Hi,
I just obtained a second computer and installed Mdk 10 (download) on it. I plan to use it mainly as my test platform and to watch DVD's. The h/w config is: Dual AMD Athlon 1.5Ghz / ATI Rage128 (A-I-W Pro) / Sound Blaster Live. All the h/w seems to be configured right, the display card is configured as an 'ATI Rage 128 TVout (it was detected as an 'ATI Rage 128). I have installed xine with the correct drivers and am able to watch DVD's on the monitor.

The display appears on the TV with it connected (on reboot). On issuing 'startx' the display vanishes from the TV and a garbled image on the monitor (an ancient 14" Fujikama PVGA-1024A) as if the frequency is incorrect. My guess is that its just a freqency setting that a bit off. (as I can see the output on the TV from the boot up BIOS screen (and the lilo graphic screen) right upto the point when I start X.

I could watch DVD's on the TV under WindowsXP using the same display card on my main computer (a dual boot, which has been relocated. I swapped out the display card to the second PC).

I looked for similar problems in linuxquestions and google without any luck.
Am I missing something? Any help, pointers would be appreciated. I'd hate to bring back the WindowsXP PC just to watch DVD's on TV

ATI does not support their video cards very well in Linux, so you are out of luck trying to get TV out working and even the capture features will be hard too. There are programs to control TV out on ATI cards, but it can be hard to setup and probably your computer monitor will be messed up. I suggest nVidia video cards. nVidia supports their video cards very, very well in Linux. Also they are easy to setup for TV out or for the DVI connector. If you get an nVidia card with a DVI connector and a HDTV with a DVI input, you can watch DVD movies in very, very crisp detail.

You may want to step up to a better sound quality like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

When this display card was in my main computer (the one with dual boot - Mdk/winxp) I did configure the capture perfectly using the drivers on the gatos site. With Xawtv or Aaview I could watch TV very comfortably including changing channels, volume etc. So I know that this card can be made to work....
Like I mentioned in my previous post, the TV out actually works, although only in text mode (80x25). meaning I get simultaneous display on the TV and the monitor from the time the computer is booted up right thru to the point where I type 'startx' (my default runlevel is 3).This means that the card/driver is working. Its only when the X is started that the display from the TV (and the monitor) is lost.

It worked. I reinstalled mdk 10. (This is a test m/c and I hadn't done any serious configuration yet)
When doing the system configuration at the end of the install, In the X config - I specified ATI Rage128 TVout. (in the previous install, I just accept the default - ATI Rage128). Doing this brings up another screen asking if TV out should be enable and a new entry added to lilo.conf which is the same the other entries with a new option added to the 'append= ' XFree=tvout
The quality of the image on the TV is not as good as it was with windows, but hey it works! Also. the image on the TV needs to be adjusted very slightly - vertically and horizontally.