Hello i am new to knoppmyth and have been reading several posts for the past couple of days. This has led me to form some questions of my own that i hope could be answered:

1.) I do not have an svideo connector on my tv. Is there an adapter out there that would convert the signal? ( I have a connection that i think is called composite, it's what you hook your ps2 or gamecube up to) And if there is an adapter, does anyone have any experience of it working well or is it a waste?

2.) Since i would have a tv tuner in my computer, would it be possible just to watch tv from my monitor and record the shows from there as well? and how good does recording from the monitor work?

Those are my two major questions for right now. I appreciate all the help i get.
-iggybaseball

You don't need the SVIDEO, you can use composite output.

and yes, you can watch it on your monitor + TV if you have dual output (nvidia's twin view or something similiar)

I am sorry but what would be an example of a motherboard or card that would have composite out? I have not seen one yet and would like to see what they look like. Also i did not mean that i wished to view the program on both a tv and monitor simultaenously, i meant just using a monitor in place of a tv and preforming all the same functions. thanks again
-iggybaseball

Any video card that has RCA output. GeForce4 MX440 is a lot of people use.

MythTV basically encode TV input to file and decode it in real time to whatever the video source you have. Be it Monitor or TV.

and obviously the output to a monitor is standard vga which just about any video card will do.

I have 2 mobo's with SVIDEO out. They came with pigtail cables that convert that to composite. Lots of GF4 cards have TVOUT. You still need the converter cable to go to composite, though.

With the current R4V2 distro, the easiest way to get everything working with your tv is to use the a mobo with the gf4 video chipset (shuttle sn41, chaintech 7nif2) or install amost any GF4 based agp video card that includes the tvout option. I think there are cheap GF4MX 440 cards you can get.

After installing the Rv42, you need to do this to get TV out to work:


1. In BIOS for on-board VIDEO, make sure your TVOUT is enabled. If you are in North America, set it to "NTSC-M" for the mobo based video card solutions. You will get a mode error when you boot, but just hit return twice to go on. There is a fix for this that I don't recall at the moment.

2. Make backup of existing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
"cp /etc/XF86Config-4 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.ORIGINAL"

3. Copy the sample file to the active file
"cp /etc/XF86Config-4.nvidia-tvout.sample /etc/X11/XF86Config-4"

4. Modify the new XF86Config-4 file:
In the monitor section, change

Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"

to

Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"

NOTE: For areas outside North America, you will need to change the refresh rates or risk damaging your TV. There are many posts in these forums with help on this. The sampel files that come with KnoppMyth are set for NTSC refresh rates (North America).

5. Restart the desktop: "/etc/init.d/gdm restart" or reboot. If you restart the desktop, you will need to have your TV plugged in to see anything. You may want to make sure you can get to the box via SSH over the network in the event it does not work and want to restore the Xf86Config-4.ORIGINAL file.

Connect the DIN to COMPOSITE connector/pigtail to your SVIDEO looking connector on your mobo or video card, and then into your composite in on your tv.

BEFORE STARTING UP, MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN NORTH AMERICA. I THINK THE REFRESH RATES ON THE SAMPLE FILE ARE NOT SETUP CORRECTLY FOR OTHER LOCATIONS, AND IF YOU USE INCORRECT SETTINGS, YOU COULD DESTROY YOUR TV.

OK, disclaimer over.


Good Luck.