Can you help, any ideas..

Have you tried using other media players? To be honest though I'm not sure why you consider this a problem. Anyone who can run a game and watch a movie at the same time should be very pleased.

Yeah it's pushing the card to much, get a better card (what do you have) and don't watch movies and play games, I hear you can get pancreatic cancer for doing that. (jk)

try different players like manic said and maybe messing with game settings.

Cheers for the replies. The card is a XFX 4870 1GB. i had a 3870x2 before and it worked like a charm. I tried power DVD and the same happened. Can this not usually be done then, i thought having the option of 2 monitors allowed you to do this...?.

My out of the blue guess would be the difference in resolutions between the 2 monitors and the launched game w.e that means haha  

i mostly conclude that from the background on the monitor isn't full on the 2nd so you don't have the same resolution and when you launch the game the player gets like zoomed in and the controls which where visible are gone probably has to do with things i have no understanding of.

Does it happen if you start the game tab out then do the movie. Or when it's full-screen instead of just maximized. Along with a game launched in window mode.

I'm assuming you updated the drivers. 1st, try VLC media player. Its an excellent player.
Another thing that might be the culprit could be audio codecs. I had this happen to me before when I would play Company of Heroes with DolbyDigital, while watching certain AVI files that would launch specific audio codecs.
There are many causes that could lead to this symptom unfortunately  

Do you think that if i brought a 2nd card, plugged the TV directly into that and had my monitor in the first card it would work like i want it to. I could crossfire them for game only playing and come out of crossfire when i want to do both....?.

I don't think you need a second card, I'm kinda going of what izzy said

What resolution is the game on. If it is on 1200x720 then your monitors (both of them since it is acting like one big screen) could be beeing set to that resolution, I can't see if that's what's happening but it is a theory.

It could also be a problem with mixing 3d and 2d playback.

My Telley is 1920x1080 my monitor is 1650x1050 (something like that).

What resolution is the graphics card set too, I'm assuming 1650x1050, and since the screens are "joined" the TV might be also displaying those graphics.

Here's another question does the resolution drop (icon's get bigger) when you open up the game, and what resolution is the game set too?

I assume you've tried updating drivers and such?

Funny that it worked with one card and not another leads me to think it's a driver issue, a setting was changed, or the some graphic hardware issue where the 4870 just doesn't support what you are doing.

Hi.

The card for the monitor displays 1650x1050. The 2nd monitor is set at 1920x1080.

1280x1024 is the game setting.

Yes i have updated to the latest drivers.

What card do you run..?. Can you do what i am trying to acheive on your card..?

I run a 9800gtx+also by XFX, so your card is better. I have run dual monitors but I haven't tried video and games. What brand was the 3870x2 from? You might try contacting xfx about this, though I don't know how much they can help.

Here's a question how are the two screens configured, meaning when you go into display settings, which is checked as your main monitor and is the desktop extended to the second monitor.

Try setting both screens to the same resolution, just to see what happens, then set it back. Then try setting the game to a higher resolution to a higher resolution.

Try running the game not in full screen. Also what happens when you just run the game and not the video, if the same thing happen, here's my theory, either it's a setting, driver, compatibility issue, or when you load up the game in 1280x1024, it sets the scales the first monitor down to that resolution, and in turn messes with the resolution scaling on the second, but since the actual resolution hasn't changed, not all of the screen is displayed.

You might also try switching which monitor runs the game and video.