A DVD does not play on a secondary monitor when the battery is low on a laptop

On some laptop computers, you can display a DVD on both the laptop screen and on a secondary monitor. However, if the laptop is running on battery power, the DVD may not play back correctly on the secondary monitor.

This problem does not occur when the laptop is plugged in to an AC power supply.

This problem occurs because the system does not include a MPEG-2 decompressor. To play DVD movies by using Windows Media Player, you have to use a MPEG-2 decompressor on the system.

Some earlier MPEG-2 decompressors do not fully support the Video Mixer Renderer (VMR). You may experience playback problems when earlier verswions of MPEG-2 decompressors are run by using either multi-monitor configurations or low power configurations.

Additionally, you can change the specific renderer that Windows Media Player uses for DVD playback. This setting can affect how content is played back in low power configurations.

To resolve this problem, use one of the following methods:

• Upgrade to a later version of the MPEG-2 decompressor.
  
  Some earlier versions of MPEG-2 decompressors use only GDI mode for the secondary display and do not support the VMR.
• Turn on features that are typically off in low power mode. To use a different power option so that Windows Media Player tries to play back content as if it is plugged in to an AC power supply, follow these steps:
  1. On the Tools menu in Windows Media Player, click Options, click Performance, and then click Advanced.
  2. Clear the Battery Optimized Performance check box.

Some video adapters turn off the voltage for a secondary overlay surface while in low power mode.

For additional information on low power configuration video playback, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: