Hi all.

After fixing my wlan, dvb-t card and the remote, now I (again) got to adjusting the TV-out of my nForce-chipset...
I used nvtv (editing XF86Config-4 didn't really work) to activate TV-out and set a resolution of 800,600. The string is somewhat like this: "nvtv -t -r 800,600 -s Normal -S PAL -C SVIDEO"
The picture quality is ok and not too big for the tv-screen. The problem is that it is shifted to the top-left of the screen and the portion of the screen it doesn't cover shows a blue background...
I would like to shift the picture right and down by some arguments on the commandline because I added nvtv to "/home/mythtv/.fluxbox/apps"... Adjusting the screen with the GUI works btw...
I read that you can fix the blue borders with "xvattr -a XV_COLORKEY -v 0" but that doesn't seem to work on my setup.

(I haven't tried "nvidia-settings" yet...)

Ideas appreciated

rarefluid

The blue lines fixed by xvattr is a different problem.

Have you read about nvtv on the wiki? I posted a patch for nvtv on the wiki which allows you to specify the tvout horizontal offset (as well as other things). The horizontal offset part (only the change to nvtv.c) is probably the only bit applicable to you.

After making the change, you can add something like "--set TVhoffset:7" to the command line. Veritcal offset is a bit more of a problem.

Unfortunately nvtv that comes with knoppmyth is compiled without the GUI (because ./configure didnt detect the required gtk libraries). Otherwise, using the gui to tune your TV out is much easier.

Only limited capabilitues of nvtv are available via the command line.

and I don't believe nvidia-settings will work with anything older than a gf4mx, but I could be wrong about that, I know the config file settings don't work on anything older than that.

nvtv however works well on the older cards.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks for the replies guys.

Greg: I could find your Wiki-entry, but not the patch, maybe you could post it again. Vertical offset is very small, maybe I can live with that. Or look at the patch and figure out how to do it...

And: I CAN tune with the GUI, but I can't apply settings @ startup with it... That is what I want to do.

Yeah, its a bit obscure, but click on the attachments link at the bottom of that wiki page. That should lead you to the patch.

Well thats exactly what my patch does for me.

Wow! That was quick ;-)

Thanks. Now I found it. IMHO this is quite hidden...
Hope I can try the patch tonight. How difficult would it be for me adding the Vertical offset parameter also?

It would be very easy. The problem is (or at least was with my card) the vertical offset setting in the position tab in the GUI (the horizontal equivalent of which is controlled by the 3 line patch to nvtv.c) didn't actually do anything. I had to actually change one of the timing parameters on one of the lower tabs (cant remember which one offhand).

Did you do anything special to be able to use the nvtv GUI, or did it just work? I assume you are using R5A16. Do you run nvtv as root or as mythtv? If running as mythtv did you run nvtvd as root?

PS. I added some text on that overscan page on the wiki saying that the patch could be reached by clicking tha attachments link at the bottom of the page.

...but I didn't see the attachment link... :-)

AFAIK I installed R5A15.1 and apt-got nvtv (the 0.4.7something)... Don't think I had to compile anything...
I have nvtvd running as root and run nvtv from an xshell as user "mythtv"

I'll try patching nvtv this weekend...

I had problems with adjusting settings like sharpness etc. It didn't change anything when I used them at the commandline. I needed the GUI AND a mouse to see some changes. If you try to use the sliders with the keyboard they won't move, but you can drag them with the mouse... strange...

Hi Greg.

Thanks for the patch! Works perfectly. The 800x576-mode is very good too.
I recompiled nvtv without the GUI and made it run @ startup in "/home/mythtv/.fluxbox/apps".
I use "nvtv -r 800,576 -s Normal --set TVhoffset:5 -t" now and the big blue bar on the right is gone. There is a tiny blue line left at the bottom of the screen. As you stated before adding TVvoffset to nvtv.c does nothing... The source is a bit confusing. I tried to search through it, but gave up pretty quickly :-)
I wonder which parameter you changed to shift the screen down? "vsynoffset" in data_bt.c???

I guess now that I have a different screen resolution I need to change my XF86-parameters too, because it looks like the bottom 600-576 lines are missing on the TV... How did you do it?

You're not kidding.

I think that was it. After setting the best fitting overscan percentages, I changed the parameters on one of the other tabs and that could well have been it. I then pressed the buttons to print the parameters (on two of the screens) and put them into the source code as the "-s Medium" setting. I use this new setting without v or h offsets. I also use --set Flicker:0. It flickers like crazy in the menus, but the video playback is sharper.

I just changed the gui y size parameter to 576 somewhere in the appearences section (and checked the video playback uses gui size option). The X resolution is still 800x600, you just cant see the last few lines but myth doesnt use them.

I now use the 768x576 mode with the GUI size set to those values and XF86Config-4 edited to start in an extended 768x576 mode.
Is there something bad about that mode when it comes to scaling video/DVD or DVB-input? I guess I could use the 800x576 mode also...
And: Why can X with the "nv" driver only start with a depth of 16Bit? I tried 24 and it crashed once and 32 doesn't work at all. Maybe 32Bit would provide better picture quality....

And I found the parameter that controls the vertical position. It is the "VSynchStart" of the appropriate mode in "data_nv.c". I guess this is what "--set TVvoffset:xxx" should modify...

To make it work you need to replace nvtv AND nvtvd (IMHO):
For the superuser: nvtv goes to "/usr/bin/", nvtvd to "/usr/sbin/"
For others: nvtv goes to "/usr/local/bin/", nvtvd to "/usr/bin/"
Maybe this helps the linux n00bs. Like me ;-)

What did you change to do this? If the x resolution is 768x576 you shoudnt need to set the gui size in myth. I coudn't get the card to do an x res of anything other than 648x480 or 800x600.
Depends on your capture resolution, but it is far more important to have the vertical resolution correct. Horizontal scaling would be much less noticable and wont lead to interlace artifacts.
Dont know the answer to this one.

I had a couple of "extended" modelines for 768x576 in my XF86Config-4 in the "Monitor" section:

#768x576 @ 60 Hz (GTF) hsynch: 35.82 kHz, pclk: 34.96 MHz
Modeline "768x576" 34.96 768 792 872 976 576 577 580 597 -Hsynch +Vsynch

Then I edited the "screen" section adding "768x576" as the first mode for all display depths I want to use:

Section "Screen"
...
SubSection "Display"
Depth xx
Modes "768x576" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSection
...
EndSection

And I guess you're right with the GUI size... :-/ I'll reset it to the 0-default...

Thanks, I'll give this a go when I get the chance. This should make mame a bit easier. Currently when I run mame games, I have put a wrapper around mame that uses nvtv to switch back to 800x600 (otherwise the bottom of the screen isnt visible) and then back to 800x576 when done. I couldnt work out how to get mame to run 800x576 when the x res is 800x600.

Hope it works for you. The resolution screws up my LCD a bit, but I use that for testing only...

Thanks for helping.

rarefluid