Dual view

I am getting into video jockeying, but don't know how to view my iTunes playlist on my Macbook Pro while simultaneously projecting a music video onto large external screen. I want to search for requests on my playlists without having to wait until music video is over and then showing the search on the screen everyone is looking at. How do I do this?

Turn off "mirroring." It's in the display preferences.

Thanks, but when I do this the wallpaper shows up on the external screen, without toolbar, folders, etc shown, not the video. Let me try to explain what I want to do again:Let's say I have a projector connected to my Macbook Pro and I am on iTunes. I have selected a music video from my playlist and opened it up. Now the audience can see the video, the same one I can see on my laptop screen. then someone comes up and requests a video or a song, but I don't know if I have it. I want to be able to search for that next song/video form my library while the video I have up is showing. How can I do this?

Thanks, but when I do this the wallpaper shows up on the external screen, without toolbar, folders, etc shown, not the video. Let me try to explain what I want to do again:Let's say I have a projector connected to my Macbook Pro and I am on iTunes. I have selected a music video from my playlist and opened it up. Now the audience can see the video, the same one I can see on my laptop screen. then someone comes up and requests a video or a song, but I don't know if I have it. I want to be able to search for that next song/video form my library while the video I have up is showing. How can I do this?

if you've turned off mirroring, then the cursor spans across so you have to have it on the screen you want as the main... check in prefs with display... well this should help How to connect your MacBook to an external monitor?

Unfortunately, this is not possible under Lion if you are using full screen apps. It makes absolutely no sense to have one screen become useless. This was possible under Leopard and Snow Leopard but Apple seems to have really dropped the ball on this. It's one of the most irritating flaws for professional users as there are so many instances where you'd want a full screen app and your second monitor at the same time. We can only hope they fix this in a future update.

Wait, so you're saying that Apple has dropped support for dual monitors?

Rubbish. I do this all the time, works great.

Dual screens won't work if you're using iTunes, but let's say you are using VLC or something to show the videos. Simply movie the video window over to the other screen, then make it full screen (which is not the same thing as Lion's "Full Screen" command). Your playlist window and Finder windows so you can see and move your videos into the playlist should stay on the "first" screen, so the audience can't see them.

In fact, just to test this, I'm doing it as I type to you. I opened VLC, checked my prefs to be sure that "black during fullscreen" was UNchecked, opened a Stone Roses video and put it on my second screen (fullscreen). The playlist and controller (and all other windows and apps, etc) are on my first screen. This is in Lion, latest versions of everything.

It is most certainly not rubbish. There is a whole thread on this over at Apple Discussion Communities. And you just said yourself that it won't work with iTunes, which the OP was asking about. VLC and some third party applications will work on an external monitor in full screen, but if you try to use iTunes or DVD Player, the active screen slides over to one monitor or the other, and the other screen goes to the gray linen screen... that's what the OP is describing exactly.

Try this...

Try opening a movie in DVD Player full screen on your external monitor, then try to to keep surfing the web on your Macbook Pro. You can't. I used to do this all the time for house guests; put a movie on full screen on the TV while I had my work open on my MBP screen. This is not possible with most native applications under Lion.

As a workaround, VLC player will let you watch a movie in full screen and use your primary display too. But this used to be possible natively in OS X and it really still ought to be.