ati 9000pro tv-out without monitor

[fabioamd87]

Hi I'm new here, i love this site and i follow it daily.

I've setted up a media center pc, the problem is that this pc have an old sapphire ati 9000pro that works only with open souce driver.
with this driver i can see the tvout only when a monitor is connected, otherwise if i leave only the tv attacched by s-video cable i can see the bios bootup, the ubuntu 8.10 loading and when gdm start the screen is disabled (on my tv, jvc 32" crt is blue)

there is any possibility to configure the system to "force" the tvout?
I've tried many xorg configuration an parameter but nothing...

the only way to see only television is to use the ubuntu low graphic mode, without video acceleration...

[agd5f]

Hi I'm new here, i love this site and i follow it daily.

I've setted up a media center pc, the problem is that this pc have an old sapphire ati 9000pro that works only with open souce driver.
with this driver i can see the tvout only when a monitor is connected, otherwise if i leave only the tv attacched by s-video cable i can see the bios bootup, the ubuntu 8.10 loading and when gdm start the screen is disabled (on my tv, jvc 32" crt is blue)

there is any possibility to configure the system to "force" the tvout?
I've tried many xorg configuration an parameter but nothing...

the only way to see only television is to use the ubuntu low graphic mode, without video acceleration...

See the radeon man page. Add the following options to the device section of your config:

Option "ForceTVOut" "TRUE"
Option "TVStandard" "ntsc" # or pal

[fabioamd87]

tanks, it work!

there is any GUI to move she visible area in the four direction?

[agd5f]

tanks, it work!

there is any GUI to move she visible area in the four direction?

There are output properties if you want to use the xrandr cli; I'm not sure about GUIs.

[fabioamd87]

you mean a command like this?
xrandr --output VGA --auto --right-of LVDS.

and how i can find the correct value?
amd catalyst control center with 4 directional arrows is more confortable imho

[fabioamd87]

agd5f, what properties?

[agd5f]

agd5f, what properties?

the output properties. run:
xrandr --verbose

and looks at the properties listed after the S-video connector:
tv_horizontal_size
tv_horizontal_position
tv_vertical_position
tv_standard
etc.

e.g.:
xrandr --output S-video --set tv_horizontal_position 3

[fabioamd87]

thanks agd5f!
it work, but i have 2 questions:

first: when I reboot the changes aren't applied.
second: the range is -5 , 5 good, but not perfect, perfect with my tv will be awesome someting like 6 or 7...

about the first, maybe I should add someting to my monitor section (or display? what the difference)?
but I didn't find anywhig on the web...

and about the second, maybe with xserver 1.6 the range is different?

thanks again.

[agd5f]

thanks agd5f!
it work, but i have 2 questions:

first: when I reboot the changes aren't applied.
second: the range is -5 , 5 good, but not perfect, perfect with my tv will be awesome someting like 6 or 7...

about the first, maybe I should add someting to my monitor section (or display? what the difference)?
but I didn't find anywhig on the web...

and about the second, maybe with xserver 1.6 the range is different?

thanks again.

To have the changes applied everytime, you'll need to add the xrandr commands to your xinitrc have your DE run them automatically when you log in. They could be exposed as driver options, but they are not at the moment.

As to the range, it's specific to the driver, nothing to do with the xserver. -5 to 5 was a reasonable range that worked well for all cards I have. Increasing the range caused problems with a lot of cards. You could hack the driver to see if it works for you, but I think other parts of the tv setup need to be adjusted if you extent it further.

[fabioamd87]

ok created ane executables aviable via gnome-sessions.
some flickr but work.

anyway now I have a good view, if is possible to make that range for 6 or 7 without any issue good, if not, don't care.

another question, the resolution of the output, will be enlarged in future? for now I have only 800x600.

Will I put some 16:9 resolution in the future?

thanks!

[agd5f]

ok created ane executables aviable via gnome-sessions.
some flickr but work.

anyway now I have a good view, if is possible to make that range for 6 or 7 without any issue good, if not, don't care.


You'd have to try it. Edit the ranges in radeon_tv.h. You could also hardcode a different default if you wanted.

another question, the resolution of the output, will be enlarged in future? for now I have only 800x600.

Will I put some 16:9 resolution in the future?

thanks!

The actual signal being output by the tv connector is standard NTSC or PAL timing. The "resolution" is the desktop size that is scaled down to the tv timing. Scaling from other modes is possible, but would require a fair amount of work to figure out the proper combination of timing. I won't have time to work on this anytime soon.

[fabioamd87]

ok no problem, then you say that a real 16:9 size is a problem right now?

[agd5f]

ok no problem, then you say that a real 16:9 size is a problem right now?

Right now the only thing supported is an 800x600 image downscaled to NTSC or PAL.

[fabioamd87]

ookk really thanks for your patience.
Have a good work!