Media Live multiple video output

Question

I am considering buying a Media Live barebone as my HTPC.  The only thing holding me back is determining whether or not I am able to output to 2 different monitors as 2 separate displays.
My goal is to mount a touchscreen monitor (encased in a custom picture frame) on a wall to act as a hub for my media center.  It would connect to the Media Live HTPC via VGA to show the XP MCE interface.  I would be able to control audio and video from this monitor.  Also, when not in use, it would scroll through pictures in the screen saver.  The HTPC would then connect to my receiver via HDMI.  It would output audio and video to my LCD TV.
So basically, what I am looking to do, is control audio and video output to my TV from my touchscreen monitor.  If this is not possible, I could deal with displaying the same output on both the touchscreen and the TV, however I wish to use HDMI to keep high quality output.  So, I run in to the issue of my touchscreen monitor not having an HDMI port.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I am not absolutely sure if I got you right, but the MSI Media Live barebone IS able to run two displays at the same time. I have got my HDTV connected via HDMI (signal passed through my Yamaha RX-V863 receiver) and a small touchscreen display via VGA, too at the same time. I think they cannot show different information at the same time but you can clone the screen on both displays.
You just should not forget that most VGA displays cannot show full HD resolution, so if you do not own a receiver for upscaling your HDMI signal to full HD you will have to enjoy your video on TV in the same resolution as on the VGA touchscreen (mostly 800x600 pixels => 720p). But with a AV receiver connected for upscaling the signal you can show information on a small touchscreen and (cloned) information on your HD TV in full HD at the same time.
There is only one thing that sucks: If you want to switch off or on your TV while the barebone is already running, you will get a video driver error since you "unplug" or "plug"  a non usb device while the system is running. So the video driver will be restored and you will have to repeat the procedure of activating the TV output and cloning the touchscreen's signal onto the TV (if you have bad luck you will even have to reboot the system before you can use the TV for cloned video output since the OS will not recognize the TV any more without a restart). By the way you can avoid this problem when you are using a AV receiver by keeping the receiver switched on while the barebone is switched on because then the output source will not vanish and Windows will be "satisfied".