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Ziv
Asked: 2012-03-11 05:56:28 +0800 CST

How to play full screen video on second monitor?

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I have two identical monitors, and when playing a full screen video on one of them using the default player or VLC and then working on the other monitor - the top bar and the launcher appear above the video. How can I avoid that?

btw. I'm using ubuntu 11.10

=== This is the case in Ubuntu 12.04 as well. I noticed it when connected to a TV via HDMI.

multiple-monitors video vlc hdmi fullscreen

2 Answers

  1. If you use Totem (the default video player) or possibly others you can set the video window to be "Always on top". Right click on the title bar and select it:

    enter image description here

    I have not actually tried this in Unity, however as noted in my comment, this is a compiz thing, and I am using compiz with gnome-panel which does exactly the same thing.

    Also note this might not work in all players if they open a new window when going fullscreen. I think VLC does that so may not work. I'm not sure about mplayer.

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  2. Did you try using xrandr command? Type xrandron the terminal:

    subo@ubuntu:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
   1024x600       60.0 +
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 300mm x 230mm
   1024x768       85.0*+   75.1  
   1280x1024      60.0  
   800x600        85.1     75.0  
   640x480        85.0     75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1

    If you want to both monitors active use

    xrandr --auto

    Or if you want to active specific monitor try

    xrandr --output MONITER_NAME --auto

    and if you want to off the other monitor try

    xrandr --output MONITOR_NAME --off

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