Hi,

my first post here but not my first visit so I'll start by saying thanks for all the help you've all given me up until now without even knowing it.

I've set up MDK 10 as a dual boot with winxp and so far so good. However, when I try and enable TV-out I have one problem. The card is a Herc 9800SE AIW and I'm using the ATI proprietary drivers. Firstly I can't actually get the drivers to install but that's something I'm still looking into, keeps coming up saying it's using the MESA drivers. But, I digress, my real problem is that video thorugh xine or totem has no picture on the TV.

I've configured it in clone mode to save me swapping from monitor to TV and the desktop shows on the TV just fine. I can do everything I want and the TV acts as an exact copy of the monitor. But open a video clip and totem has no picture.

As I said, this also happens if I use xone and also happens no matter what the video was encoded with. I've changed the config to try different refresh rates but this makes no difference.

If anyone has any advice that would be great.

Thanks

Nick

PS. I did try searching but couldn't find anything and put the post in MDK because I haven't tried it on other distros.

I'm just going to take a guess and say that the video doesn't show up because of some overlay problem that the ATI drivers would fix (I could be wrong). Try and get the ATI drivers installed and then see if that fixes the video problem.

--mascdman

I'll give it a go - thanks.

I'd say the same

In windows the overlay is only displayed on the primary display device so it may be the same sort of problem. Its "by design" according to Micro$oft.

Hello again,

I've now got the ATI drivers installed properly, fglrxinfo shows the vendor as ATI Technologies and glxgears is showing some proper FPS at last. However I'm still not getting the picture from totem (or any other similar app) showing on the TV. I opted for a slightly different setup this time taking heed of the previous comments and chose the so-called laptop mode to allow me to switch between displays rather than clone mode which shows the same on both all of the time. Doesn’t seem to have made any difference as the TV always shows the display anyway.

I know this sounds silly but this is quite important to me as I use the PC as a DVD player rather than using a standalone player and if I want to eventually be able to rid myself of windows then this is something I’ll need to sort out.

So I can test the ‘overlay only on 1st display’ theory above, does anyone know how I would go about making the TV the primary display, preferably quickly as I don't want to change config files and have to restart every time I watch a film?

Thanks

Nick

Hi litrelord,
i have a very similar problem, and it just might be that things got away from the real problem here. I have the 9800XT from ASUS installed in my system and i'm trying to set up a dual-head mode for my CRT- and DVI- out . My personal problem is that WHENEVER both, the CRT AND the DVI device are plugged in, the DVI one is handled as the primary display. In the fglrxconfig tool theres no option to set "CRT, DVI" like i'd need it, only "DVI, CRT", wich makes the DVI primary. And i dont know how to set it right manually.

Now for your problem you should check first if u're stuck in the same boat as me. Is your monitor really handled as the primary display? Because FraserGJ is wrong i think. The overlay video isnt displayed in the primary but on the SECONDARY device. Its the same way in windows. Thats what overlay in clone mode is all about, so u can work on on ur Monitor and watch movies on ur secondary display. There are 2 ways to check if u're TV is the primary display. First, unplug ur TV, restart Linux and see if the video is displayed on the monitor afterwards. The second, and easier way is to just hit the logout button ind the KDE menu. In my case, the logout screen (where u choose to logout, reboot, etc.) is ONLY displayed on the primary display, wich is the DVI for me and should be the TV for you.

If one of these apply to you your stuck with the same problem as me and the ATI drivers have a serious bug. Wich is that whenever two devices are plugged to the Card the CRT ouput is handled as secondary. I could, in some way understand this for DVI because most ppl would probably choose a digital out over an analog one, but for the TV out this would be ridiculous.

Furthermore if ur problem comes out to be the same as mine u should rerun fglrxconfig and make sure there's no "TV, CRT" mode to choose. I'm currently not at home and can't check it. If there is, try it!

And plz report ur findings.

kind regards
Hatman

Thanks for the ideas Hatman. I'll have a further investogation. The thing I DO know off the top of my head is that the logout screen is shown on the monitor. I'm not sure whether it displays on the TV as well. Also, I believe when i ran fglrxconfig I chose to have the monitor as primary and the TV as secondary.

I'll do some more playing when I get a chance, probably tomorrow night and will let you know what happens.

Thanks again

Nick