Video output to TV out on a MGA400DH32MAX

[Michael Scholz]

Hi!

I've been reading along for some time but haven't found an answer yet to my
problem.

Since my system's setup comprises a G400DH MGA card I want to use the TV out
with mplayer the way it is done for M$-Win (sorry for mentioning that ;o)
). Meaning, whenever I run mplayer it should output to the TV solely or in
parallel to the windowed representation of the movie played back on the
primary display.

I use SuSE Linux 9.0 which I regularily update using the web based update
feature. So I have a pretty regular installation with no extra gimmicks. I
was able to compile mplayer with mga support and managed to create the
mga_vid driver as well as establishing the mga_vid-device. I ran the
power-desk thing provided by Matrox and got a new second desktop on the TV.
But until today I wasn't able to play back a movie in -fs mode on that
display nor did I see any mplayer window there.

I assume I'm pretty much all set and only a command line arg away from
'fulfillment' so answering might be easy. Here are my questions: How do I
have to configure the second display with powerdesk? Do I have to do this
with that software at all? How do I have to tell mplayer that it should
address the alternate display (I tried many -vo options: mga, xmga, xv,
vidix, ... but that didn't accomplish anything)? I tried the latest
tarball-release and the cvs-sources (both work but for the TV-out).

Does anybody know? Any help, idea or hint to solve that is highly
appreciated!


Thanks a lot in advance!

Michael [from Dresden/Germany]

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 06:55:48 +0000

Post by Michael Scholz
Does anybody know? Any help, idea or hint to solve that is highly
appreciated!

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#tvout-mga-g400

Attila Kinali

[Michael Scholz]

Post by Attila Kinali
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#tvout-mga-g400

Okay, I've read that before. As far as I understand this I have two methods:
1. the XFree and 2. the framebuffer thing.

I kinda wanted to tackle this in two steps. First, I'd like to see if TV-out
would ever work. Therefore I went for the XFree method and got it to work -
but only for the basic X stuff. I wasn't able to watch the movie there yet.
According to what's on the documentation about this I should get to an
unaccellerated video playback. But that didn't happen. Again my question,
which is IMHO not answered in the mplayer's online documentation, how do I
finally address the desktop that's shown on the TV's screen for the mplayer
playback window? Which video driver (-vo ???) do I have to choose? Do I have
to setenv DISPLAY :1.0 or :0.1 or something like that additionally?

As soon as I got this done I want to go on with the framebuffer.


CU!

-Mike

[Guido Reimer]

There is a 3ed way to get TV-out to work with Mplayer.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#dfbmga

I think this is a much better way. But it's not simple.

----------------------------------

Post by Attila Kinali
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#tvout-mga-g400

Okay, I've read that before. As far as I understand this I have two methods:

1. the XFree and 2. the framebuffer thing.

I kinda wanted to tackle this in two steps. First, I'd like to see if TV-out

would ever work. Therefore I went for the XFree method and got it to work -
but only for the basic X stuff. I wasn't able to watch the movie there yet.
According to what's on the documentation about this I should get to an
unaccellerated video playback. But that didn't happen. Again my question,
which is IMHO not answered in the mplayer's online documentation, how do I
finally address the desktop that's shown on the TV's screen for the mplayer
playback window? Which video driver (-vo ???) do I have to choose? Do I have

to setenv DISPLAY :1.0 or :0.1 or something like that additionally?

As soon as I got this done I want to go on with the framebuffer.


CU!

-Mike

[Michael Scholz]

Thanks Attila & Guido so far!

@Guido: I did consider the dfbmga as the next step. The problem is the first
option should give me a video as well but I was only able to see another X
desktop, although it appears fully functionable, it's kind of useless since
I don't know how to switch to it (and - first and foremost - to play a video
there). Any idea how to make that one active? The dfbmga would then be next
once I got the slow version to work...


CU!

-Mike

============================================================================

Post by Guido Reimer
There is a 3ed way to get TV-out to work with Mplayer.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/video.html#dfbmga
I think this is a much better way. But it's not simple.

[Michael Scholz]

I just checked again on the XFree option. The only thing I get out of the
mplayer's output to the TV out is a green window... :o( What did I do wrong?


CU!

-Mike

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 21:24:02 +0000

Post by Michael Scholz
I just checked again on the XFree option. The only thing I get out of the
mplayer's output to the TV out is a green window... :o( What did I do wrong?

Sounds like you get only the x window and not the backend scaler.
Prolly because you have the TV out on the second screen.

Note that you can have the backend scaler only on the primary screen,
therefor you have to switch primary and secondary screen. It's discribed
somewhere in the docu.

Attila Kinali