larryni.me.uk

Here’s how I got the tv-out (S-video) on my Radeon card to work. I’ve been using this for the past 6 or so months and it works great – no more need for Windows It works with the open-source ATI drivers, and with a slight modification it should also work with the Intel drivers (I haven’t tried that one yet). I found the original instructions here.

I am using xrandr and xvattr to enable the tv display, and vlc to play the video. First install xvattr:

sudo apt-get install xvattr

My Radeon 9200 only supports an S-video resolution of 800×600 and my desktop is set to 1400×1050. To get around this I specify an 800×600 area on the desktop that will then be shown (cloned) on the tv. The command line input is quite long and not the easiest to remember, so I used 2 small scripts which I placed in my ~/bin folder.

First create a new text file and copy the following into it:

#!/bin/bash
# Enable S-Video at 800x600
xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600 && xrandr --output S-video --mode 800x600 --pos 200x200 && xvattr -a XV_CRTC -v 1

Save it as ~/bin/tvon

The tvon script displays an 800×600 area whose top left corner is positioned at 200 px from the top and 200 px from the left of the screen.

Create another text file with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash
# Disable S-Video
xvattr -a XV_CRTC -v 0 && xrandr --output S-video --off

Save the file as ~/bin/tvoff

The tvoff script turns S-video off again.

Make the scripts executable:

chmod a+x ~/bin/tvon
chmod a+x ~/bin/tvoff

Instead of using the scripts from the command line I added 2 launchers to my top panel.

Now we need to set up vlc. I have version 0.9.4 installed and the preferences window has changed. If you are using an earlier version then check the original instructions on the Ubuntu forums for the correct options.

Launch vlc and open Tools > Preferences. In the Interface section deselect the Integrate video in Interface option. This will ensure that we get a window-less video output.

In the bottom left of the Preferences window select to show all settings and click on the video section. Scroll down and change the Window properties as follows:

Video width: 800
Video height: 600
Video X coordinate: 200
Video Y coordinate: 200

Save and close the preferences window.

All that you need now is to connect your tv to your graphics card and you’re ready to go.

Note: I did have problems getting this to work with Compiz, so you might wanna disable it first. It also doesn’t fill the full width of the tv screen, I get a 1/2 inch margin on either side. I hardly notice it though.