NVidiaProprietaryDriver
Contents
TV-Out and the NVidiaProprietaryDriver
Basically, everything you need to get this working you will find in their Readme file; read Appendix J which deals with TV-Out. Oh, and of course a videocard which is new enough to be supported by the driver!
Personal experiences with driver revision 1.0-8776:
- NVidia GeForce2 MX: works
- NVidia GeForce4 MX440: works
- NVidia FX5200: works
- NVidia Riva TNT2: defunct
- NVidia Riva TNT (also known as AGP-V3400): defunct
Resolutions supported by this driver depend on the card in use. But all cards I have seen have a TV-encoder onboard (the actual IC making the TV-Out connector(s) work) with only support for a few (lower) resolutions... all 4x3 aspect ratio :-(
Here's the list:
- 1024x768
- 800x600
- 720x576 (actually a very very good resolution for (european) TVs using the PAL TV-standard!)
- 640x480
Common problems and solutions
Blue line(s) surrounding picture
One common symptom is the following: the NVidia driver may (or may not) give one or more blue lines surrounding the display during TV or DVD playback. This is something which is mostly seen on widescreen TV displays. The 'xvattr' command can be used to solve the problem:
xvattr -a XV_COLORKEY -v 66048
Add the command somewhere in the Xorg startup sequence. For my Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 system I wrote the file:
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/98custom_disable-blueline
with the following contents:
#!/bin/sh xvattr -a XV_COLORKEY -v 66048
Maybe adding a file like this works for your favourite distro as well. Maybe not... (need more distribution-specific information on this item!)
Black-and-White output
There are at least four possible causes:
TVStandard
Make sure the TVStandard option is set to the one valid for your country. Many nVidia cards default to the American TVStandard 'NTSC'. For a mythtv box in the Netherlands use the following option in the 'Device' section in xorg.conf:
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
If you're in the UK, use:
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-I"
Many other variations of PAL and other standards are supported. For a complete list, see the nVidia "readme" for your driver version (see the nVidia Linux driver download page).
Vertical Refresh Frequency
Some televisions will show a black-and-white image if you attempt to display video using an unexpected vertical refresh frequency, e.g. showing PAL-I format video at 60Hz instead of 50Hz. This is because the TV may use the vertical refresh frequency to decide whether it should be decoding PAL (usually 50Hz) or NTSC (60Hz). Either change the TVStandard (see above) to match the frequency, or change the frequency to match the video standard.
TVOutFormat
Some televisions support multiple video formats on a single SCART or S-VIDEO socket, but without auto-detection of the signal type. If you are seeing a sharp black and white image instead of a colour image, the nVidia card is probably outputting a Composite signal, but your TV is expecting S-Video. Either switch the TV to Composite or "AV" mode (not recommended), or set the following option in xorg.conf:
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
Conversely, to force Composite output (if your TV does not support S-VIDEO), use:
Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"
S-Video generally has far superior image quality to composite video, especially from nVidia cards.
Annoyingly, some nVidia card/TV combinations will default to Composite mode at boot-time, meaning that your boot sequence will be in black and white until xorg.conf is loaded. (If anyone knows a fix for this (using different cables perhaps?), please insert it here!)
Cable Connections
Obvious perhaps, but make sure that the ends of your cables are firmly in place! (especially if you're using SCART/RGB sockets)
Annoying NVidia logo?
To get rid of that annoying NVidia logo at startup, add this line in the 'Device' section of xorg.conf:
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Small (unreadable) fonts or too big fonts?
The entire GUI of Mythtv was designed for 100 DPI screens, and the fonts are based on that selection as well.
See Specifying DPI for NVidia Cards.
System instability
There are several situations where a system with a NVidia video display card show problems with the system stability. See Nvidia_instability at this wiki for more detailed information about this issue.
Configure the monitor!
The NVidiaProprietaryDriver supports monitors as well as TV screen (using TV-Out). To use a (wide-screen) TV as monitor, see XorgConfMonitorSectionForTV.
