Mailing List Archive

Well, if you use your nVidia card with TV-Out being the ONLY output
device (no CRT or Flat Panel attached as well) you can use nvtv to
adjust overscan, and you shouldn't have any problems with "tearing" (xv
double buffer apparently only works on primary display.)

In this scenario it wouldn't be a bad card. However, I probably
wouldn't put a Ti4600 under the TV set to be a TiVo. The price of the
Ti4600 alone is about the price of an entire TiVo. However, the GF2's
and stuff apparently work even better with nvtv.

I can only really tell you about the nVidia boards because that's all
I've used with TV-Out.

Apparently some of the Matrox boards with TV-Out (G400/G450) appear to
work well and have good xv support. Not all G400/G450's have TV-Out
though.

I've been hunting around myself for a video board that is the "perfect
TV-Out solution" and I have not found one. There's always pros and
cons for every one. What one person doesn't feel is important (like
overscan) you may feel that it's very important.

For me, I want a video board that can display to a TV with overscan
intact and good quality. It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as
colors aren't washed out and I have no black borders.

Too bad there's no Linux (accelerated) drivers for the Xbox VGA chip
yet, it would make an incredibly good front-end (the TV-Out on the xbox
is very good.) They say this is in the works and should show up "soon"
so we'll have to see.


-----Original Message-----
From: jeff@burstable.net [mailto:jeff@burstable.net]
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 11:07 AM
To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
Subject: [mythtv-users] Video Card Recommendations for TV Out

I just installed MythTV lastnight and am extrememly impressed. I've
decided to build a dedicated box for this and was looking for
recommendations for the best video card for TV-OUT that will work with
MythTV. My test box has an Nvidia Ti4600, but the TV-Out was not all
that
great, and I read that the Nvidia cards are not very good under linux
for
TV-Out. I bought a cheap ATI TV Wonder VE to use to get this all setup.

Is there better cards out there for the tuner portion? Any suggestions
in this area would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks,
Jeff

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

A Matrox G450 ann G550 have the best TV-out but their 3D performance is on the
par of a GeForce2 MX. Matrox is know for great 2D quality.

Later,
Steven

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 11:06:34 -0500 (EST)
jeff@burstable.net wrote:
>I just installed MythTV lastnight and am extrememly impressed. I've
>decided to build a dedicated box for this and was looking for
>recommendations for the best video card for TV-OUT that will work with
>MythTV. My test box has an Nvidia Ti4600, but the TV-Out was not all that
>great, and I read that the Nvidia cards are not very good under linux for
>TV-Out. I bought a cheap ATI TV Wonder VE to use to get this all setup.
>Is there better cards out there for the tuner portion? Any suggestions
>in this area would be greatly appreciated as well.
>
>Thanks,
>Jeff
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users


--
___ ____________
<<<((__O\ (__<>___<>__ \ ____ Don't get rattled by
Steven Whatley \ \_(__<>___<>__)\O\_/O___>-< what I say. It's just
swhatley@hal-pc.org \O__<>___<>___<>)\___/ my opinion.

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Joseph Jamieson wrote:

> Apparently some of the Matrox boards with TV-Out (G400/G450) appear to
> work well and have good xv support. Not all G400/G450's have TV-Out
> though.

I think the G400 is ok, but the G450 dualhead does not have TVout in
linux. The card itself has TVout, but the drivers in Linux don't
support it. If you try the framebuffer solution, it will work
but no XV support, so scratch that too. I found out these problems
the hard way after I invested in the card.

>
> I've been hunting around myself for a video board that is the "perfect
> TV-Out solution" and I have not found one. There's always pros and
> cons for every one. What one person doesn't feel is important (like
> overscan) you may feel that it's very important.
>

For the time being, I settled on a solution I found to be very
good and relatively cheap. I picked up a G450 on ebay (thinking
it would do everything, but no). But instead of trying card after
card, I bought a signal converter, hooked up screen 1 to the
converter (since only head 1 has XV support), but a cheap 13"
monitor on head 2 as a console. The video quality is very good;
much better than my TI4200 with TVout on another machine,
and the total price was
in line with other possible solutions. And my confidence that
it was going to work was much higher. With the signal converter,
the video card becomes almost irrelavent with only XV support needed.

Brian

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I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
my video card.

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Brian Wrote:

> For the time being, I settled on a solution I found to be very
> good and relatively cheap. I picked up a G450 on ebay (thinking
> it would do everything, but no). But instead of trying card after
> card, I bought a signal converter, hooked up screen 1 to the
> converter (since only head 1 has XV support), but a cheap 13"
> monitor on head 2 as a console. The video quality is very good;
> much better than my TI4200 with TVout on another machine,
> and the total price was
> in line with other possible solutions. And my confidence that
> it was going to work was much higher. With the signal converter,
> the video card becomes almost irrelavent with only XV support needed.

Yea, I've tried scan convertors. They can work well, and it also
depends on what type of signal they receive.

I have a TVAtor, and a fancy one with a remote control. The TVAtor is
an inferior unit, but performs better hooked up to the Geforce then the
expensive one. The expensive one works better on my ATI board and most
other boards.

The cool thing about the expensive unit is that it handles almost any
resolution. I can pump out 1280x1024@75Hz, and it resizes the image
perfectly on the screen. Obviously you can't read any small text, but
it displays the picture none-the-less.

Scan convertors are an excellent way to get TV-Out on your PC, but your
mileage may vary. It might look great, or it could look like soup.

While I'm posting to the board, what is the "real" resolution of NTSC?
So many times I've seen "The practical limit is 640x480" but what is the
actual signal?

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Joseph Jamieson wrote:

> Brian Wrote:
>
> > For the time being, I settled on a solution I found to be very
> > good and relatively cheap. I picked up a G450 on ebay (thinking
> > it would do everything, but no). But instead of trying card after
> > card, I bought a signal converter, hooked up screen 1 to the
> > converter (since only head 1 has XV support), but a cheap 13"
> > monitor on head 2 as a console. The video quality is very good;
> > much better than my TI4200 with TVout on another machine,
> > and the total price was
> > in line with other possible solutions. And my confidence that
> > it was going to work was much higher. With the signal converter,
> > the video card becomes almost irrelavent with only XV support needed.
>
> Yea, I've tried scan convertors. They can work well, and it also
> depends on what type of signal they receive.
>
> I have a TVAtor, and a fancy one with a remote control. The TVAtor is
> an inferior unit, but performs better hooked up to the Geforce then the
> expensive one. The expensive one works better on my ATI board and most
> other boards.

I can't remember the name of mine, but I'll post it tonight. It was
abotu $80 and does come with asmall remote and will convert up or down
resolutions; but I just use 640x480.
>
> Scan convertors are an excellent way to get TV-Out on your PC, but your
> mileage may vary. It might look great, or it could look like soup.
>
> While I'm posting to the board, what is the "real" resolution of NTSC?
> So many times I've seen "The practical limit is 640x480" but what is the
> actual signal?

I'm no EE, but its not quite as easy as to ask what the real resolution
is. There are intentional scan lines above and below the signal that
are usually not displayed on a TV, the interlacing complicates things
a lot, and then you have NTSC or PAL. I've always heard 640x240 and
then interlaced to another 240 lines is about all you can expect.

Joseph Jamieson wrote
> Well, if you use your nVidia card with TV-Out being the ONLY output
> device (no CRT or Flat Panel attached as well) you can use nvtv to
> adjust overscan, and you shouldn't have any problems with "tearing" (xv
> double buffer apparently only works on primary display.)
>
> In this scenario it wouldn't be a bad card. However, I probably
> wouldn't put a Ti4600 under the TV set to be a TiVo. The price of the
> Ti4600 alone is about the price of an entire TiVo. However, the GF2's
> and stuff apparently work even better with nvtv.

nvtv doesn't fully support the GeForce4 Ti line. I think they have
support now for the 4200, but not the others, yet. I happen to have
a GeForce4 Ti 4600 and am using it with TV-out and am quite happy with
it, despite the outer ~5% of my TV picture being a black border (it's
about an inch on each side on my 27" TV).

For NVidia boards, a GeForce2 MX is probably the best choice. It's
cheap, it allows both monitor and TV-out at the same time *and* nvtv
can adjust those borders on it. when I get around to building a
dedicated frontend, that's what I'm going to put in it. :)

-Chris

I have two GF4 4600Ti's, and nvtv works as far as setting some of the
overscan modes. If you try to do anything else (position, etc) it makes
the screen go all funky on me. But, you can get a decent overscanned
display on a TV if you run at 800x600. Again, only if it's the only
head on the card. If you try to run nvtv while in dual-head mode it
will completely mess stuff up.


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Palmer [mailto:mythtv@zencow.com]
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 3:10 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Video Card Recommendations for TV Out

Joseph Jamieson wrote
> Well, if you use your nVidia card with TV-Out being the ONLY output
> device (no CRT or Flat Panel attached as well) you can use nvtv to
> adjust overscan, and you shouldn't have any problems with "tearing"
(xv
> double buffer apparently only works on primary display.)
>
> In this scenario it wouldn't be a bad card. However, I probably
> wouldn't put a Ti4600 under the TV set to be a TiVo. The price of
the
> Ti4600 alone is about the price of an entire TiVo. However, the
GF2's
> and stuff apparently work even better with nvtv.

nvtv doesn't fully support the GeForce4 Ti line. I think they have
support now for the 4200, but not the others, yet. I happen to have
a GeForce4 Ti 4600 and am using it with TV-out and am quite happy with
it, despite the outer ~5% of my TV picture being a black border (it's
about an inch on each side on my 27" TV).

For NVidia boards, a GeForce2 MX is probably the best choice. It's
cheap, it allows both monitor and TV-out at the same time *and* nvtv
can adjust those borders on it. when I get around to building a
dedicated frontend, that's what I'm going to put in it. :)

-Chris
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mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

good to know. nvtv is an active project, so things will get better
over time, but because the chipsets on that line are different than
other NVidia cards, things are still somewhat slow for development
(lots of trial-and-error on their part, I'm sure).

-Chris


Joseph Jamieson wrote
> I have two GF4 4600Ti's, and nvtv works as far as setting some of the
> overscan modes. If you try to do anything else (position, etc) it makes
> the screen go all funky on me. But, you can get a decent overscanned
> display on a TV if you run at 800x600. Again, only if it's the only
> head on the card. If you try to run nvtv while in dual-head mode it
> will completely mess stuff up.

My converter is an ADS TV Elite XGA. I'm happy with it.

On Friday 28 March 2003 12:05 pm, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> my video card.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

For me the "Web Cable Plus" is more than "good enough". I don't think
it could be better. I don't perceive any quality loss for going through
the converter. One caveat: I had slight flicker problems that went away
when I switched from powering it through the ps2 port and switched to
the included transformer. And boy, is it easy to setup.

cedar



> My converter is an ADS TV Elite XGA. I'm happy with it.
>
> On Friday 28 March 2003 12:05 pm, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
>> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
>> my video card.

Does anyone have a reference for where I could buy this, or any decent scan converter in fact in the UK?

Thanks

-----Original Message-----
From: Cedar McKay [mailto:cedarmckay@mac.com]
Sent: 29 March 2003 08:46
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Video Card Recommendations for TV Out


For me the "Web Cable Plus" is more than "good enough". I don't think
it could be better. I don't perceive any quality loss for going through
the converter. One caveat: I had slight flicker problems that went away
when I switched from powering it through the ps2 port and switched to
the included transformer. And boy, is it easy to setup.

cedar



> My converter is an ADS TV Elite XGA. I'm happy with it.
>
> On Friday 28 March 2003 12:05 pm, Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
>> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
>> my video card.

_______________________________________________
mythtv-users mailing list
mythtv-users@snowman.net
http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>
> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> my video card.
>

I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
lot less headaches.

-rac

Ryan A. Carris wrote:
> Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>
>>
>> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
>> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
>> my video card.
>>
>
> I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
> lot less headaches.
>

Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
can you make?

-- bjm

Expanding it a bit more, does anybody have a scan converter other than the
web cable plus that they would recommend?

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bruce Markey wrote:

> Ryan A. Carris wrote:
> > Robert Kulagowski wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> >> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> >> my video card.
> >>
> >
> > I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
> > lot less headaches.
> >
>
> Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
> does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
> can you make?
>
> -- bjm
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

At 16:28 22/04/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Expanding it a bit more, does anybody have a scan converter other than the
>web cable plus that they would recommend?

I'm using an 'Averkey lite', which is a small inline thing, powered by a
USB port. It has composite, SVideo, YPbPr outputs, and pan, brightness,
overscan/underscan controls and supports up to 1024x768 outputs and
supports PAL and NTSC. (I'm running it on 800x600). It seems absolutely fine.

I tried a Trust 1620W wireless televiewer, and for some reason it couldn't
handle my display mode, even though it, supposedly, supports up to
1600x1200, so I gave up on that one.


>On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bruce Markey wrote:
>
> > Ryan A. Carris wrote:
> > > Robert Kulagowski wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> > >> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> > >> my video card.
> > >>
> > >
> > > I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
> > > lot less headaches.
> > >
> >
> > Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
> > does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
> > can you make?
> >
> > -- bjm
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/

Having just given up on my AIW 7500, I'm ready to try something else (I
got tv-out working, but not well).

I don't really want to go the converter route. Has anyone had great
success with any particular video card?

-joesphc

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Paul Smith wrote:

> At 16:28 22/04/2003 -0700, you wrote:
> >Expanding it a bit more, does anybody have a scan converter other than the
> >web cable plus that they would recommend?
>
> I'm using an 'Averkey lite', which is a small inline thing, powered by a
> USB port. It has composite, SVideo, YPbPr outputs, and pan, brightness,
> overscan/underscan controls and supports up to 1024x768 outputs and
> supports PAL and NTSC. (I'm running it on 800x600). It seems absolutely fine.
>
> I tried a Trust 1620W wireless televiewer, and for some reason it couldn't
> handle my display mode, even though it, supposedly, supports up to
> 1600x1200, so I gave up on that one.
>
>
> >On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bruce Markey wrote:
> >
> > > Ryan A. Carris wrote:
> > > > Robert Kulagowski wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>
> > > >> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> > > >> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> > > >> my video card.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
> > > > lot less headaches.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
> > > does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
> > > can you make?
> > >
> > > -- bjm
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > mythtv-users mailing list
> > > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > >
> >_______________________________________________
> >mythtv-users mailing list
> >mythtv-users@snowman.net
> >http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
> Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
> support@pscs.co.uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

I have an ADS TV Elite XGA that works well on my large screen tv (53in).

On Tue 22 Apr 2003 16:28:10 -0700,
Dan Conti <dconti@acm.wwu.edu> wrote:
> Expanding it a bit more, does anybody have a scan converter other than the
> web cable plus that they would recommend?
>
> On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Bruce Markey wrote:
>
> > Ryan A. Carris wrote:
> > > Robert Kulagowski wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> I ended up using an external converter - "Web Cable Plus" from
> > >> AITech. It works "good enough" for me, and I didn't need to swap out
> > >> my video card.
> > >>
> > >
> > > I second that. For $68, the converters work well enough on my tv. A
> > > lot less headaches.
> > >
> >
> > Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
> > does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
> > can you make?
> >
> > -- bjm
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
> does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
> can you make?

There aren't any controls to expand the picture to get rid of black
bars, if that's what you mean, but you can move the picture around to
center it if required. On my crappy GeForce 256 DDR card the video
actually goes edge to edge on the TV with the scan converter. Maybe
the scan converter is actually doing something; no idea, since I
never read the docs. :)

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Robert Kulagowski wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>>Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
>>does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
>>can you make?
>
>
> There aren't any controls to expand the picture to get rid of black
> bars, if that's what you mean, but you can move the picture around to
> center it if required. On my crappy GeForce 256 DDR card the video
> actually goes edge to edge on the TV with the scan converter. Maybe
> the scan converter is actually doing something; no idea, since I
> never read the docs. :)

Ya know, sombody put in a lot of work to make sure those
docs are correct and as helpful as possible ;-).

Yes. That was what I meant. Thanks for the info.

-- bjm

sorry I never got back on this issue. I forgot before I checked. Anyway,
I concur, no specific controls, but I don't have any black bars anyway.
Doesn't seem to cut off too much either, so I'm pretty happy with it. On
board Gforce2MX here.


cedar


>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>
>
>>Robert, Ryan, Cedar or anyone else using the Web Cable Plus,
>>does this have overscan control? If so, how fine of adjustments
>>can you make?
>>
>>
>
>There aren't any controls to expand the picture to get rid of black
>bars, if that's what you mean, but you can move the picture around to
>center it if required. On my crappy GeForce 256 DDR card the video
>actually goes edge to edge on the TV with the scan converter. Maybe
>the scan converter is actually doing something; no idea, since I
>never read the docs. :)
>
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>=m9Mx
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>_______________________________________________
>mythtv-users mailing list
>mythtv-users@snowman.net
>http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>

Cedar McKay wrote:
> sorry I never got back on this issue. I forgot before I checked. Anyway,
> I concur, no specific controls, but I don't have any black bars anyway.
> Doesn't seem to cut off too much either, so I'm pretty happy with it. On
> board Gforce2MX here.

Interesting. So they probably just underscan by a typical
amount that most TVs overscan (maybe something like 2 or
3 percent). Not the answer I expected but I'll probably
go ahead and try one of these. Thanks for the feedback.

-- bjm