question about multiple displays and the 1530

I have two questions actually...

1. I am using dualview and have my notebook connected to my tv through HDMI to watch movies while I game or surf the net on the notebook. All works great, but my question is whether there is an easy way of turning off the notebook display and still having the movie play and the computer stay awake and powered up?

2. Whats the best display settings to use on a panasonic 42" plasma? My TV's resolution is 1024x768 but the notebook detects it as 1280x768 I think and if I change it manually I am uncertain if this will effect the picture quality. Does anyone know the ideal display settings to use to get the best picture and have it take up as much of the screen as possible?


I hope this is the right place to ask these questions lol

 

1)You can just close the lid after changing the power options in control panel to "do nothing" when the lid is closed.
2)Google the TV model for the resolution and then use custom resolution from the display panel.

 

I tried that and the picture looks distorted as though its stretched too much horizontally. In fact it seemed like the simple thing to do and now that it didnt really work out too great I'm a little lost lol.

If I set the res to the tv spec it looks stetched and if I dont I lose parts of the screen to overscan(or maybe something else?)...

I mean its watchable but I would like to track down some more educated settings.

 

What setting is your TV on? I know mine looks a bit funky because there is a 'stretch' mode where it tries to stretch SDTV into 16:9 to fill the screen.