[lug] TV-out on a NTSC CRT TV
Davide Del Vento
davide.del.vento at gmail.com
Wed Dec 29 20:56:44 MST 2010
> If you just need to display the video in a larger size and the laptop
> has an external VGA connector, you could use a data projector. You can
> bypass the TV stuff that way. Just be sure to set the VGA output's
> timing and resolution to something the projector can handle,
> e.g. 1024x768 @ 60Hz.
Sure, this would be great, but I need a projector which I don't have
and I don't have the budget for (well, let's say I could invest up to
$50 in it, but I don't think it's a reasonable budget for even a
crappy VGA projector - I saw a S-video projector on woot.com days ago
at $25, but that might not have solved the problem).
Then, with a projector, I'd likely encounter other issues, such a
strong keystone, since the location of the room is always weird...
> Otherwise, have you tried (for xrandr version 1.3)
> xrandr --verbose --prop
> to see what resolutions and timings the X server thinks the
> hardware supports?
I did (see attachment). I learnt that it does use ntsc, so that part is fine.
> Have you looked at the X server logs and xsession logs to see
> what the video driver reports it is doing?
I did after your suggestion, and I think you nailed it. It's full of errors like
(doublescan mode not supported)
(vrefresh out of range)
for dozens, probably hundreds of different resolutions (I copied just
the last ones, right before some other interesting messages).
Unfortunately, I can only guess what that mean, Google doesn't help,
and I have no idea if it's fixable and if yes, how.
Additional thoughts?
Thanks,
Dav
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Davide
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 12:07, Davide Del Vento
>> <davide.del.vento at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The machine is running Ubuntu 8.04 and that doesn't show anything on the TV.
>>> I tried a couple of distro I had on live CD and the one those worked (sort
>>> of). It is Ubuntu 10.04 but is not prompting me for any proprietary driver.
>>>
>>> I thought that since I was seeing *something* (and I don't care about the
>>> resolution, 320x200 would be ok for me :-) this was something more about the
>>> TV than about the video card. Since it is a very old laptop (at least 5
>>> years, probably 10), I have no idea about what hw is inside, beside the
>>> disk, which I replaced myself. I know is an HP, only because the logo is
>>> very noticeable :-)
>>> Anyway tonight I'll check the make/model of the video section (and I'll
>>> Google possible solutions before bothering you).
>>>
>>> Thanks for the advice,
>>> ;Dav
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 21:48, John Hernandez <jph at jph.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Davide, it would help to know more specifics about the video
>>>> hardware (lspci output) and the Linux distro/version.
>>>>
>>>> This may be dated information, but I think the proprietary driver was
>>>> the fastest (perhaps only?) path to TV-out success with nVidia
>>>> systems. I don't recall ever doing that with older ATI or Intel
>>>> hardware, but I bet someone here did...
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Davide Del Vento
>>>> <davide.del.vento at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> I'm trying to have a TV (not-too-old, but CRT) working with the TV-out
>>>>> of my media laptop (a very old HP bought in Italy). Purpose: show the
>>>>> kids some cartoons on a larger screen.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm struggling to have it working: I do see the image, but it is never
>>>>> good enough. The autodetected default call the "monitor" unknown, and
>>>>> use an non-interlaced mode which shows double images, partially
>>>>> overlapping in vertical, and some flickering.
>>>>>
>>>>> I tried these:
>>>>> http://www.arachnoid.com/modelines/
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Modeline_Database#NTSC525_itu-r.2Fbt:_470_601_656
>>>>> http://smackmini.dax.nu/tv-out.html (I know, this is PAL)
>>>>>
>>>>> without any success, besides understanding what follows:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) I figured out that using an interlaced mode, stops the flicker and
>>>>> completely separates the images, so I can see two images (squeezed in
>>>>> the vertical direction), one on top of the other - with a relatively
>>>>> large black area in between (and probably part of the images out of
>>>>> the screen). From here, I tried to play with the other numbers, to see
>>>>> if I could move one image out of the screen and enlarge the other one,
>>>>> but...
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) the other numbers of the modelines, don't seem to have any
>>>>> noticeable effect, maybe the TV is "autocorrecting" whatever it is
>>>>> receiving to what it thinks is the right way?
>>>>>
>>>>> Any suggestion on what to do?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Davide
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
> _______________________________________________
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>
-------------- next part --------------
xrandr --verbose --prop
S-video connected 800x600+0+0 (0x55) normal (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
Identifier: 0x53
Timestamp: 184825
Subpixel: no subpixels
Clones: VGA-0
CRTC: 1
CRTCs: 0 1
Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
filter:
tv standard: ntsc
supported: ntsc pal pal-m pal-60
ntsc-j scart-pal pal-cn secam
load detection: 1 (0x00000001) range: (0,1)
800x600 (0x55) 38.2MHz -HSync +VSync *current +preferred
h: width 800 start 832 end 912 total 1024 skew 0 clock 37.4KHz
v: height 600 start 603 end 607 total 624 clock 59.9Hz
640x480 (0x59) 25.2MHz -HSync -VSync
h: width 640 start 656 end 752 total 800 skew 0 clock 31.5KHz
v: height 480 start 490 end 492 total 525 clock 59.9Hz
Xorg.log
(II) RADEON(0): Not using default mode "1024x768" (doublescan mode not supported)
(II) RADEON(0): Not using default mode "2048x1536" (vrefresh out of range)
(II) RADEON(0): Not using default mode "1024x768" (doublescan mode not supported)
(II) RADEON(0): Printing probed modes for output S-video
(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "800x600"x59.9 38.25 800 832 912 1024 600 603 607 624 -hsync +vsync (37.4 kHz)
(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "640x480"x59.9 25.18 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync (31.5 kHz)
(II) RADEON(0): Output VGA-0 disconnected
(II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS connected
(II) RADEON(0): Output S-video connected
(II) RADEON(0): Using exact sizes for initial modes
(II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS using initial mode 800x600
(II) RADEON(0): Output S-video using initial mode 800x600
(II) RADEON(0): Using default gamma of (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) unless otherwise stated.
(II) RADEON(0): mem size init: gart size :3dff000 vram size: s:8000000 visible:7cc0000
(II) RADEON(0): EXA: Driver will allow EXA pixmaps in VRAM
(==) RADEON(0): DPI set to (96, 96)
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