TV-Out
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General
The video cable must have been connected before you turn on your computer because the video BIOS is initialized only at that time. Generally tv out only works if there is not any monitor also connected to the VGA out at boot time (e.g. the TV is the only connected device).
Some cards don't support the default resolution (800x600). So it's necessary modifying this in 640x480. For that, refer to the following article.
TV Out Standards
If you notice a b/w image, and/or unstable picture that rolls vertically on the screen, most likely it is due to incorrect standard selection (default is pal standard). To change the setting, modify the following line in the file etc/tvout :
TVOUT_STANDARD=pal
There are 3 standards : ntsc, pal and secam. Choose the correct setting for your television. Note that whilst the acronyms are often seen in upper-case letters, this file requires that they are given in lower-case form.
ATI - atitvout
TV output for ATI cards is controlled via the atitvout program. This has cable and standards detection, so in general no modification of settings is required. In the case that adapter cables cause autodetection routines to fail, the correct setup can be forced via a manual override by editing the appropriate section in the file etc/init.d/30_tvout.
If it doesn't work
There is however a case where switching to tvout won't produce anything at all... I you are unable to obtain a tv image, read on, the following might help. I have a radeon mobility m6 on my portable generators, which for some reason decided that didn't want to display geexbox on my tv (s-video connected). After checking the forum, I've seen that this issue appeared to many, but one poster suggested booting in debug mode and then using "atitvout -f t". This also helped me a lot! Unfortunately the display was in black and white instead of color, so I made a bit of troubleshooting.
To make a long/boring story short, I managed to have geexbox produce tv out, when the booting process nears completion. This is a temp workaround. It has the disadvantage that pressing "s"/selecting tvout while in tv display will switch to monitor display (so far so good), but pressing "s" again will not produce a tv display at all. (If someone can point me out which files I should alter to make even this work, pls let me know.)
Why doesn't it work?
Well, in my case it didn't work out of the box. The funny thing is that in debug mode, for some atitvout commands, these are at times accepted only when the "force rage mode" (-f) option is used, whereas in other times they are accepted only when "force radeon mode" (-r) is used!
Any workarounds?
Try the following. First, download and extract the ISO generator as usual. Using a linux-compatible editor that doesn't change the internal text format of files under Windows (Notetab light for example), open the file iso/GEEXBOX/etc/tvout
In that file, make sure options TVOUT_STANDARD and TVOUT_ASPECT are set correctly. If you changed the file, remember to save.
Then open iso/GEEXBOX/etc/init.d/30_tvout and change the following two lines:
atitvout $TVOUT_STANDARD auto >/dev/null 2>&1 test "`atitvout active 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout
...to
atitvout -r $TVOUT_STANDARD >/dev/null 2>&1 atitvout -f auto >/dev/null 2>&1 test "`atitvout -f t 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout
Create an iso using the generator and boot with it. Make sure the TV is connected correctly and is turned on before trying to do so, because at some point during the GeeXboX boot process the modified script will automatically try to switch to tv. So if you lose image from your computer monitor do not panic, it will be switching to tv. If that doesn't happen, press "s" or, if you are in debug mode, give blindly one of the following commands to switch back to the computer monitor:
For LCD monitor: atitvout -f l For CRT monitor: atitvout -f c
If TV display is black and white instead of color
Some users who connect using s-video on one side and EuroAV (SCART) on the other may see a black and white image instead of color, no matter what they do. This is a deficiency in the television's scart connector, that is it believes the signal is a composite video one, whereas it is actually luminance on one SCART pin and chrominance on the other. Some tv's can switch to a "av-s" (S-Video) mode which then displays things normally while others can't.. In such a case, try connecting with a composite video connector from both sides.
Matrox
Matrox cards seem to support only 640x480, so refer to the following article to change the resolution to 640x480.
NVidia - nvtv
The nvtv program cannot autodetect an appropriate television connection. Modify the following lines in the file etc/init.d/30_tvout :
atitvout $TVOUT_STANDARD auto >/dev/null 2>&1 test "`atitvout active 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout #nvtv $NVTV_ON >/dev/null 2>&1 #echo "" > /var/tvout
to :
#atitvout $TVOUT_STANDARD auto >/dev/null 2>&1 #test "`atitvout active 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout nvtv $NVTV_ON >/dev/null 2>&1 echo "" > /var/tvout
S3 - s3switch
The s3switch program also cannot autodetect a television presence. Modify the following lines in the file etc/init.d/30_tvout :
atitvout $TVOUT_STANDARD auto >/dev/null 2>&1 test "`atitvout active 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout . . #s3switch -q tv $TVOUT_STANDARD >/dev/null 2>&1 #echo "" > /var/tvout
to :
#atitvout $TVOUT_STANDARD auto >/dev/null 2>&1 #test "`atitvout active 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/TV.*/TV/p'`" = "TV" && echo "" > /var/tvout . . s3switch -q tv $TVOUT_STANDARD >/dev/null 2>&1 echo "" > /var/tvout
