8.20. TV-out support

Chapter 8. Video output devices

8.20. TV-out support

8.20.1. Matrox G400 cards

Under you have two methods to get G400 TV out working:

Important

for Matrox G450/G550 TV-out instructions, please see the next section!

XFree86

Using the driver and the HAL module, available from the . This will give you X on the TV.

This method doesn't give you accelerated playback as under Windows! The second head has only YUV framebuffer, the BES (Back End Scaler, the YUV scaler on G200/G400/G450/G550 cards) doesn't work on it! The windows driver somehow workarounds this, probably by using the 3D engine to zoom, and the YUV framebuffer to display the zoomed image. If you really want to use X, use the -vo x11 -fs -zoom options, but it will be SLOW, and has Macrovision copy protection enabled (you can "workaround" Macrovision using this ).

Framebuffer

Using the matroxfb modules in the 2.4 kernels. 2.2 kernels don't have the TV-out feature in them, thus unusable for this. You have to enable ALL matroxfb-specific features during compilation (except MultiHead), and compile them into modules! You'll also need to enable I2C and put the tools matroxset, fbset and con2fb in your path.

  1. Then load the matroxfb_Ti3026, matroxfb_maven, i2c-matroxfb, matroxfb_crtc2 modules into your kernel. Your text-mode console will enter into framebuffer mode (no way back!).

  2. Next, set up your monitor and TV to your liking using the above tools.

  3. Yoh. Next task is to make the cursor on tty1 (or whatever) to disappear, and turn off screen blanking. Execute the following commands: 

    echo -e '\033[?25l'
setterm -blank 0

    or 

    setterm -cursor off setterm -blank 0

    You possibly want to put the above into a script, and also clear the screen. To turn the cursor back: 

    echo -e '\033[?25h'

    or 

    setterm -cursor on

  4. Yeah kewl. Start movie playing with 

    mplayer -vo mga -fs -screenw 640 -screenh 512 filename

    (If you use X, now change to matroxfb with for example Ctrl+Alt+F1.) Change 640 and 512 if you set the resolution to other...

  5. Enjoy the ultra-fast ultra-featured Matrox TV output (better than Xv)!

8.20.2. Matrox G450/G550 cards

TV output support for these cards has only been recently introduced, and is not yet in the mainstream kernel. Currently the mga_vid module can't be used AFAIK, because the G450/G550 driver works only in one configuration: the first CRTC (with much more features) on the first display (on monitor), and the second CRTC (no BES - for explanation on BES, please see the G400 section above) on TV. So you can only use MPlayer's fbdev output driver at the present.

The first CRTC can't be routed to the second head currently. The author of the kernel matroxfb driver - Petr Vandrovec - will maybe make support for this, by displaying the first CRTC's output onto both of the heads at once, as currently recommended for G400, see the section above.

The necessary kernel patch and the detailed HOWTO is downloadable from

8.20.3. Building a Matrox TV-out cable

No one takes any responsibility, nor guarantee for any damage caused by this documentation.

Cable for G400. The CRTC2 connector's fourth pin is the composite video signal. The ground are the sixth, seventh and eighth pins. (info contributed from Balázs Rácz)

Cable for G450. The CRTC2 connector's first pin is the composite video signal. The ground are the fifth, sixth, seventh, and fifteenth (5, 6, 7, 15) pins. (info contributed from Balázs Kerekes)

8.20.4. ATI cards

PREAMBLE. Currently ATI doesn't want to support any of its TV-out chips under Linux, because of their licensed Macrovision technology.

ATI CARDS TV-OUT STATUS ON LINUX

On other cards, just use the driver, without VIDIX. Powerful CPU is needed, though.

Only thing you need to do - Have the TV connector plugged in before booting your PC since video BIOS initializes itself only once during POST procedure.

8.20.5. nVidia

First, you MUST the closed-source drivers from . I will not describe the installation and configuration process because it does not cover the scope of this documentation.

After XFree86, XVideo, and 3D acceleration is properly working, edit your card's Device section in the XF86Config file, according to the following example (adapt for your card/TV): 

Section "Device"
 Identifier "GeForce"
 VendorName "ASUS"
 BoardName "nVidia GeForce2/MX 400"
 Driver "nvidia"
 #Option "NvAGP" "1"
 Option "NoLogo"
 Option "CursorShadow" "on"
 Option "TwinView"
 Option "TwinViewOrientation" "Clone"
 Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,640x480"
 Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, TV"
 Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
 Option "TVOutFormat" "Composite"
EndSection

Of course the important thing is the TwinView part.

8.20.6. NeoMagic

The NeoMagic is found in a variety of laptops, some of them are equipped with a simple TV encoder, some have a more advanced one.

8.19. Other visualization hardware Chapter 9. Audio output devices