[MPlayer-users] Re: ATI Radeon 9000 and tv-out

[Tom Hui]

Fabio Stumbo wrote:
 > > >>
 > > >> I have an ati radeon 9000 card and I downloaded the latest ati 
drivers
 > > >> (3.2.5, if I remember well).
 > > >>
 > > >> With great pleasure I discovered that ati provided tv-out even 
for linux.

Wow, I did not know the new drivers had TV-out enabled.  I just 
installed them
(Driver Version 3.2.8) and TV-out works great in clone mode on my
Radeon 9700 Pro.  It even allows  for different resolutions on the Primary
and Secondary head.

 > > >> When I launch mplayer I can see its frontend correctly, on both 
screens.
 > > >> The problem is: when I play a dvd, I can see it correctly on the 
monitor,
 > > >> meanwhile on the tv the mplayer window is empty, filled with an 
annoying
 > > >> blue background... :-((
 > > >>
 > > >> Any suggestion?

I think you may have already figured out that overlay ( -vo xv ) only 
displays on
the Primary head.

 > The end of the story. At least, of my tentatives... ;-)
 >
 > with gl(2) I get really really poor playback, but it works also on 
the tv.
 > With x11, I get the tv out and performance is quite acceptable.
 > Trying to invert primary/secondary monitor, as to have the tv as primary
 > trying to get accelleration on it doesn't help: xv still perform a nice
 > blue screen...
 >

Swapping Primary/Secondary head to get TV-out with overlay does work.  If
you are trying to do it from that "ATI Control panel" thing, I don't 
think it is doing
what you expect it to do.  I was fighting with that for a while.

Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and look for the line that says:

    Option "MonitorLayout"              "CRT, STV"

and change it to say:

    Option "MonitorLayout"              "STV, CRT"

restart X and you should have TV-out as your Primary head and your monitor
as Secondary.  mplayer -vo xv  should now display the movie on your tv
with that annoying blank window now on your monitor.  It would be nice to be
able to view the move on both heads but overlay on TV-out is still good.

As for -vo gl2, it seem to work fine with clear picture and good frame 
rate.  It
also displays the movie on both the Primary and Secondary head.

 >
 > Thanks to everybody
 >
 > Fabio

Hope this help...

Tom