ATI SVIDEO

Message

usingloser · Post by **usingloser** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 4:26 pm

I have searched through these forums a lot to find information on getting my 9700 PRO's svideo outputting my tv so I can watch movies. There are a lot of threads on how to do this but none seemed very "standardized".

The 9700 Pro starts outputting to the svideo upon boot (you should be able to see POST), and it will continue to work through kernel boot as long as you dont use a framebuffer resolution that the TV doesnt support. The trick is to use a framebuffer that the tv does support (640x480) or (800x600).

After that, a simple

Code: Select all

 mplayer -vo directfb -fs blah.avi

should work fine. Fullscreen is needed or the video will not be centered on the screen. For information on setting up a framebuffer refer to the apropriate thread in the Tips and Tricks section.

I know this doesnt seem like much, but if you were like me earlier and not thinking about the wonders of mplayer or the power of the framebuffer this hopefully will be a lifesaver.

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:57 am

Is it normal that my Radeon 8500 LE doesn't show POST when connected to TV using s-video?
I haven't been able to get tv-out working, but I'd really like to have it so I wouldn't have to change to nvidia.

usingloser · Post by **usingloser** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 9:19 pm

well there are two areas that could be of fault here

one, your tv doesnt like the svideo input period (how old and what kind of tv do you have)

or, the constant running svideo was a feature implemented after the 8500

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 9:46 am

well, i figured how to get tv-out but thanks anyway.

riprjak · Post by **riprjak** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 4:52 am

antipop wrote:well, i figured how to get tv-out but thanks anyway.

I would be interested to know how you did this. I have just assembled BC-1 (Build-Candidate 1) of my own personal dvd/vid/mp3 player based around a 8500LE with Svideo out. (Yes my TV supports Svideo input).

I havent yet reached any hurdles since I havent got beyond partitioning the 120GB drive and building a kernel using an old 10" vga monitor but would like to be prepared when it comes time to make TVout work.

Do I use VESA or Radeon drivers; fb output, Directfb or X???

Any assistance would be most welcome. When I am done, I intend to write a HOW-TO in any case.

Cheers,
riprjak

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:59 am

Sorry for the delay.

/etc/X11/XF86Config-TV:

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# to avoid breaking tv ;)
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "TV"
    HorizSync   30-50
    VertRefresh 60
EndSection 

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Vesa"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
    Driver      "vesa"
    VideoRam    65536      # change with your right number
EndSection 

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen0"
    Device      "Vesa"
    Monitor     "TV"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "640x480" "800x600"  # tv should cope with 800x600; otherwise leave just 640x480
        ViewPort    0 0  # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop
    EndSubsection

And start X with:

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XSESSION=your_wm_here  startx -- :1 -xf86config XF86Config-TV && atitvout -r auto

usingloser · Post by **usingloser** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 9:25 pm

i could never get the atitvout utility to work with my 9700 pro

Starborn · Post by **Starborn** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 11:29 pm

I had a dedicated freevo box with a radeon 7000, using mplayer for playing divx files. By far the best way to output to tv is to just leave the svideo connected on startup, use a vesa framebuffer to set the resolution to 800x600x24, and use mplayer -vo fbdev:vidix option to get hardware acceleration and scaling. Fast and nice looking.

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 7:43 am

usingloser wrote:i could never get the atitvout utility to work with my 9700 pro

I just have to make sure that TV in turned on before I boot to linux and I usually have to start and close X and after doing that I get a svideo output on my TV when starting X.
I haven't gotten svideo to work on framebuffer, but I'd really love that.

Starborn · Post by **Starborn** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 5:05 pm

Getting svideo to work on framebuffer or X is quite easy actually. You just have to make sure you use vesa, and only vesa for video mode switching. This means using the vesa framebuffer and the vesa x server. Also, when powering on the system, you have to have the svideo connected and tv on, and a monitor must not be connected. Finally, you must use only the resolutions that can be output to tv. For most recent ati cards that is 640x480 at any bit depth, 800x600 at any bitdepth and 1024x768 at any bitdepth.

To get accelerated video playback in vesa (ie, unaccelerated) framebuffer mode, make sure mplayer has fbcon compiled in (i think theres a use flag for that) and start mplayer with 'mplayer <video filename> -vo fbcon:vidix' - the :vidix tells mplayer to use its internal video card drivers. This has been working perfectly for me for quite some time.

Also, i *think* its possible to use mplayers -vo xvidix option in X when using the vesa x server, but i've never tested it.

jnicol · Post by **jnicol** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 8:30 am

Hi all,

I'm trying to get X to work on my future freevo box, connected only to a TV. I have a Radeon 7000 PCI, connected to the TV with s-video. So far I've gotten to a point where X will start, but the tv display will be just flickering lines. I'm using the xfree-drm drivers for radeon. My XF86Config (relevant sections):

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Section "Module"
    Load        "dbe"  	# Double buffer extension
    SubSection  "extmod"
      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"   
    EndSubSection

# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules
    Load        "type1"
    Load        "speedo"
    Load        "freetype"
#    Load        "xtt"

# This loads the GLX module
    Load       "glx"
# This loads the DRI module
    Load       "dri"
...
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "TV"
    HorizSync	29-34         # multisync
    VertRefresh 25-65
EndSection


Section "Device"
    Identifier  "radeon"
    Driver      "radeon"
    VideoRam    131072
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "radeon"
    Monitor     "TV"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Can someone help me with this? Please? I would love for this to work. Let me know if you need more info.

Thanks

thus · Post by **thus** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 5:19 pm

I tried ati-drivers-3.2.0-r1 and s-video works very well (I boot with the cable plugged). fglrxconfig provides new commands to configure tv-out

I can use X with KDE in :
- clone-mode or big-screen (both CRT&TV in 1024x768)
- dual-screen mode (CRT in 1280x1024 ant TV in 1024x768)

jnicol · Post by **jnicol** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 5:37 pm

thus wrote:I tried ati-drivers-3.2.0-r1 and s-video works very well (I boot with the cable plugged). fglrxconfig provides new commands to configure tv-out

I can use X with KDE in :
- clone-mode or big-screen (both CRT&TV in 1024x768)
- dual-screen mode (CRT in 1280x1024 ant TV in 1024x768)

Which card are you using? My understanding is the ati-drivers don't support the Radeon 7000, which is why I'm trying to use the xfree drivers.

thus · Post by **thus** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 5:54 pm

jnicol wrote: Which card are you using? My understanding is the ati-drivers don't support the Radeon 7000, which is why I'm trying to use the xfree drivers.

I'm using a Radeon 9700Pro... You're right, the only cards supported by ati-drivers are :
* ATI Radeon 8500, 9100, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, M9, M9+, M10
* ATI FireGL 8700, 8800, E1, E2, X1, X2, Z1

Starborn · Post by **Starborn** » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:03 am

jnicol wrote:Hi all,

I'm trying to get X to work on my future freevo box, connected only to a TV. I have a Radeon 7000 PCI, connected to the TV with s-video. So far I've gotten to a point where X will start, but the tv display will be just flickering lines. I'm using the xfree-drm drivers for radeon. My XF86Config (relevant sections):

-snip-

Thanks

When i had a freevo box (using the exact same card you have) i couldn't get accelerated X working. I couldn't get the refresh rate to match, so I got rolling lines (This is with a PAL card, I think theres a working modeline for NTSC cards). The only way i could get X output via tv out was with the VESA X drivers. In any case, X isn't needed for freevo, in fact, its better using a framebuffer for freevo because of less overhead. Nothing in freevo requires X. (AFAIK - It was like this last time i checked a few months ago).

Personally, i get best results (in both speed and quality) by using the vesa framebuffer drivers at 1024x768x24 (or 800x600x24) and using -vo fbdev:vidix for mplayer (make sure fbdev is in your USE variables). By using vidix mplayer will use the radeons hardware backend scaler, so you get fully accelerated video (and therefore, you get very well scaled video without having to worry about cpu usage). Don't forget that for VESA video out to work, you need to have the svideo (and only the svideo) connected at boot.

I actually started on writing a fullish 'howto' for this forum on how to setup a freevo box running gentoo completely diskless (network booting, streams movies) and with remote control, but stopped. Maybe I should start on it again.

docfab · Post by **docfab** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 10:46 am

Been planning to take the same route for a while now. (diskless gentoo with tv display) that HOWTO would be greatly appreciated.

m00re · Post by **m00re** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:33 pm

My question is, how do you tell your system, that it shall only use 1024x768 as framebuffer? I tried the framebuffer (vesa drivers) method a few weeks ago with mplayer but it always changed to black screen and no video. I think it has something to do with the resolution, because outside mplayer, its working fine. Or do you use the XServer on framebuffer and then start mplayer?

Thanks for the info.

Jens Mittag

Beetle B. · Post by **Beetle B.** » Fri Oct 03, 2003 4:15 pm

Embarrasing issue, but I can't seem to get X running on plain vesa.

My card is a Radeon 8500.

I configured the XF86Config file as suggested up there somewhere, but it didn't work (at any resolution).

If I boot with the S-Video cable connected to the TV, the text portions (booting, text consoles, etc) show up on the TV (unreadable, though). But nothing while in X. I have not yet gotten any video files on to the TV.

From the various suggestions listed here, it seems getting vesa to work is the best way to go, so I'd really appreciate help here.

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