[mythtv-users] Using the video card without using a TV-Out

[Scott Alfter]

On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 10:39:12AM -0600, Pete wrote:
> Does anyone simply use the video card output to a TV as their only video out 
> source? I've seen some hints to this, but nothing specific. I've got a 350 
> working, but never could successfully get X coming out, and the ivtv-fb and 
> ivtvdev_drv.o generally broke things (X wouldn't start on the fb interface no 
> matter what I did, nor could I just send myth to :1). Since this will be the 
> center of a home theater, and since TV looks pretty good at 1280x720 on my 
> monitor, can I just go this route? I'm putting a pcHDTV in this box in a 
> month or two (waiting till after christmas to buy it), so I can do both cable 
> and OTA HD, so why not just use one output and not have to switch the TV all 
> the time?

I had a PVR350 driving a TV up until a couple of days ago...it produced
pretty good output for recordings, but other material (DVDs, MPEG-4 video,
etc.) didn't work so well over it.  Since it's limited to what NTSC can
deliver, it's also limited to 720x480.

I've replaced the 27" TV (NTSC, flat tube) I was using with a 27" widescreen
LCD HDTV monitor.  One nice feature of this particular monitor (it's the one
Costco was selling for $1000 this weekend) is that you get a VGA input on it
as well as HD component inputs, so connecting a computer to it is no more
difficult than plugging in any other monitor.  It seems to stretch out
text-mode displays a bit too much (they're drawn by the video card at
640x350), but a framebuffer console at 640x480 or 800x600 is readable from
across the room.  The documentation that came with the monitor had all the
timing info needed to generate a 1280x720 60Hz (aka 720p HDTV) modeline; it
needed a little tweaking from the provided numbers for the nVidia binary X11
driver to work with it, but it works with just a little bit of overscan at
the top and bottom.  SD video recorded on the PVR350 or M179 plays at the
proper aspect ratio (black bars on the sides), and it should handle HD
whenever I get around to adding one of the pcHDTV cards.

DVI or HDMI might've been a little better WRT image quality than VGA, but
others have reported hit-or-miss results getting different video cards and
digital-input HDTV monitors cooperating.  (FWIW, I'm using a generic GeForce
FX5200 with way more RAM on it than will ever be needed. :-| ) What I have
now works well enough.  Being able to see the boot messages scroll by on my
MythTV box is a Good Thing when it comes to troubleshooting (the PVR350
framebuffer can't be used as the console display AFAIK, so you see
absolutely nothing from it for most of the boot process).

You mentioned wanting to get a pcHDTV yourself in the future.  You are aware
that HD won't play through the PVR350, right?

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