vesa and tvout
Fabio
I have the following problem: I want tv-out but the driver for my board
doesn't support this feature (I have an Ati Rage 128, and I use XFree
4.2.1).
So I am trying with vesa: in principle it should work without problems.
The point is the following: when I boot (always runlevel 3) if I boot with
"vga=normal" then I see my console on the tv screen. But, of course, if I
try to launc mplayer -vo fbdev mymovie.avi then it complains saying
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device!
fbdev: Can't open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
On the other hand, if I boot with the fb device (vga=0x318), then I have
no output on the tv screen.
Is there a way out from this?
Thank you
Fabio
Jens Nolte
Fabio wrote:
> The point is the following: when I boot (always runlevel 3) if I boot with
> "vga=normal" then I see my console on the tv screen. But, of course, if I
> try to launc mplayer -vo fbdev mymovie.avi then it complains saying
I habe the same graphics adapter.
I launch mplayer as follows:
mplayer -vo vesa:vidix mymovie.avi and it works.
I have output both on the screen and on the TV. the only drawback is that at
the end of the movie, the screen stays in a funny video mode.
I can restore the desktop by switching to a text console with
<Ctl><Alt><F1> and then immediately back to X11 with <Ctl><Alt><F7>.
In order to launch movies out of a file manager, I wrote a miniature shell
script which I set as "default viewer" for movies. With this, it should be
possible to add the switch to text mode and back to X11 at the end of the
movie. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to do this in a shell script, but
I can live with 2 key strokes at the end of the movie.
Bye,
Jens
Dances With Crows
Use "chvt". Unfortunately, it looks like chvt may need root access to
work properly... You could write a wrapper around the shell commands
"chvt 1 && chvt 7" in C, then chmod +s that wrapper. Like so:
/* C wrapper, in fixvidmode.c */
#include<unistd.h>
int main(void)
{
execve("/usr/local/bin/fixvidmode.sh");
return 0;
} /* end C wrapper */
#!/bin/bash
# /usr/local/bin/fixvidmode.sh
chvt 1 && chvt 7
# end fixvidmode.sh
machine:~$ gcc -o fixvidmode fixvidmode.c
machine:~# chown root.root fixvidmode ; chmod +s fixvidmode
machine:~# mv fixvidmode fixvidmode.sh /usr/local/bin
--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /
http://www.brainbench.com / "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/ penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL
Fabio
>>> with "vga=normal" then I see my console on the tv screen. But, of
>>> course, if I try to launc mplayer -vo fbdev mymovie.avi then it
>>> complains saying
>>
>> I habe the same graphics adapter. I launch mplayer as follows:
>>
>> mplayer -vo vesa:vidix mymovie.avi and it works.
>> I have output both on the screen and on the TV. the only drawback is
>> that at the end of the movie, the screen stays in a funny video mode.
>> I can restore the desktop by switching to a text console with
>> <Ctl><Alt><F1> and then immediately back to X11 with <Ctl><Alt><F7>.
???
This wouldn't bother me. Yet I am not able to do what you do.
I mean: I have solved my problems, now mplayer works fine from console and
I see the output on the tv.
But what I am able to do is one of the following:
1) boot in fb mode (max 800x600), then launch
mplayer -vo fbdev -dvd 1
This way I see the output on the tv.
2) go into X with the vesa driver, then launch again mplayer as above.
In any case, I must specify -vo fbdev: if I try -vo vesa, it gives seg
fault.
If I add :vidix, then I get black&white output :-((
Moreover, I have to add -framedrop, otherwise after some time it gives an
error of bad audio output, or something similar, I don't remember (I a a
different desktop, now) and it suggest the use of that option.
In addition, in no case (not even with w98) I am able to get the output
_both_ on the screen and on the the tv. At the very moment of power on,
if the tv-out cable is plugged I can see the output (mem test, bios and so
on) _only on the tv!!!
How do you achieve the double output? Which runlevel do you start? How do
you start X (device, screen, display,...)?
I would really like to be able, like you, to use mplayer -vo vesa:vidix,
because this, I think, would allow me not to use -framedrop, which is not
nice...
Thank you for your help
Fabio
Johannes Schneider
> So I am trying with vesa: in principle it should work without problems.
Does vesa mean your tv-out will be enabled?
I don't think so.
> The point is the following: when I boot (always runlevel 3) if I boot with
> "vga=normal" then I see my console on the tv screen. But, of course, if I
> try to launc mplayer -vo fbdev mymovie.avi then it complains saying
"mplayer -vo vesa" ?
> Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device!
> fbdev: Can't open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
>
> On the other hand, if I boot with the fb device (vga=0x318), then I have
> no output on the tv screen.
>
> Is there a way out from this?
http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/users/lennart/projects/atitvout/ (google)
I think this tool should be worth a test.
HTH
Johannes
Jens Nolte
Dances With Crows wrote:
> Use "chvt". Unfortunately, it looks like chvt may need root access to
> work properly... You could write a wrapper around the shell commands
> "chvt 1 && chvt 7" in C, then chmod +s that wrapper. Like so:
I found out a pretty easy way: "sudo chvt 1 && sudo chvt 7" does the job.
Bye,
Jens