TV Out with Radeon 9200 and the OS radeon driver, possible?

[droidhacker]

I use XBMC for my mediacenter. Unfortunately that program does not use xv to draw it's video. What it does use? I don't know (yet) but it results in tearing of video.

XBMC doesn't use XV? Seems like the place to complain would be to XBMC since that would be THEIR defect... and its a SERIOUS one.

Heh, I just looked at xbmc. What a horrible, horrible, pig!
Its pure bloatware if I've ever seen any.
Note that there are a couple of settings in the settings menu that might help with your tearing... sync video to refresh rate, and sync refresh rate to video (or something like that)... these should hopefully stop the tearing... or would if the program wasn't just such a bloatedly slow pig. I suspect that your tearing problem *could* be related to the slow bloatedness.

Did I mention that it is a bloated slow hog of a program?


Do yourself a favor and use mythtv instead.

[Kano]

xbmc only works with opengl.

[Meneer Jansen]

Hi hi. You may think it's bloated, but the reason I use(d) it is because I used to think MythTV is hard to set up and very resources unfriendly. And I do not want to use my PC to watch television/time shift (too slow and my TV card's picture isn't good enough). That's why I use(d) XBMC. It really isn't as bad as you think.

Anyway, I use Ubuntu 10.04 and I can install MythTV quite easily on that distro. I'll have a look to see if it's as easy to use and setup (now a days) as XBMC.

And you are right: its super duper stupid of XBMC not to support xv! But originally it was developed for Microsofts XBox One, hence the lack of xv. And considering the complete lack of computer power in ye 'ol first xbox I thought it had to be completely blob free to run...

And thank you for the sync tips.

[droidhacker]

Hi hi. You may think it's bloated, but the reason I use(d) it is because I used to think MythTV is hard to set up and very resources unfriendly. And I do not want to use my PC to watch television/time shift (too slow and my TV card's picture isn't good enough). That's why I use(d) XBMC. It really isn't as bad as you think.

Anyway, I use Ubuntu 10.04 and I can install MythTV quite easily on that distro. I'll have a look to see if it's as easy to use and setup (now a days) as XBMC.

And you are right: its super duper stupid of XBMC not to support xv! But originally it was developed for Microsofts XBox One, hence the lack of xv. And considering the complete lack of computer power in ye 'ol first xbox I thought it had to be completely blob free to run...

And thank you for the sync tips.

What are you using it for that you can't accomplish with nautilus+(vlc/mplayer/xine/etc.)?

[curaga]

What are you using it for that you can't accomplish with nautilus+(vlc/mplayer/xine/etc.)?

But, but, it has a cool menu that shows things in a media center-y way!



Seriously, that is what most people look for. A sleek menu. Enna looks pretty good for that purpose.

[Meneer Jansen]

I used to simply use a file manager om my TV. But the fonts are too small and you really need a mouse then. I tend to have a (rather small) keyboard on the couch next to me. A mouse isn't practical. And the mediacenter "remembers" where I was with viewing series and movies. I can resume watching really easily. And because a mediacenter can show album art and screenshots really well in a way that is fit for a TV. Lyrics etc. It is much easier to browse through one's albumes and movies on a mediacenter application. And that's why they often aren't that "heavy" on resources: most are frontends to mplayer or Xine. Once you've grown accustomed to a mediacenter on yer TV you don't want to go back.

The differences between a file browser (w/ large thumbnails) and a mediacenter aren't that big, but it is functional.

[droidhacker]

but it is functional.

I guess this point is where we have the disconnect.... since it obviously *ISN'T* functional -- its broken badly.

[RoboJ1M]

Just for the heck of it I recently popped my old Radeon 9600 which I ditched when I switched to Linux a few years ago. This because Ati and Linux weren't exactly friends. Especially TV out was difficult to set up, if not impossible.

Anyway, w/ the all new and improved open source Xorg drivers (ati/radeon/r128/mach64) I thoufg I'd give it a try again. And lo and behold, it seemed to work pretty nice for a while. 3D support is great. TV out and overscanning (to get the TV screen completely filled).

I use XBMC for my mediacenter. Unfortunately that program does not use xv to draw it's video. What it does use? I don't know (yet) but it results in tearing of video.

Anyway, this is how I enable TV out on one screen (overlay!) and overscan. Wanna know what the commands mean? Just ask.

xrandr --output S-video --set load_detection 1
xrandr --output VGA-0 --off
xrandr --output S-video --mode 800x600
xrandr --output S-video --set tv_horizontal_size 2
xrandr --output S-video --set tv_horizontal_position -5
xrandr --output S-video --set tv_vertical_position -3

In short: if you're lucky Myth TV supports xv for its video output. Otherwise: everybody in this 'opensource ati/amd linux' subforum keeps on stressing that for proper TV out one had better bought a second hand Nvidia card for a few dollars on eBay. But for me it's some sort of Don Quichote crusade: I won't rest (read: stop testing) until the Linux community can accept Ati/AMD cards as a worthy piece of hardware, fit for everything you'd like to do with your Linux box. Because I want to be able to recommend everybody I know to try Linux one time. No matter what hardware they own

Having said that: the radeon open source driver is really really really really really really good! Some say it's even better than the closed one because old Ati's (like mine) DO work w/ the open one.

We're running Ubuntu 10.04, those driver props aren't there.
We only have "tv standard"
Will upgrading to 10.10 get use those props?
Is there a PPA with the latest drivers?

scott@media-centre:~$ xrandr --output S-video --set tv_horizontal_size 2
X Error of failed request:  BadName (named color or font does not exist)
  Major opcode of failed request:  149 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  11 (RRQueryOutputProperty)
  Serial number of failed request:  27
  Current serial number in output stream:  27
scott@media-centre:~$

Thanks,

J1M.

[RoboJ1M]

scott@media-centre:~$ xrandr --verbose
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 800 x 600, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
	Identifier: 0x51
	Timestamp:  23009
	Subpixel:   no subpixels
	Clones:     DVI-0
	CRTCs:      0 1
	Transform:  1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
	            0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
	            0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
	           filter: 
	load detection: 1 (0x00000001)	range:  (0,1)
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
	Identifier: 0x52
	Timestamp:  23009
	Subpixel:   horizontal rgb
	Clones:     VGA-0
	CRTCs:      0 1
	Transform:  1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
	            0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
	            0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
	           filter: 
	load detection: 1 (0x00000001)	range:  (0,1)
S-video connected 800x600+0+0 (0x54) normal (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
	Identifier: 0x53
	Timestamp:  23009
	Subpixel:   no subpixels
	Clones:    
	CRTC:       0
	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 (0x54)   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 (0x55)   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

[RoboJ1M]

Tried this PPA:

http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/ppa/ubuntu-x-swat?dist=lucid

No dice.

How do I get the magical tv_horizontal_size setting?

Sadly I've also read that this setting will not fix the current problem,
Strip missing from the right hand side of the image (looks like overscan)

Guess I won't know till I find it.