TV screen wont set up as a clone of desktop

[pkrdonk]

Hi

When i first plugged in my HDMI cable, the TV (Panasonic 42inch plasma 1080p) would mirror the desktop. Then i fiddled around with the resolution a little and now it will not show anything unless i extend the desktop onto the tv screen.

Does anyone know what the settings need to be for mirroring the desktop?

Laptop Sony vaio vgn-ar630e 17in, 2ghz, 2gb ddr, and bluray

[CyberVisions]

Originally Posted by pkrdonk

Hi

When i first plugged in my HDMI cable, the TV (Panasonic 42inch plasma 1080p) would mirror the desktop. Then i fiddled around with the resolution a little and now it will not show anything unless i extend the desktop onto the tv screen.

Does anyone know what the settings need to be for mirroring the desktop?

Laptop Sony vaio vgn-ar630e 17in, 2ghz, 2gb ddr, and bluray

2 things you need to remember about external displays - they have their own settings for HDMI input, and the PC controls the output video signal.

How external monitors display that video signal depends on the specific setup of your GPU card, i.e., cloned display, Dual view, and Primary external (the external becomes your PC's primary display unit).

Cloned display is exactly what it implies - what you have on your PC monitor is mirrored on the external. Primary external is obvious, where you set your external as the primary PC monitor.

Dual View allows you to use your external display for showing content other than what you have on your PC monitor. The best way to describe it is to think about multi-display setups where the monitors are side by side, and the system uses all screen real estate as one giant display. In this mode, you can have one program showing on one display, and one or more on the other display. What you're describing is indicative of a Dual View setup, not a Cloned display.

Open up your GPU Control Panel, and check what your multi-display setup is set to. If it's set to Dual, change it to cloned (if that's what you want).

The other thing as I mentioned is your HDTV's own settings - it's resolution is 1080p, and if you change the input resolution to something different, it'll change the position and appearance. The best way to describe it is what happens when you're watching a cable program at 480i and you switch to an HD channel. Notice what happens to the picture when the resolution changes?

What you need to do is to change the display setting in the HDTV setup menu. All HDTV's have a Position setting in the menu - if you're PC resolution is much lower, reposition the display on your external using the menu setting.

However, the easiest thing to do is to set your PC display resolution to its highest value. Remember that HDTV's will automatically sense the incoming video resolution.