2008/10/24 Robert P. J. Day rpjday@crashcourse.ca:
someone else suggested that the DVD image was bypassing the framebuffer, which i didn't follow. can someone clarify the technical issues behind why i need to deactivate the attached LCD display on the laptop to get DVD output on the external display? i'm convinced it works, and now i know how to do it. i'd just like it to not be quite so much magic. thanks.
I'm not sure about this but I suspect the video display may be using a video overlay surface:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_overlay
Typically you can only have one overlay surface per graphics device, not per screen. As I said I'm not sure if that's what's happening for you but it's a likely possibility.
Chris.