Bad interaction with multiple displays

[nasruddin]

• VLC 2.0.5
  Windows XP SP3 + all current patches
  Thinkpad/Lenovo T61

VLC plays blank (all dark) in some circumstances.
This laptop has display options (via a Lenovo product called "Presentation Manager")
that allow extending the laptop screen to a 2nd display, or showing the same
display on laptop & on 2nd display (a projector). Same on 2 displays is the
option chosen. VLC will play the .ps files on the laptop display when it
alone is chosen, but when both laptop & 2nd display are chosen, the VLC
window is black.

Normally the laptops LCD displays are set to 1280x800 (their optimal display) and work fine.
We found that if we set the laptop to 1024x768, THEN change to
2 displays, THEN run VLC, VLC play will be visible on both screens.

Out of this order we get dark screens. I wasn't able to work with the user
long enough to know whether this happens with other media besides the
.ps files she is using right now.

Does anybody understand this, have any recommendations &c?
Thanks, ==mwh

[unRheal]

I'm not sure what the problem is, but just in case you haven't tried...

I'd try turning on/off Accelerated video output under Video Settings, and trying other Outputs also there, and possibly disable GPU if its enabled for some reason under Input & Codecs.

I'm also not sure what a .ps file is. I would have thought it was a PostScript file but also wouldn't have though VLC would display such a file - I see others mention it as some sort of video file, but maybe not standard? I'd at least try some relatively "normal" avi, mpg, etc. file, just in case...

[nasruddin]

ps seems to be a container format that vlc produces when it captures
some (like a youtube flash or mp4 video).

I will look at your suggestions when I am visiting this set of
laptops again & see if I learn anything. However, I don't understand this:
"turning on/off Accelerated video output under Video Settings, and trying other Outputs also there, and possibly disable GPU"
What is this? Where is it? I can't find anything like it in Windows or VLC itself.
Thanks, ==mwh