help me display vide with TV-Out?

[r_holmes22]

Although I can see my desktop and applications on the screen of my basic 21" TV (using an S-VHS to SCART adapter), I can't view video (e.g. DVDs, or MPEG/AVI files). Say I view an AVI clip from my camera using Windows Media Player; the player software, task bar, desktop, icons etc. are all visible on the television screen, but the video playback portion remains blank. The same goes for watching DVDs through both Power DVD and WinDVD.

I am using the laptop in my signature and the official Catalyst 12.0 drivers. I've tried pressing the 'FN' + 'F5' keys on my keyboard, but that just loses the display from the television completely. I have read that you can't have a display on both the computer monitor and the television screen at the same time but, apart from the movie playback, I am able to do so here (e.g. when I play games the image appears on both screens at once). I get confused when reading such explanations, as people use the term 'video' to mean both movie playback and the image displayed on the screen (regardless of whether it's a movie fuile or not) and I'm not always sure which one is being referred to.

Basically I just want to be able to use my laptop to play DVDs but watch them on the television screen. Can anybody advise?

Many thanks.