Can I do a 2nd monitor w/ TV only with my setup?

[mrblahman]

I have two 24" monitor (Came apon the other one from a friend). Both of them side by side look horrible because my primary one is IPS. I was going to mount the other 24" monitor on the wall near my desk. My dream setup would be to be able to game on the IPS monitor and use windows media center (w/ tv tuner) on the other 24" monitor. Is this possible using Windows 7 Ultimate?

My Video card is a AMD ATI Radeon 4870 X2 (has two HD outs). What are my best options? Would it be best/optimal to just build a seperate HTPC dedicated for this monitor?

Thanks!

Current Setup
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- intel i7 920 (Overclocked+ / Coolermaster V8 cooled)
- coolermaster HAF932
- ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
- Corsair RAM 8 gigs
- AMD/ATI Radeon 4870 X2
- Intel SSD 128gb

 

[Ferzerp]

It will work, but you will have to use a program like "The Maxifier" to handle managing the WMC window (by default, it will maximize and take focus).

Also, if you game on the main screen, you may find your TV stream will not be smooth if you are fully loading your video card.

 

[KingFatty]

I've used my computer and watched a movie on a separate monitor. I somehow remember just maximizing Windows Media Center on the side monitor, and using my computer normally on the other monitors. I've never used The Maxifier, and it just worked without doing anything special. But it was a 5XXX series AMD card, so maybe your 4870 would be different? Or maybe you need to do something special to run a maximized app on the center monitor that would normally blank the other monitors - because they would try to battle it out over who takes focus, perhaps something like non-windowed Starcraft 2?

 

[Ferzerp]

Media Center will take focus (just like games) unless you have it windowed. The Maxifier will handle making it a borderless window and position it in the correct position each time you start it up. You can alt-tab out of the screen, but it's much easier to use a borderless window than deal with it.