Only one application to crash. It is nice to have some of it's functionality in the browser, but some of what it does should be ported like netflix movies should be in a stand alone application. I mean if you are going with the truly straightforward solution, that is it. inline with the browser is rarely the best solution for processor heavy operations. It doesn't really add to the smoothness of the experience having it inline. You could hit the link and it opens the app outside the browser but keeps you on the same page so you can get back to it simply by hitting the link in your browser if silver light crashes and it won't take down the browser when it does. I really don't understand why inline plugin architecture is always considered the best solution. It seems to me you are always asking for control conflicts when two programs have to work together to get something done. This why I have pdf launch acrobat outside the browser, because it's faster when there isn't a negotiation of control between two programs. Keep it simple don't make it easy. Even if it doesn't look as nice or might even seem more complicated when another application opens up, the user can be trained to not be frightened of a life with more applications than a browser and a word processor. Outside the browser is better and way more straightforward. You seem to design with the idea that people are scared of anything that isn't mainstream like the browser. People can get used to different applications being used for different things they want to do on the internet. You have made it a part of media center in a stand alone way. You can just as easily make it a part of the rest of windows in a stand alone way that would give us the same functionality as media player and media center without the bloated over head MC. Many people just use a wireless mouse not a media center remote, and media center is just more than most of us need or want to be bothered with to get a good dual screen configuration. You wanted to be straightforward, well be more straightforward, by moving it outside the browser for netflix, not the rest of it's capabilities.
jaystarkey
01-22-2010 9:28 PM |
Just to keep this message alive, I recently signed up for netflix, and like to work on my computer while my kids watch movies. But, then it goes from fullscreen mode into the browser since I have dual monitors... and guess what? I have a plasma TV, so this actually causes burn-in... I started looking for some kind of fix... I hope this gets fixed soon!
01-22-2010 11:32 PM |
jaystarkey: I started looking for some kind of fix
01-27-2010 2:11 PM |
This claims to be an OS X (Mac) workaround: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=781251.
newmanhe...
03-02-2010 1:33 PM |
I like to play games on one screen and watch TV full-screen on the other monitor (which sometimes is my HDTV, using a DVI to HDMI adapter). It always shrinks the video window down from full-screen to the tiny web-browser view when I hit alt-tab, which is lame!
I understand the security concern, but why can't you just have an option to break the video out into a window that could be maximized to the size of the screen, but which would still be a resizable window?
This whole "oversimplification philosophy" of designing products around some idea of how "most people" are likely to use the product is really starting to get on my nerves. Sure, I'm an advanced user, but I mean, would you make a bike with welded-on training wheels, and have it be the only bike in your product line?
03-02-2010 2:44 PM |
newmanheart66: I understand the security concern, but why can't you just have an option to break the video out into a window that could be maximized to the size of the screen, but which would still be a resizable window?
Wow! I've never been able to follow the explanation from Microsoft people about the security connection. Perhaps you could explain it better.
Thanks -- Vincent
Fullscreen Mode with Dual Monitor