02-27-2008, 04:41 PM

so your saying when you watch something with itunes or quicktime it doesnt minimize?

02-27-2008, 08:20 PM

What is happening, is that when I am watching a full screen movie in Itunes or quicktime it will exit full screen mode as soon as I click on something that is on the secondary display.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to watch the family guy, full screen, on the primary display while working on my spreadsheet on the other, or vise versa.

02-28-2008, 02:30 AM

ahh i see. well something like VLC media player has very small borders around the video, so i you could just drag the corner so its a big as possible? not fantastic i know, but that would take it as near to full screen as possible without actually being full screen.

02-28-2008, 02:32 AM

ohh, actually. i just remembered. Divx player or macs.....when you watch a video in that thats not in full screen, as soon as you click off the player the entire border around the video dissapears so you're just left with the video itself and no ugly media player borders. you could drag that to an almost full screen size, then the borders would go when you click on something on the other display.

02-28-2008, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by RiDE

That's the LONG (odd IMO) way of doing it though...

Here is what I do: When you have an external Monitor hooked up... Go into System Preferences >>> Displays>>> Arrangement Tab... then drag the menubar to the external display...

Now front row will Auto-Dim on the Mac display and play full screen on the external.

But if you make your second display your 'primary', all of the necessary menus and dock would also be hidden if front row was active correct? So that would still make your primary useless when Front Row is on? Is my logic flawed?

My suggestion is what works best for me as I generally don't use my computer and watch a vid through Front Row simultaneously...I guess its a personal preference of mine. The one thing that I'm pretty certain though is that Apple won't incorporate a setting into the Display Preferences to move Front Row since they are pushing the Apple TV (which I did consider I might add).

02-28-2008, 09:23 AM

I don't think there is a workaround. I was told I could add a second video card to my Pro to get it to stop dimming my second monitor. I plugged each monitor to a seperate video card and it still happened.
I started a thread looking for help and got no replies. Oh well.

I was told by an Apple person this would work.

02-28-2008, 09:28 AM

Agreed, I think Apple makes it disable all monitors so you can't work on the computer. They're doing it to sell more AppleTVs. But I ain't handing them another $200. They should toss one in for free. I've spent $6500+ in their store in the past year.

02-28-2008, 09:39 AM

Originally Posted by mpoma

But if you make your second display your 'primary', all of the necessary menus and dock would also be hidden if front row was active correct? So that would still make your primary useless when Front Row is on? Is my logic flawed?

I was simply referring to having frontrow play on the external display and having frontrow autodim the Mac display.. You can not use any apps or menus while running frontrow no matter what display it is playing on.

Originally Posted by lukenn77

ahh i see. well something like VLC media player has very small borders around the video, so i you could just drag the corner so its a big as possible? not fantastic i know, but that would take it as near to full screen as possible without actually being full screen.

In VLC you simply press Cmd+F to toggle FULL SCREEN on and off.. no borders at all... move the mouse off of the player controls and they fade away... move the mouse again... and the player controls appear. I actually like it much much better than Frontrow.

02-28-2008, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by RiDE

In VLC you simply press Cmd+F to toggle FULL SCREEN on and off.. no borders at all... move the mouse off of the player controls and they fade away... move the mouse again... and the player controls appear. I actually like it much much better than Frontrow.

yeah, but Tri_X_Troll's whole problem was that when he went into full screen on his secondary display, the second he clicked on anything in the primary display the video playing in the secondary display minimized....does VLC solve this problem then? Or were you just referring to the idea of replacing Front Row on a secondary display with VLC?

02-28-2008, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by lukenn77

yeah, but Tri_X_Troll's whole problem was that when he went into full screen on his secondary display, the second he clicked on anything in the primary display the video playing in the secondary display minimized....does VLC solve this problem then? Or were you just referring to the idea of replacing Front Row on a secondary display with VLC?

VLC solves that problem.. it plays fullscreen... and allows you to work on anything else. I am doing it now.

02-28-2008, 01:27 PM

Originally Posted by RiDE

VLC solves that problem.. it plays fullscreen... and allows you to work on anything else. I am doing it now.

ah i see. thanks for letting us know :-)

04-08-2008, 07:44 PM

If anyone wants to know, there is another way to get frontrow to play on a second screen. You do still get a black 1st screen, so it's not a solution like VLC, but hopefully that will get fixed in future.

First make sure frontrow isn't running by going into activity monitor. Even if you don't see it in the dock, it's probably still in faffing about behind the scenes.

Then download a little script that determines the display Id of your monitors, you can get it here: http://rapidshare.com/files/54473723/displaysInfo.zip

It has directions in it, but but they might be a bit vague for some. So, to start just double click the .scpt file. In there you'll need to change the directory section to where ever you've put the file, then when you run the script at the bottom of the window you'll get info about your displays. Use the ID for the second screen and in terminal you'll type/paste:

defaults write com.apple.frontrow FrontRowUsePreferredDisplayID xxxxxx

Obviously replace the x's with the ID number. Launch front row and it will show up on the second screen without you having to move your menu bar back and forth.

This works as of version 2.1.2 (232)

04-12-2008, 05:55 PM

Great tip! It is working just great! Thanks a lot for the tip! Now I just need to be able to have front row on my TV while being able to surf on my macbook

01-27-2009, 12:36 PM

hi. is there a way to force iTunes visualizer to do the same ? I have laptop + 22" TFT. right now it opens where iTunes window is and I'd like to put it always on a bigger screen. thanks

07-26-2009, 02:11 PM

ive been a pc/ubuntu user for a while, and i just bought a mbp so ive totally been in love with vlc player for a while now. a quick tip for any1 wanting to use vlc playing on one screen and then use their other screen for other stuff.

go to preferences and uncheck black screens in fullscreen, under the video tab. this will stop vlc from dimming your primary monitor.

plus, as mentioned above, apple remote works with vlc