I'm using the composite out on my ancient Nvidia Geforce 256 card, and the 4363 Nvidia drivers. Regardless of anything I change in XF86Config-4, the output is about an inch too small on each side of my TV. I'm guess the translation to NTSC is done on the card, so it doesn't care what you do to your modelines. Anyone know how to fix this? Oh, and I've tried nvtv but it always hangs my system (conflict with the nvidia driver?).

-Mike

are you editing the correct config file ? do not laugh, it happend to me in the past also that I edited xf86-config instead of xf86-config-4.

please check output of /var/log/XFree86.0.log



hth

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Hi Mike,

I had the same problem up until last night. I could see all of the GUI in 800x600, but had those same black bars you mention. I decided that I need to run it at 640x480 instead. I jumped on IRC and Cprompt gave me some tips and I managed to get everything just about right. Here's what I did (using a geforce2 tv out for 640x480 output):


Copied /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to XF86Config-4.bak to be sure I could get back to where I started just in case things got messed up.

Edited /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 -> Section "Screen" -> SubSection "Display" -> Changed each 'Modes' line to read Modes "640x480" "800x600" . This allowed X to start in 640x480 mode. If you want to switch to 800x600 after X is up, you can press <ctrl><alt><+> to cycle through the modes.

At this point, I had Myth up on a 640x480 screen, but parts of the display were off the screen. The display was too small for the GUI's scaling. I then went to Setup -> Appearance from Myth's GUI. Skip to the page which allows input of the GUI width/height/offsets. Change the width and height to something near the resolution you are using (I couldn't get the values 640 and 480 to ever fit!). Then use the x and y offsets to adjust the positioning on my screen. You'll probably want to check the box that says something like 'Use GUI parameters for Live TV viewing'.

At this point it was trial and error getting the screen just right, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I noticed a bit of distortion due to the incorrect width/height settings I had to use, but it is pretty minor. I'll tinker with it a bit more to see if I can get it a bit better.

Hope it helps . If anyone has anything else to add that might be helpful, please jump in!

Yep, I'm editing the right XF86Config-4 file.

I've tried switching into different modes, 800x600, 720x480, 640x480, and all fill up the same amount of the TV screen. I'll fiddle with it again tonite though to see if I missed something.

You might also try using 'nvtv' to change the resolutions on the fly to see which works best for you.

Dinki,
When you say distortion do you mean that the gui display was not square with the Tv display. This resulted in the fvwm desktop color being visible on the screen, specifically at the corners.
I was thinking to resolve this issue I would switch the fvwm desktop color to black so that the distortion is not noticeable, although I don't know how to change the desktop color of fvwm.

Mike G.

Hey here's an easy fix I implemented over the weekend...grab a cheap VGA to TV converter on eBay (I got an old Aver Key unit for $10) and use that instead of TV out on your video card. This way you can actually tweak the XF86Config settings to change your picture size, if you have a card like mine that ignores them for TV out. The better VGA to TV converters have size and position adjustments on them as well.

Mike,

Yeah, I think that's what's happening. It is only really noticiable in some scenes and during all black frames. I think your idea of changing the desktop color to black would help if it is indeed the desktop showing through. My CPU fan is acting up, so I can't really tinker with my myth box until the replacement comes in ...

Any suggestions how to change the desktop color from eggpant to black?

Thanks,
Mike G.

I suggest you take a look at the TVOverScan settings

You can see a good example of Nvidia's config in
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4.nvidia.sample

Try playing with them. Finally if they don't get it perfect mythtv has some overscan / adjustment settings as well.

To change the desktop color,
Modify the xsetroot in the . fvwm2rc to the following:

xsetroot -solid rgb:00/00/00

Mike G