[lug] TV-out on a NTSC CRT TV

[Lee Woodworth]

On 12/27/10 20:15, Davide Del Vento wrote:
> Googling didn't help. The hw is a ATI Radeon Mobility U1, according to lspci.
> Things that I've found online were either completely effectless, or
> failed to execute, like
> 
> atitvout ntsc
> - it said "Maybe this option is not supported by your graphics
> adapter?", but it said so with pal too
> 
> xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1
> xrandr --output S-video --set tv_standard ntsc
> - for both it said "BadName (named font or color does not exist)"
> 
> Any ideas? I can't believe that they had separate hw for pal and ntsc!

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.

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?

Have you looked at the X server logs and xsession logs to see
what the video driver reports it is doing?

> 
> 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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