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Horizontal Scrolling and B/W Display: Advice Needed
http://forum.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=12341		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  iglablues [ Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Horizontal Scrolling and B/W Display: Advice Needed
I hope this belongs here. I vascillated for a long time on where to post this.

Anyway, new poster, been reading through the forums for a while. Did a search as well on various display issues, and have come to the conclusion that I just need help. I'm hoping someone can tell me that this is a hardware issue (either my old-as-dirt tv or video card) or software, and share some advise on how to fix it. In a nice way.

Hardware being used:
    PC Chips K7 mobo with SiS chipset and AMD Sempron 2800
    1GB RAM
    PVR-250 for tv in
    Nvidia G4000Pro (Riva TNT2 I believe)
    160GB ATA Western Digital
    Sanyo AVM-2555 regular old tv


My Nvidia card is used for the tv out. I'm connecting the S-Video on the card to the composite on the tv via an adapter. This is the exact same setup I used with R5C7, and everything worked fine. I went through the Auto Install, and simply replaced the XF86 default config file with the Nvidia tv out sample. Oddly enough though, whenever I started the box up, the tv would horizontally scroll throughout the entire POST process while it was listing the files it was reading and everything. It would stable out when it got to the MythTV menu, through live tv, and if I ESC into X it would stay stable as well. As soon as I'd shut it down, the screen would scroll again as it went through the shutting down process.

I upgraded to R5D1 a few days ago (and by upgrade I mean I wiped my entire previous installation out and did an Auto Install, not the "Upgrade"). I did everything the same as before, following the Cecil's pamphlet. Technically, Myth works fine- if I leave it hooked up to my monitor, which is what I used to install it both times since the whole scrolling thing made it difficult to do on the tv. If I choose "Watch TV" while connected to my monitor, everything's great. Color, stable. Once I hook it up to my tv though, the horizontal scrolling never stops, and the picture is in black and white. I confirmed that it wasn't the tv by connecting it straight to the cable box. Picture's fine then. Fine on the monitor too. So... I'm at a loss because this same configuration worked before. The only thing I did differently was to manually change XF86 instead of simply copying the Nvdia sample right over it.

My /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 looks like this in the monitor section as of now:

Identifier "Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Option "TVOutFormat" "Composite"
VendorName "Dell" (this is my monitor)
ModelName "DELa000"
HorizSync 30 - 50 # DDC-probed
VertRefresh 60 # DDC-probed

Followed by many Modeline entries that appear to be commented out (the # I assume means this). I've experimented with leaving some lines out (such as TVOutFormat and ConnectedMonitor), and I've used S-Video and Composite as entires under TVOutFormat.

I'm at a loss at this point. Suggestions are greatly appreciated, even if it's "get a new tv". If that fixes it, I'm sold. Otherwise...help. :?

Thanks in advance.
Author:  borgednow [ Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:12 pm ]
Post subject: 
This probably won't help, but it doesn't hurt to shake the dead chicken.

Comment out the Options except for the one with TV in it.

#Option "DPMS" "true"
#Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
#Option "TVOutFormat" "Composite"

I've noticed that for at least part of the config file, the system will use the first selection it finds that it thinks works, and just ignore the rest.

So what might be happening is that it's using TVStandard and NTSC-M, and ignoring the others.

Of course, I don't know if TVStandard and NTSC-M are unworkable for your situation or not.

But it wouldn't hurt to try.
Author:  iglablues [ Fri Oct 27, 2006 6:59 pm ]
Post subject: 
Thanks. I gave that a shot and unfortunately it didn't solve my problem. I appreciate the suggestion though.
Author:  borgednow [ Sat Oct 28, 2006 4:46 pm ]
Post subject: 
After re-reading your description, I'm a tad confused on what's going on.

When it's connected to a monitor, everything is fine, but if you connect to the tv, you don't get xwindows?

Do you see any of the menus when it's hooked to the tv? Or do the menus appear ok when hooked to the tv, but the watch tv function just flakes out?
Author:  iglablues [ Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
Sorry for the confusion. When I hook it up to my standard Dell crt monitor, everything is fine. It works exactly as it should. When I hook it up to my Sanyo standard tv, I can technically see everything (I get the Myth menu, I can "watch" live tv), but the picture continuously scrolls, like the horizontal scroll is screwed up, and it's also in black and white. Again, what strikes me as strange as it that everything in my setup is exactly as it was the last time I installed Knoppmyth. The only difference is the version. Everything else, from the hardware used to the way I edited XF86 is the same, and it worked perfectly last time. The only time it scrolled in the previous version was as the pc was booting up, but once it got to the Myth menu, all was fine, and live tv worked fine, and I could get to X on the tv as well. Based on that I'm ruling out hardware and thinking I must need to tweak something, somewhere, but I'm at a loss as to where to begin other than XF86, which I've edited as much as I know how.
Author:  borgednow [ Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'm guessing it's the sync or the modes but I don't know.

Do you get different scrolling results if you give it different modelines?

It's not a PAL tv by any chance, is it?

If nothing else works at all, you could switch back to the previous version of knoppmyth you were using and see if it still happens. If it works there, copy the config file for comparison.
Author:  iglablues [ Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
Well, I don't know much about modelines (or even what they are), but since it's something I hadn't figured on before, it's worth investigating. I'll go searching to see what I can find out about it and do some experimenting. Thanks for pointing me in a different direction.
Author:  borgednow [ Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:47 pm ]
Post subject: 
iglablues wrote:
Well, I don't know much about modelines (or even what they are), but since it's something I hadn't figured on before, it's worth investigating. I'll go searching to see what I can find out about it and do some experimenting. Thanks for pointing me in a different direction.


Hey, there was a really great modeline description thread in one of the other topics here.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12370

It gives detailed info on modelines and even describes how to find which one your system is using.

Check out the detail on color depth too.
Author:  p4tr1ck [ Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
Did you ever find a solution to this problem? I have the same issue and have not yet figured out how to correct this issue.
Author:  iglablues [ Sun Nov 19, 2006 5:11 pm ]
Post subject: 
Unfortunately time, bad satellite dish, and time again kept me from revisiting this problem until now. I'm working on doing another install, and then working through the modelines. If I get somewhere with it I'll be sure to post though.
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