OK, I've setup dual monitors before, but this is a bit different. My wife wants to download movies & watch them on our TV - which is in a different room than the PC.
I had to upgrade the video card on our Dell to get one with an HDMI output, going to the Dell site it showed a Radeon HD 4650 for $150. After a bit of Googling, I found the same card for $50-shipped and ordered it. The install was a bit of a PITA, which(again, after a bit of Googling) seemed to be relatively common, but I was able to get a driver that works, and open the control panel for the card to adjust the settings.
Here's my problem - when I connect the TV, the card recognizes it as a second monitor fine, but it always wants to split my desktop. What I really need is for the TV to be a duplicate of my existing monitor, but I didn't see any settings in the configuration to set it up that way.
What am I missing?
usually, the mirro-type options are in the ATI control panels, notsomuch the windows software. check the catalyst controls and see if it jumps out at you
Yeah the mirroring option, at least in WinXP, is controlled by the video driver. You typically access them by going to Display options --> Settings tab --> Advanced and looking for the special tab that controls the video driver.
Xbox and probably PlayStation can stream movies remotely from a computer. I stream music while I play games for hours upon hours. Very easy to do if it is an option.
As for the splitting issue, when you full screen a program it really shouldn't matter. It will only fill one side. Sound should be fine too.
Run the ATI (AMD) Hydravision software and configure the video display settings.
Win 7/32-bit.
The problem is the PC & TV are on opposite sides of the wall, so splitting the screen is a pain, and the wireless mouse & keyboard don't work well at that distance.
I'll look for mirroring. I think I saw it in the Catalyst Control, but assumed it was an actual mirror image.
The catalyst will just get stolen for the platinum. 
I'm running a similar setup, also with ATI hardware. +1 on the answer being in the ATI software (called Catalyst on my on-board setup) Good luck figuring out the software, it's kind of a PITA to deal with.
pro tip: if you just can't freaking get the whole damn image to show on the TV no matter what settings you futz with in the software, check the layout/ zoom/ screensize settings on the TV itself. took me 3 hours to figure that one out...
In Win7 the mirroring is controlled in the display control panel thingy (don't remember exactly what it's called).
In Win7 you should be able to right click on the desktop and select Graphic Options then Output To for Display Cloning or Mirroring options.
for win7 hit win+p pops up a nice little screen that you point the option... in this case "duplicate"
