Rdeon 8500 & s-video output?

antipop · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 84

How can I connect my Radeon 8500 with my TV using s-video cable?
I tried simplify by plugging the cable on my TV and graphics card but I can't get an image. What's wrong? Is s-video output even implemented on ATI's linux drivers?

bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

This is a know issue, search for "atitvout" in the forum for the long story.

You have to emerge atitvout, connect the tv, reboot (or restart X, I don't know if it's enough) and figure out what are the right options for atitvout in your case. My Radeon Moblility 7500 works this way:

antipop · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 84

Still can't get my tv-out to work. I tried every option with test.sh.
Has anyone succeded in this?

xlyz · Veteran Joined: 27 Oct 2002 Posts: 1470 Location: Italy

AFAIK not with ati drivers

may be with gatos?

antipop · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 84

No luck with gatos either. Maybe upcoming XFree and DRI will resolve my problem. At least I hope so. If not, I'll have to find myself a chep GF3 with tv-out.

xlyz · Veteran Joined: 27 Oct 2002 Posts: 1470 Location: Italy

tried to install dri (november snapshot), but not even able to get to login

anyone have them working?

phelan · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 10:44 pm Post subject:

Actually, I don't think that DRI has any effect but the said snapshot is pretty old. Since they're not releasing new ones anymore you'll probably have to give the current CVS source a try. I have set up a How-to here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=29264

VanDan · Guru Joined: 30 Sep 2002 Posts: 586 Location: Australia

Mine (64MB DDR VIVO) used to work with:

atitvout -r auto ; mplayer -vo xv -ao alsa9 file.mpeg

'atitvout -r auto' by itself sends my monitor into power-save mode. 'mplayer' then gets the montior AND the tv going!

You have to have a relatively low vertical refresh / horizonal sync rate in your /etc/X11/XF86Config. You also have to have X in 16-bit mode, at a resolution of 800x600 (it's OK to have it set higher initially, and CTRL-ALT-PLUS / MINUS to get to 800x600 when you wanna play a video).

I have ONLY been able to get TV-out working WHILE playing a video. The display gets corrupted again after the video finishes, and you have to reset the monitor with CTRL-ALT-PLUS / MINUS.

Also, atitvout only works under xfree86-4.2.x for me. xfree86-4.3.0 produces a blue / green screen for me.

Anyone trying atitvout should check ALL of it's options, and run mplayer after each attempt. Hope someone has some luck getting the **** thing going...