Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Yeah, all those free-running components screwing things up. :) Then again, my Commodore 64 can't do MPEG-2, or else I'd have written a MythTV client in assembly for it already. :D Just to add my (so far) success story to this thread, I decided to take some of the suggestions and see what would happen. The first step was rebuilding the MythTV RPMs (from ATrpms) with OpenGL support. After about five rebuilds and much searching of the atrpms-devel mailing list (thanks to Jarod Wilson for posting his macros!), I got it working. XvMC is a bust, it doesn't seem to work on my machine (Athlon64, running in 32-bit mode, nVidia driver on a 5200FX), I just get a frozen image or massive stuttering. OpenGL support on its own helps out massively (on my system), the image (say, on CNN) doesn't jitter as much as when using either the DRM or RTC methods. Anyway, to conclude, my method: - MythTV 0.17 (from RPMs, with the frontend/backend RPMs recompiled) - Enable OpenGL vsync support (MythTV now shows Video timing method: SGI OpenGL) - No XvMC support (doesn't work) - Use libmpeg2 instead of ffmpeg (text doesn't seem as fat when using it) - Enable Bob deinterlacing - Turn on Use Video for Timebase - Changes to the nvidia-settings-rc file as described in the thread At the moment, it's looking pretty good, we'll see what happens once something with jagged lines (like a cartoon) comes in to see if Bob flickers like mad. Gees, I really need to stop watching this late night TV... When there's judges called Extreme Akim on the TV, well... (So, will this combo seem like it works when I'm fully awake in the morning?) -- Joe --- Cory Papenfuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The key to MythTV (or any program, really) being able to render a display without tears or choppiness is really in two things: 1. Being able to know when the vertical sync is, and, 2. Being able to react to the vertical sync event in a timely manner There's a 3rd issue here. Most (all?) linux video cards run with a free-running clock. If you want to avoid beat frequency issues and tearing, you really want to have the mpeg stream itself trigger the card to send out a new vertical field. Otherwise, you have the MPEG stream running a 29.97Hz field rate, and the video card running at a close, but not phase/frequency locked rate of, say, 29.98Hz. That leaves a 0.01Hz beat frequency which can show up as screen tearing that moves slowly. I guess if you've got the VBI, you can do without this by simply using the blanking interval time as a time buffer. If the card runs too fast and the MPEG stream doesn't have another frame yet, show the old frame again. If the card runs too slowly and *another* frame is ready before the previous has been shown, drop it. As said before, the fundamental problem is that linux is not realtime (hard or even soft). -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss * * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Joe Votour wrote: - Enable OpenGL vsync support (MythTV now shows Video timing method: SGI OpenGL) Where did you find this option ? Sigurd ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Sigurd Nes wrote: Joe Votour wrote: - Enable OpenGL vsync support (MythTV now shows Video timing method: SGI OpenGL) Where did you find this option ? It's a compile option in settings.pro -- -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
It is not available in many of the default MythTV builds, because it requires linking against an OpenGL library of some kind. Also, some time ago, when it was enabled by default, some people were having problems with it. If you're building from source, then you must edit settings.pro (look for opengl). If you're using Axel's ATrpms, then you need to recompile the MythTV source RPM, and reinstall the new binary RPMs that are generated, making sure to pass in whatever options that you need when compiling them (the default options worked for me). Once you have recompiled MythTV (as long as you stay with the same source release, you don't need to recompile the add-on programs), then it will automatically detect OpenGL support. There will be nothing in the GUI that allows you to turn it on or off. -- Joe --- Sigurd Nes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joe Votour wrote: - Enable OpenGL vsync support (MythTV now shows Video timing method: SGI OpenGL) Where did you find this option ? Sigurd ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users __ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Hi I've got an Asus AGP MX440 and am using the composite output, direct into my tv. I run Mythtv on the tv and use my computer on my monitor. I can't see any problems on the tv screen with bars or anything, although at 1024x768 the text is a bit unreadable on the desktop, although I expected that. The manual I have does specify If the correct connector cable is connected, S-Video out will generally provide a higher quality output than Composite video out. I can't test this at the moment because although I have an S-Video connector at both ends I don't have an S-Video cable and am actually unsure if the picture could look any better anyway. I am not sure if this is strictly on topic, but I can't use the mouse on the TV, it doesn't scroll across to the other screen (a separate desktop) and although the keyboard works on that screen when mythtv is started if I select something on the monitor using the mouse the keyboard switches to that and I don't know how to switch it back. Any help would be appreciated Best Regards Trev On Friday 11 Mar 2005 00:56, cythraul wrote: I too have an AGP 440MX manufactured by XFX. Although the display is quite as crisp as you can get on s-video, I see some kind of ghostly diagonal bars scrolling. I don't quite notice them most of the time but in the GUI it is _quite_ noticeable Enough for people, to whom I demonstrate my setup, to make comments about. My friend bought the PCI version of the 440MX from a manufacturer I don't remember at the moment. The display is terribly clean. Even the flicker we experience in most themes is hardly noticeable. Of course the best way would be to get a TV with at least components inputs. But for now s-video input is all I can afford. So I was wondering if the manufacturer of the actual board might affect results people are getting. If so, I'd be happy to learn from people's recommendation. Thanks, cyth On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:51:14 -0500, Will Dormann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Lichti wrote: As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? From what I gather, the MX4000 is just a die-shrunk version of the MX440, so if you follow my instructions you should be able to get pretty good results. Is this not the case? -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
trev wrote: The manual I have does specify If the correct connector cable is connected, S-Video out will generally provide a higher quality output than Composite video out. I can't test this at the moment because although I have an S-Video connector at both ends I don't have an S-Video cable and am actually unsure if the picture could look any better anyway. So what's keeping you from trying it? S-Video reproduces the picture more accurately than composite. It shouldn't have artifacts like dot crawl, which composite will likely have. Check this page for more info: http://nfg.2y.net/games/ntsc/ -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:39:41 +, trev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am not sure if this is strictly on topic, but I can't use the mouse on the TV, it doesn't scroll across to the other screen (a separate desktop) and although the keyboard works on that screen when mythtv is started if I select something on the monitor using the mouse the keyboard switches to that and I don't know how to switch it back. Any help would be appreciated Trev, the mouse is disabled in the Myth screens. everything is activated by either keyboard or remote. this is a feature. ;) - a 'whole lotta' GMail Invites available Please Email me OFF-list only... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Hi There is nothing to stop me fromtrying S-Video except I would need to spend some money buying an S-Video to S-Video cable (which I might try at some point anyway). At the moment I am more worried about the XWindows Panel appearing at the bottom of the TV screen when I start using the the computer monitor. My IR Remote control also does not have a huge number of buttons (Came with my Adaptec VIDEOh! DVD Media Center) and so I would also like to use the keyboard to driving Mythtv on the second Screen. I am new to Mythtv and only recently got my Remote working and have not completely figured out how to drive it properly. If I cannot get the keyboard / panel on TV problem sorted I may abandon using Mythtv to watch live TV (originally I got the card to just copy home videos onto DVDs). I am currently running KDE 3.2.3 on Mandrake 10.1 Official and from reading lots of different posts / faqs on the subject of multiple screens and moving the mouse between screens I might try some different window managers to see if that helps. Does anyone have a similar system working with a monitor and TV with different screens using KDE. Best Regards Trev On Friday 11 Mar 2005 14:26, Will Dormann wrote: trev wrote: The manual I have does specify If the correct connector cable is connected, S-Video out will generally provide a higher quality output than Composite video out. I can't test this at the moment because although I have an S-Video connector at both ends I don't have an S-Video cable and am actually unsure if the picture could look any better anyway. So what's keeping you from trying it? S-Video reproduces the picture more accurately than composite. It shouldn't have artifacts like dot crawl, which composite will likely have. Check this page for more info: http://nfg.2y.net/games/ntsc/ -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Will Dormann wrote: Tom Lichti wrote: As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? From what I gather, the MX4000 is just a die-shrunk version of the MX440, so if you follow my instructions you should be able to get pretty good results. Is this not the case? I used your settings late last night, and I didn't notice an appeciable difference. I did notice a lot of 'smearing' for lack of a better term, in that when there was quick motion, you could see alternating horizontal lines that were out of sync in certain places on the screen, most noticable when there was large difference between light and dark areas of the screen. I used your first posted settings (and I did notice that some of the options you described were not in the same sections as my XF86config file for some reason) I should mention that I can't use XvMC since I get tons of those 'pre-buffering pause' messages and lots of a/v hiccups with it, that go away when I don't use XvMC. I have tried the tweaks that have been posted to various messages but nothing made them go away. I have a P3 1Ghz, dual PVR250's and the aforementioned MX440. With XvMC the CPU usage was minimal, now it's a constant 30-40%, but at least watching TV is smooth. I need to go through this thread more thoroughly to see if I missed anything important. Thanks Tom ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Hi I sort of solved my problem of getting rid of the KDE panel on the TV and switching keyboard focus on non-xinerama dual head screens although its a bit naff: If before I start mythfrontend I use a fantastic program from the website: http://wiki.gentoo-italia.net/index.php/Dual_Monitors to switch the mouse over, I can minimize the panel at the bottom of the screen. Then after starting mythfrontend, if I want to set the keyboard focus to the TV, I run: xterm -display localhost:0.1 exit out of the xterm, then I have keyboard focus on the TV. The website mentioned above did say the mouse focus program would also work to change the keyboard focus, but I found that the it didn't appear to on my setup. I hope this helps anyone else running non-xinerama dual head screens. Best Regards Trev On Friday 11 Mar 2005 15:03, you wrote: Hi There is nothing to stop me fromtrying S-Video except I would need to spend some money buying an S-Video to S-Video cable (which I might try at some point anyway). At the moment I am more worried about the XWindows Panel appearing at the bottom of the TV screen when I start using the the computer monitor. My IR Remote control also does not have a huge number of buttons (Came with my Adaptec VIDEOh! DVD Media Center) and so I would also like to use the keyboard to driving Mythtv on the second Screen. I am new to Mythtv and only recently got my Remote working and have not completely figured out how to drive it properly. If I cannot get the keyboard / panel on TV problem sorted I may abandon using Mythtv to watch live TV (originally I got the card to just copy home videos onto DVDs). I am currently running KDE 3.2.3 on Mandrake 10.1 Official and from reading lots of different posts / faqs on the subject of multiple screens and moving the mouse between screens I might try some different window managers to see if that helps. Does anyone have a similar system working with a monitor and TV with different screens using KDE. Best Regards Trev On Friday 11 Mar 2005 14:26, Will Dormann wrote: trev wrote: The manual I have does specify If the correct connector cable is connected, S-Video out will generally provide a higher quality output than Composite video out. I can't test this at the moment because although I have an S-Video connector at both ends I don't have an S-Video cable and am actually unsure if the picture could look any better anyway. So what's keeping you from trying it? S-Video reproduces the picture more accurately than composite. It shouldn't have artifacts like dot crawl, which composite will likely have. Check this page for more info: http://nfg.2y.net/games/ntsc/ -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I received my GF MX4000 today and managed to get it working... except for vsync :) Can anybody tell me the one thing I probably forgot to do here, as you can see in this log (mythfrontend -v playback) the nVidia vsync method is not used (nVidiaVideoSync: VBlank ioctl did not work, unimplemented in this driver? - Oh I am using the 6629 version btw): snip 2005-03-12 01:30:42.858 Over/underscan. V: 0, H: 0, XOff: 0, YOff: 0 2005-03-12 01:30:42.864 Using XV port 105 2005-03-12 01:30:42.870 Snapping height to avoid scaling: disphoff 576, dispyoff: 12 2005-03-12 01:30:42.870 Image size. dispxoff 0, dispyoff: 12, dispwoff: 800, disphoff: 576 2005-03-12 01:30:42.870 Image size. imgx 0, imgy: 0, imgw: 720, imgh: 576 2005-03-12 01:30:43.738 Using deinterlace method bobdeint 2005-03-12 01:30:43.740 Using realtime priority. 2005-03-12 01:30:43.757 Changing from None to WatchingLiveTV 2005-03-12 01:30:43.839 nVidiaVideoSync: VBlank ioctl did not work, unimplemented in this driver? 2005-03-12 01:30:43.840 DRMVideoSync: Could not open device /dev/dri/card0, No such file or directory 2005-03-12 01:30:43.840 Set video sync frame interval to 4 2005-03-12 01:30:43.840 Using audio as timebase 2005-03-12 01:30:43.841 Video timing method: RTC etcetera... Thanks, -- Jeroen ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Jeroen Brosens wrote: I received my GF MX4000 today and managed to get it working... except for vsync :) Can anybody tell me the one thing I probably forgot to do here, as you can see in this log (mythfrontend -v playback) the nVidia vsync method is not used (nVidiaVideoSync: VBlank ioctl did not work, unimplemented in this driver? - Oh I am using the 6629 version btw): Did you compile MythTV with OpenGL support? You need to manually enable this, at least in the tarball version. nVidiaVideoSync is for the old nvidia drivers... (4363) I'm not sure about the DRM method, if there's any way to get that working with an nvidia card. But nowhere in the log is an attempt to use GL Vsync. Make sure that's enabled for your mythtv build. -- -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, [ISO-8859-1] Thomas Börkel wrote: HI! Cory Papenfuss wrote: I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. Any chance for a PAL version? The AD724 supports PAL encoding as well as NTSC, so it should be possible. If I had SCART, though, I'd rather use that. It'd be better quality than a PAL S-vid, since you could put out RGBHV directly, rather than convert to Y/C and modulate on the color subcarrier. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
The key to MythTV (or any program, really) being able to render a display without tears or choppiness is really in two things: 1. Being able to know when the vertical sync is, and, 2. Being able to react to the vertical sync event in a timely manner There's a 3rd issue here. Most (all?) linux video cards run with a free-running clock. If you want to avoid beat frequency issues and tearing, you really want to have the mpeg stream itself trigger the card to send out a new vertical field. Otherwise, you have the MPEG stream running a 29.97Hz field rate, and the video card running at a close, but not phase/frequency locked rate of, say, 29.98Hz. That leaves a 0.01Hz beat frequency which can show up as screen tearing that moves slowly. I guess if you've got the VBI, you can do without this by simply using the blanking interval time as a time buffer. If the card runs too fast and the MPEG stream doesn't have another frame yet, show the old frame again. If the card runs too slowly and *another* frame is ready before the previous has been shown, drop it. As said before, the fundamental problem is that linux is not realtime (hard or even soft). -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
The AD724 supports PAL encoding as well as NTSC, so it should be But there is something different that goes beyond the frequency, AFAIK. If I connect a PAL TV to an NTSC S-vid, I would get a B/W picture. Or was that with composite (cinch)? Or is that AD724 switchable between PAL nad NTSC? Yes, there are more differences between NTSC and PAL than simply the frequencies. The most obvious ones are that the color subcarrier is at a different frequency (3.58MHz/NTSC, 4.43MHz/PAL)... that's why you'll get BW picture if you connect a PAL TV to an NTSC S-vid. The horizontal scan frequencies are 15.734kHz vs 15.625kHz... most likely close enough to lock onto for the luma with sync. The 50/60Hz is another matter, but from what I understand lots of PAL TV's are at least pseudo-capable of viewing NTSC video, so the vertical scanning might be able to lock onto a 60Hz refresh even if it was designed for 50/100. Now, for the chroma on the s-vid, everything is *way* off. 3.58 is much different from 4.43 no matter how you slice it. So, it'll not get much color info from it. To answer your question easier, though... YES the AD724 has a PAL mode. Feed it a correct PAL color subcarrier frequency, change one pin, feed it PAL RGBHV frequencies, and it goes. I haven't done it, mind you, but it should work fine. That's right. But not all TVs have RGB-capable scart connectors. On the other hand, if you would do VGA-SCART with RGB, you would have basically this, right? http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html Someone else here wrote, that RGB is *too* sharp for MPEG2 video, meaning that you see the artifacts then. Correct. I haven't noticed artifacts with what I'm doing, but I suspect that the chip does some filtering. I haven't looked at the datasheet in awhile. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
What about RTLinux or RTAI Linux? This would give the realtime performance needed to respond to a VBI interrupt, the problem would be that the RTLinux code to interract with the graphics card would have to be written from scratch. Just a thought, I haven't really been following this thread. I ran across this... looks interesting. http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~av/Genlock.htm I've talked myself right out of genlocking with my previous post, however. Genlocking is a *hard* realtime requirement, whereas since the PVR is fundamentally a timeshifting device, it's more of a *soft* realtime device. That's not to say it's not interesting or a possible solution, it's just that it might be overkill. The easiest way to adjust the time and keep everything synchronous would be to adjust the dotclock on the VGA card a very small amount. That would keep the modeline timings the same on a per-frame basis, but adjust the actual time. Of course, this is all dependent on the specific video card used, how adjustable it is, and some notion of a reference clock. See previous posts on linux not being realtime... :) -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Thomas Börkel wrote: For those of you running MythTV 0.17, I think the only thing you'll want to change is the resolution. Rather than using the coryntsci resolution, try 800x600. This fixes the bob vertical resolution problem I was seeing. Should this 800x600 resolution be interlaced or not? Not. The built-in 800x600 mode should work fine. The Bob does the deinterlacing. -DW ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Someone else here wrote, that RGB is *too* sharp for MPEG2 video, meaning that you see the artifacts then. Thomas I expect it depends on where you got the MPEG2 video from. Using a VGA - SCART converter in the UK with DVB-T I get an amazing image which rarely has any visible artifacts. But then the DVB-T MPEG stream was encoded with the intention of it being displayed on a TV with RGB inputs, so that's hardly surprising. If your MPEG stream is being encoded by a PVR-xxx card then it may well be a completely different story, I doubt the quality of the encoding is comparable. Steve ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
John Patrick Poet wrote: I understand that you are frustrated, but your last sentence is a little offensive. The OpenGL vsync/bobdeint combo is awsome. Ever since Doug implemented that combination, my video playback has been silky smooth. I have an nVidia graphics card. The reason it may not work as well for non-nVidia users, is that Doug uses an nVidia card. Pretty much all the developers use an nVidia card. This means that all other video cards are not going to be as well tested or optimized. As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? Also, awhile back I bought one of these: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=169832Sku=G126-1002 And I tried it with Myth, but it wouldn't work. I forget the problem, I believe it was something about 'couldn't connect to xv device' or something like that. Would I be better served using that box with the VGA output, or a better Nvidia card? Thanks Tom ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Tom Lichti wrote: As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? From what I gather, the MX4000 is just a die-shrunk version of the MX440, so if you follow my instructions you should be able to get pretty good results. Is this not the case? -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I too have an AGP 440MX manufactured by XFX. Although the display is quite as crisp as you can get on s-video, I see some kind of ghostly diagonal bars scrolling. I don't quite notice them most of the time but in the GUI it is _quite_ noticeable Enough for people, to whom I demonstrate my setup, to make comments about. My friend bought the PCI version of the 440MX from a manufacturer I don't remember at the moment. The display is terribly clean. Even the flicker we experience in most themes is hardly noticeable. Of course the best way would be to get a TV with at least components inputs. But for now s-video input is all I can afford. So I was wondering if the manufacturer of the actual board might affect results people are getting. If so, I'd be happy to learn from people's recommendation. Thanks, cyth On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:51:14 -0500, Will Dormann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Lichti wrote: As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? From what I gather, the MX4000 is just a die-shrunk version of the MX440, so if you follow my instructions you should be able to get pretty good results. Is this not the case? -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Will Dormann wrote: Tom Lichti wrote: As an aside, what is the preferred Nvidia card for TV output? I have a generic GeForce 4 MX440 and it works alright, although I'm sure it could be better. If there is a better card to use, what is it? From what I gather, the MX4000 is just a die-shrunk version of the MX440, so if you follow my instructions you should be able to get pretty good results. Is this not the case? I haven't gotten into it that deeply yet, but I do plan to. I'm curious about the convertor box I linked. It has component outputs, and my TV has component inputs, I did get the video to go to that output, but when I tried to run Myth it wouldn't work. I should try it again, that was on .16, now I'm on .17. Tom ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). This is only true of home-built converters, commercial converters perform scan conversion which lowers the image quality. Then (with the correct modeline) you _can_ just send the originally broadcast, interlaced, stream straight to your TV. You are also keeping the RGB signals seperate, not mixing them all together as you do with S-video. No deinterlacing or scaling is required so you're not losing image quality their either, or wasting CPU power. Oh course, this does rely on you being able to capture the original interlaced signal (i'm capturing a DVB MPEG stream, no encoder required). If you're encoding hardware has already thrown that information away and mixed the odd/even fields then you've already lost the image quality. Using a VGA - SCART converter in this case would still give you better colour definition / sharpness, and if you're encoding at the native resolution then no scaling is required. I've built one of these and the result is _much_ better than the TV-out from by Nvidia card. The image quality is even higher than from my Sony DVB set-top-box. Steve ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
HI! Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). This is only true of home-built converters, commercial converters perform scan conversion which lowers the image quality. Anyone knows, if this little hardware can be bought ready-to-use (built) anywhere? Maybe even in Germany? Thanks! Thomas ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). This is only true of home-built converters, commercial converters perform scan conversion which lowers the image quality. Anyone knows, if this little hardware can be bought ready-to-use (built) anywhere? Maybe even in Germany? I had a look around at the time I was first comptemplating this route but wasn't able to find any equivalent system for sale commercially. The reason being that there is a possibility (well, a theoretical one anyway) that you can damage your TV through use of out-of-spec modelines, therefore noboddy sells these commercially. I find that my TV simply won't lock onto the sync signals if you send an out-of-spec signal. You just end up looking at colourful garbage if you're modeline is wrong (or when you're not in X, i.e. booting). I've yet to hear of any cases where TVs have been damaged in this way. Steve ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 12:14 +, Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). But my TV does not have a SCART connector on it. I don't think I have ever seen a TV with a SCART connector. All I have is the North American standard connector for cable/antenna, composite, s-video and component. I do agree with your concept though of treating a TV like a fixed frequency monitor. On the issue of hardware encoding and whether it preserves the interlacing, I do believe the PVR-250 I have in my machine does indeed preserve the interlacing in the MPEG2 stream it creates. I do transcode to MPEG4 with Myth though. Anyone know if that still preserves the interlaced fields? b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I've built one of these and the result is _much_ better than the TV-out from by Nvidia card. The image quality is even higher than from my Sony DVB set-top-box. Doesn't surprise me. Even a 20 year old VGA card can do twice the bandwidth required of SDTV. Newer ones are more like 20x (350MHz dotclock vs 14Mhz for SDTV). I've done something similar (although I'm using an analog S-vid chip for NTSC). No scaling done, just build the proper modeline and see tvout the way it was meant to be. Crystal-clear, readable terminals, high color fidelity, and unparallelled sharpness for SDTV. Of course it's 30Hz interlaced, but that's something to be lived with (since SDTV *IS* interlaced) -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 09:35 -0500, Cory Papenfuss wrote: I've done something similar (although I'm using an analog S-vid chip for NTSC). Don't hold out on us Corey, do tell more. :-) I'm assuming you built something that converts interlaced vga to s-video using some kind of s-video encoding silicon? No scaling done, just build the proper modeline and see tvout the way it was meant to be. Sounds nice. b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Jeroen Brosens wrote: I think the combination of the low CPU usage of XvMC and the Vsync provided by OpenGL provides a very good looking picture. However, if the Bob would actually take place, I think it might indeed be optimal as I had originally stated. So which version of MythTV are you using, CVS perhaps? I know there were some changes to the bobdeint code in Xv and XvMC video output. I'm running 0.16 right now. With 0.17 I had too many problems with mythbackend crashing. You are correct. 0.16 has broken Bob for XvMC in that it only displays the first field, so it's not actually displaying double the frame rate. In a previous message to this thread I have posted a link to the patch that fixes that. I have manually applied it to my source code and it does indeed fix Bob. The only issue with it now is that the OSD only displays every other frame, creating a flashing effect. I tried to hack it myself, comparing the videoout_xvmc.cpp file to the latest CVS version to determine the possible change, but I've only managed to get it to either hang on first displaying the OSD, or display the OSD OK but crash mythfrontend when I hit pause.Maybe if I check the commits list I could find the specific fix for the every-other-frame OSD bug with XvMV and Bob.Or if somebody here can point me in the right direction, that'd be nice! :) But if you're running a post-0.16 CVS version or 0.17 you might not have to much with any of this. Please let me know how it works out. I thought the onboard SIS graphics on my Pundit was pretty good, but now that I've got the nVidia card working properly, the difference is absolutely stunning! I absolutely cannot tell the difference between a recording and the incoming broadcast signal. If I hear from at least one other person with similar results, maybe I'll submit my instructions to Jarod or a Wiki or something. -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). Yes, this may be true for those of you who have SCART capability. Maybe I wasn't totally clear, but my instructions are intended for those of us in NTSC-land. SCART isn't an option for us. I can't see why it wouldn't also work for PAL, though. (Now that I've indicated that 800x600 is the way to go) -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Brian J. Murrell wrote: On the issue of hardware encoding and whether it preserves the interlacing, I do believe the PVR-250 I have in my machine does indeed preserve the interlacing in the MPEG2 stream it creates. Yes it does. The problem is, no video card appears to be able to do TV-Out while retaining that proper interlacing information. The instant the card does any sort of scaling of the picture (to do overscan, for example), the interlacing will no longer match up with the TV scan lines. Bob deinterlacing makes up for this by converting each field to a frame and then sending ~60frames per second, rather than 60fields per second. This retains the smoothness of the original recording, but not requiring fancy output where everything lines up right with the interlacing. The PVR-350 has dedicated hardware to output the video such that the interlacing matches up with the TV's scan lines, as that is what it was designed to do. A video card with TV-out, however, seem to be designed to output your computer desktop (or games or whatever) at various resolutions and have them all look relatively OK. I think I've probably used some wrong terminology here, but I think I've got the gist of things right. -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Don't hold out on us Corey, do tell more. :-) I'm assuming you built something that converts interlaced vga to s-video using some kind of s-video encoding silicon? I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. No scaling done, just build the proper modeline and see tvout the way it was meant to be. Sounds nice. Yeah, except that you get garbage until X comes up. The VGA on bootup is basically 480p, which doesn't exactly work on S-vid. Aside from that detail, it's great. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 10:15 -0500, Cory Papenfuss wrote: I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. Seems strange that there is no commercial off the shelf products doing this. Perhaps there is. I will have to search this afternoon when I get a minute. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. Indeed, but this is beyond my abilities. :-( I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). What would the loop through provide? If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. If you can do that you might want to think about filling a possible market void. Inventions are the way to get rich. :-) Yeah, except that you get garbage until X comes up. The VGA on bootup is basically 480p, which doesn't exactly work on S-vid. Aside from that detail, it's great. Small detail and to be expected. b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Looks like something such as... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemcategory=21169item=3879054837rd=1ssPageName=WDVW#ebayphotohosting ...might be a good solution. Dave On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:20:48 -0500, Brian J. Murrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 10:15 -0500, Cory Papenfuss wrote: I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. Seems strange that there is no commercial off the shelf products doing this. Perhaps there is. I will have to search this afternoon when I get a minute. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. Indeed, but this is beyond my abilities. :-( I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). What would the loop through provide? If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. If you can do that you might want to think about filling a possible market void. Inventions are the way to get rich. :-) Yeah, except that you get garbage until X comes up. The VGA on bootup is basically 480p, which doesn't exactly work on S-vid. Aside from that detail, it's great. Small detail and to be expected. b. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Could be but I like Corey's idea better. The above is a scan converter. Corey does not convert the scan but has the computer produce the right timings for television. His circuit just does coordinate transformation RGB-YPbPr and NTSC composite modulation (colorburst, 3.58MHz crystal, etc). This seems a better idea. Process the signal as little as possible. That's what I thought. I'm happy with the results, but the annoyance of getting everything right is definately beyond the scope of what most people are willing to deal with. It was also pointed out to me a few months ago that my circuit wasn't completely accurate. I use a 3.58Mhz crystal to generate the color subcarrier, but in reality it should be line-locked to the horizontal sweep frequency. That's one of the modifications I'd like to do (with all my free time... hahaha!) -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 11:36 -0500, Cory Papenfuss wrote: That's what I thought. I'm happy with the results, but the annoyance of getting everything right is definately beyond the scope of what most people are willing to deal with. Perhaps. Certainly not for the out of the box crowd, but that's not to say that somebody can't fill the gap between a pile of hardware and an out of the box solution including the transcoder. Certainly should not allow for somebody to muck with modelines and such, but a product could loom here. It was also pointed out to me a few months ago that my circuit wasn't completely accurate. I use a 3.58Mhz crystal to generate the color subcarrier, but in reality it should be line-locked to the horizontal sweep frequency. :-) If you say so. That's one of the modifications I'd like to do (with all my free time... hahaha!) Hear ya brother. I meant to ask. The picture looks properly overscanned? i.e. you are not seeing all 7??x48? (forget what res you said you have your modeline at) pixels right? Just the ones that would normally show up on a real broadcast -- missing that certain percentage of those around the border. b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Cory, I've followed your posts on the circuit board that you've made before - it interested me then, and it interests me now. Myself, I'm a software developer, and I've soldered a grand total of one thing (a custom cable), and that didn't even quite come out right (mind you, I just don't have time to practice - it's on my list for someday though). As such, the chances of me building one of these things from the schematics is slim to none (right now). Have you given thought to the minimum order that you require for this, and the cost? Depending on those numbers, I'll sign up for one, maybe two (to have one as a backup). The no TV-out part until X is no problem for me, since Fedora will start X fairly early in the boot process anyway, and I can always hook up S-Video again anyway. -- Joe --- Cory Papenfuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don't hold out on us Corey, do tell more. :-) I'm assuming you built something that converts interlaced vga to s-video using some kind of s-video encoding silicon? I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. No scaling done, just build the proper modeline and see tvout the way it was meant to be. Sounds nice. Yeah, except that you get garbage until X comes up. The VGA on bootup is basically 480p, which doesn't exactly work on S-vid. Aside from that detail, it's great. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss * * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users __ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:30:22 -0500 (EST), Cory Papenfuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Small, perhaps. Irritating, absolutely. Also, beyond the understanding of 99% of the PC-buying public (MythTV crowd is higher technically-saavy than most). To most people, the tradeoffs involved are too subtle to be appreciated, but rather they'll get pissed when it doesn't just work. They'll get even *more* pissed when they program the modeline wrong, let the magic smoke out of their TV or monitor, and get an I told you so from the person that sold it to them. Just tell them, Run it at 1024x768, crank the flicker filter up to maximum, and enjoy. ahhh, 'letting the magic smoke out...'. that sure brings back memories of my 'attempted' EE undergrad. ;) - a 'whole lotta' GMail Invites available Please Email me OFF-list only... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I meant to ask. The picture looks properly overscanned? i.e. you are not seeing all 7??x48? (forget what res you said you have your modeline at) pixels right? Just the ones that would normally show up on a real broadcast -- missing that certain percentage of those around the border. If by properly overscanned you mean not seeing all 720x480, then yes, it is. It's actually pretty easy to change the horizontal overscanning by just padding the sides with black, but keeping the active video the same. It's a pretty easy modeline mod. Changing the vertical overscanning is a different story, since you're stuck with the 525 lines for NTSC. If you want it underscanned vertically, you'd need to reduce the number of active picture scanlines down from 480. That's what all the tvout over/underscanning adjustments are doing... they just don't tell you that in so many words, and do some scaling in the scanline conversion. Bottom line is, the TV only shows Y lines vertically, and Y 480 for normal TVs with overscanning. Since horizontally is defined in analog, you can fill in the time for a sing sweep with as many dots as you like... so long as it takes 1/15734ths of a second to do each one. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 12:07 -0500, Cory Papenfuss wrote: If by properly overscanned you mean not seeing all 720x480, then yes, it is. Sweet. I am totally jealous dude. It's actually pretty easy to change the horizontal overscanning by just padding the sides with black, but keeping the active video the same. Indeed. But I would want it to look exactly like it did on the original broadcast. Changing the vertical overscanning is a different story, since you're stuck with the 525 lines for NTSC. If you want it underscanned vertically, you'd need to reduce the number of active picture scanlines down from 480. Yech. Yeah. Good thing I am not interested in that. :-) That's what all the tvout over/underscanning adjustments are doing... they just don't tell you that in so many words, and do some scaling in the scanline conversion. Blech. So, when you going into production with your transcoders? :-) Seems ATI sells a DVI-component converter for their 8500 and 9xxx cards for $29. Perhaps that is the way to go. That should work with an SDTV with component video connections no? Maybe cheaper than the cheapest vidcard you would want to buy and then an additional U$129 for the Audio whatsitcalled thingy I posted about earlier. b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Seems ATI sells a DVI-component converter for their 8500 and 9xxx cards for $29. Perhaps that is the way to go. That should work with an SDTV with component video connections no? Maybe cheaper than the cheapest vidcard you would want to buy and then an additional U$129 for the Audio whatsitcalled thingy I posted about earlier. I'm pretty sure that all their doing is a trick. Something I've though about doing, as well... just with regular video cards. The R/G/B outputs on the vid cards aren't that special... they can output any data you want. If you get one that can add a composite sync pulse (e.g. sync-on-green capable), you'd be set to output component straight off the card. Put Y data (with CSYNC) out the G DAC, and Pb/Pr out the other two. Then you'd just need to trick the card into *NOT* doing a colorspace rotation. Something like a phony Xv type like YUY2 UYVY YV12 I420, etc... just no transformation. I'm pretty sure that's what ATI's doing, and I'm also pretty sure it's a winders driver only thing. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On 9 Mar 2005 at 10:15, Cory Papenfuss wrote: slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. Or use this service instead http://www.olimex.com/ Basically, you supply the design specs, pay a small fee, they add it to their database, then anyone can order a pcb as needed, in single or multiple quantities. From what I remember the initial pcb will be like us$50 or so. It's what the folks at OpenEEG use for pcb's http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/ Pricing from Olimex for the OpenEEG pcb's http://www.olimex.com/gadgets/openeeg.html -- Harondel J. Sibble Sibble Computer Consulting Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user. [EMAIL PROTECTED] (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com (604) 739-3709 (voice/fax) (604) 686-2253 (pager) ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). Yes, this may be true for those of you who have SCART capability. Maybe I wasn't totally clear, but my instructions are intended for those of us in NTSC-land. SCART isn't an option for us. I can't see why it wouldn't also work for PAL, though. (Now that I've indicated that 800x600 is the way to go) -WD I already went through the effort of making a VGA-SCART converter cable (I can provide schematics and photo's if you'd like) hoping that it would bring me the ultimate in MythTV viewing. But it didn't. It gives the best colors (separate R/G/B and sync) and sharpness of all possible methods, but... no smooth motion - on my setup that is. Some of you may recall my postings about struggling to get either bobdeint working on my SiS video (ASUS Pundit) or completely bypass the TV-out that can't handle interlaced video properly. When I finally got the modeline right for the VGA-SCART cable to work I was hoping that the video encoded by my PVR-250 (interlaced material) would play back 1:1 on the TV. Somehow, it gave the same blurry motion that kerneldeint or linear blend, or even 'no deinterlacing' produces, not 50 fields/sec but 25 frames/sec. Not even close to the perfect display you get using bobdeint. As an extra, the ultra sharp picture really made the MPEG artifacts clearly visible which isn't a pretty sight too, not to mention not being able to monitor the boot procedure because of the garbled image. So the cable wasn't really that hard to make and it only cost me 5,- but I found the results rather unsatisfying. See also an earlier post from me on this: http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg03975.html I gave up after trying *every* combination of driver/cable/modeline/X11 video output device/eating shoes and decided to buy a nVidia card after Staffan Pettersson persuaded me (thank you): http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg04131.html The card is due to arrive friday, so I can finally get OpenGL vsync+XvMC+bobdeint working. -- Jeroen ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I gave up after trying *every* combination of driver/cable/modeline/X11 video output device/eating shoes and decided to buy a nVidia card after Staffan Pettersson persuaded me (thank you): http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg04131.html The card is due to arrive friday, so I can finally get OpenGL vsync+XvMC+bobdeint working. -- Jeroen I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). It would wipe out all problems I had to get it working! One lousy bobdeint filter that just works. -- Jeroen ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wednesday 09 March 2005 02:06 pm, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). Well, how do you expect it to know when to flip the buffers, if the video card can't tell it accurately? Magic? Isaac ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I gave up after trying *every* combination of driver/cable/modeline/X11 video output device/eating shoes and decided to buy a nVidia card after Staffan Pettersson persuaded me (thank you): http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg04131.html The card is due to arrive friday, so I can finally get OpenGL vsync+XvMC+bobdeint working. -- Jeroen I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). It would wipe out all problems I had to get it working! One lousy bobdeint filter that just works. I understand that you are frustrated, but your last sentence is a little offensive. The OpenGL vsync/bobdeint combo is awsome. Ever since Doug implemented that combination, my video playback has been silky smooth. I have an nVidia graphics card. The reason it may not work as well for non-nVidia users, is that Doug uses an nVidia card. Pretty much all the developers use an nVidia card. This means that all other video cards are not going to be as well tested or optimized. If someone wanted to buy Doug an Asus Pundit, he *might* be willing to take the time to work on improving bobdeint for non nVidia cards, but he is unlikely to buy one for himself just for that purpose. Doug would probably be willing to explain how the bobdeint code works, if someone without nVidia hardware wanted to work with it. John ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:34:00 -0700 (MST), John Patrick Poet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I gave up after trying *every* combination of driver/cable/modeline/X11 video output device/eating shoes and decided to buy a nVidia card after Staffan Pettersson persuaded me (thank you): http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg04131.html The card is due to arrive friday, so I can finally get OpenGL vsync+XvMC+bobdeint working. -- Jeroen I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). It would wipe out all problems I had to get it working! One lousy bobdeint filter that just works. I understand that you are frustrated, but your last sentence is a little offensive. The OpenGL vsync/bobdeint combo is awsome. Ever since Doug implemented that combination, my video playback has been silky smooth. I have an nVidia graphics card. The reason it may not work as well for non-nVidia users, is that Doug uses an nVidia card. Pretty much all the developers use an nVidia card. This means that all other video cards are not going to be as well tested or optimized. If someone wanted to buy Doug an Asus Pundit, he *might* be willing to take the time to work on improving bobdeint for non nVidia cards, but he is unlikely to buy one for himself just for that purpose. Doug would probably be willing to explain how the bobdeint code works, if someone without nVidia hardware wanted to work with it. If this was the Windows world, I'd suggest using DirectX or something similar to get the VSync (As even the pundit's drivers would be DX compatible). And if we were using VESA, we could capture the VBlank interrupt from the VESA bus. However, this is *nix, and I'm not sure how different drivers work WRT VBlank. Is there something in the MESA project we could use? I believe they implement VSync on non-GL cards... ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wednesday 09 March 2005 02:06 pm, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). Well, how do you expect it to know when to flip the buffers, if the video card can't tell it accurately? Magic? Isaac No Isaac, just something else than GL Vsync. I am not venting my frustrations upon people either, rather just stirring up some new ideas on this. Afterall, this is MythTV, Linux, Open Source... where meeting challenges is the fun of everything! I also could have installed Windows MCE and to be 'just a regular user on the safe side' but I want to be able to participate in meeting the challenges where I can. What I understand now is that all of the devvers use nVidia, can you agree that this diminishes compatibility regarding video-related functionalities? I am not a C++ developer you know; if I were I would have tried to fix the problems myself but I can't. Now on topic; am I talking plain nonsense when I ask whether the VBI device can be used for Vsyncing? What I know is, that it is used for teletext data and 'walks' in sync with the video fields so maybe that is an alternative for using GL vsync. -- Jeroen ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Will Dormann wrote: If I hear from at least one other person with similar results, maybe I'll submit my instructions to Jarod or a Wiki or something. err, I put them up here: http://www.mythtv.info/moin.cgi/NVidiaMX4000HowTo I think there's some followon I may have missed. And it needs some 0.16/0.17 caveating David ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Jeroen Brosens wrote: Stephen Williams wrote: Of course, the way to get 'optimal' TV-out from your Nvidia (or other) card is not to use it's TV-out facilities at all and build a VGA - SCART converter for SDTVs (see http://www.sput.nl/hardware/tv-x.html for example). Yes, this may be true for those of you who have SCART capability. Maybe I wasn't totally clear, but my instructions are intended for those of us in NTSC-land. SCART isn't an option for us. I can't see why it wouldn't also work for PAL, though. (Now that I've indicated that 800x600 is the way to go) -WD I already went through the effort of making a VGA-SCART converter cable (I can provide schematics and photo's if you'd like) Yes please - and it would be excellent to put them on the wiki (you can upload images there.) David ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
It gives the best colors (separate R/G/B and sync) and sharpness of all possible methods, but... no smooth motion - on my setup that is. Some of you may recall my postings about struggling to get either bobdeint working on my SiS video (ASUS Pundit) or completely bypass the TV-out that can't handle interlaced video properly. I used to have the same issue. Basically, it was a tearing of the picture. Now, I'm using an NVidia card, and I think that VSYNC must be working. I've turned off all deinterlacing filters, and it works great. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Wednesday 09 March 2005 03:33 pm, Jeroen Brosens wrote: On Wednesday 09 March 2005 02:06 pm, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). Well, how do you expect it to know when to flip the buffers, if the video card can't tell it accurately? Magic? Isaac No Isaac, just something else than GL Vsync. I am not venting my frustrations upon people either, rather just stirring up some new ideas on this. But it does - myth also supports getting the vsync info through the DRM interface. What 'new ideas' are you stirring up? I mean, it's obvious that you don't know what you're talking about, but other than that, it seems like you're just whinging to me. Afterall, this is MythTV, Linux, Open Source... where meeting challenges is the fun of everything! I also could have installed Windows MCE and to be 'just a regular user on the safe side' but I want to be able to participate in meeting the challenges where I can. What I understand now is that all of the devvers use nVidia, can you agree that this diminishes compatibility regarding video-related functionalities? I am not a C++ developer you know; if I were I would have tried to fix the problems myself but I can't. No, I don't agree that it 'diminishes compatability' at all. There's nothing nvidia specific in either the drm or opengl vsync methods. If the driver for a particular video card doesn't provide certain services, such as, oh, providing a method to know when the next vsync will be, there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it. Now on topic; am I talking plain nonsense when I ask whether the VBI device can be used for Vsyncing? What I know is, that it is used for teletext data and 'walks' in sync with the video fields so maybe that is an alternative for using GL vsync. Err, the vbi device would be input, not output. Isaac ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Jeroen Brosens wrote: I already went through the effort of making a VGA-SCART converter cable (I can provide schematics and photo's if you'd like) hoping that it would bring me the ultimate in MythTV viewing. But it didn't. It gives the best colors (separate R/G/B and sync) and sharpness of all possible methods, but... no smooth motion - on my setup that is. Some of you may recall my postings about struggling to get either bobdeint working on my SiS video (ASUS Pundit) or completely bypass the TV-out that can't handle interlaced video properly. When I finally got the modeline right for the VGA-SCART cable to work I was hoping that the video encoded by my PVR-250 (interlaced material) would play back 1:1 on the TV. Somehow, it gave the same blurry motion that kerneldeint or linear blend, or even 'no deinterlacing' produces, not 50 fields/sec but 25 frames/sec. Not even close to the perfect display you get using bobdeint. As an extra, the ultra sharp picture really made the MPEG artifacts clearly visible which isn't a pretty sight too, not to mention not being able to monitor the boot procedure because of the garbled image. So the cable wasn't really that hard to make and it only cost me 5,- but I found the results rather unsatisfying. See also an earlier post from me on this: http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg03975.html I gave up after trying *every* combination of driver/cable/modeline/X11 video output device/eating shoes and decided to buy a nVidia card after Staffan Pettersson persuaded me (thank you): http://www.mail-archive.com/mythtv-dev@mythtv.org/msg04131.html The card is due to arrive friday, so I can finally get OpenGL vsync+XvMC+bobdeint working. And what about YUV *Progressive* input - is there a way to get it out of VGA connector in the similar way how TV out of VGA was made? My TV supports this and since it is Progressive (my TV is 100Hz tube), I suppose it will solve most of problems with interlacing/deinterlacing. Does anybody know the details of YUV Progressive format? Best regards Radek Svoboda ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
John Patrick Poet wrote: If someone wanted to buy Doug an Asus Pundit, he *might* be willing to take the time to work on improving bobdeint for non nVidia cards, but he is unlikely to buy one for himself just for that purpose. I would not accept any hardware; I barely have time (recently: none at all) to hack on MythTV for my own purposes. I certainly would not accept a low-powered frontend, as all my MythTV-recorded programming is HDTV. But really, the hard part of the vsync code is all in the video card driver. You card's driver doesn't provide some sort of method of getting vertical retrace timing? Complain to the author or manufacturer, not here. Or get coding. Or spend $30 on a new video card, which is what most of us have decided to do. If your driver *does* provide a vertical retrace timing method that Myth doesn't support, it's 50 lines of code to add a new subclass to vsync.cpp and plug it in. This work obviously has to be done by somebody with the hardware, but there are a half dozen methods there already, so there's plenty of example code. And the two methods that actually sync to hardware are brand-agnostic, one following a Linux semi-standard (DRM), the other an actual industry standard (SGI OpenGL vsync). Doug would probably be willing to explain how the bobdeint code works, if someone without nVidia hardware wanted to work with it. Bob deint is in two pieces, as I have written in the past: 1. The filter part rearranges the scan lines so that the top field is in the top half of the video frame, and the bottom field in the second half. 2a. The video output part tells the video output class to display twice as many frames as usual (e.g. at 50 Hz rather than 25) 2b. ...and arranges to display first the top half (field) then the bottom half of the frame (or vice versa if the video has these reversed) at this higher rate. Note that nothing here has any relation whatsoever to vertical retrace sync. That's by design. Didn't used to be this way, but now it's fairly clean and modular. I think much of the reason bob looks *worse* than other deinterlacing methods for some people is because it's putting twice as much strain on the video output software and hardware, by displaying at twice the refresh rate. Bob deint is designed to output to progressive display devices, such as HDTVs (or EDTVs) or projectors. The fact that it sometimes looks better than non-deinterlaced material on non-progressive displays is an indication of how *($#ed up video display in Linux is in general. I think if your hardware had a way of getting the vertical retrace, it would look better w/o a deinterlacer as well. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Bob deint is designed to output to progressive display devices, such as HDTVs (or EDTVs) or projectors. The fact that it sometimes looks better than non-deinterlaced material on non-progressive displays is an indication of how *($#ed up video display in Linux is in general. I think if your hardware had a way of getting the vertical retrace, it would look better w/o a deinterlacer as well. Well said. -Cory * * Cory Papenfuss* * Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * * ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a graphics guru. However, I have been doing graphics-related work off and on for the last ten years (although nothing too fancy, mostly 2D stuff). The key to MythTV (or any program, really) being able to render a display without tears or choppiness is really in two things: 1. Being able to know when the vertical sync is, and, 2. Being able to react to the vertical sync event in a timely manner With regards to (1): Basically, the way that images are displayed on the screen, or a monitor (I don't know about projection units or the like) is that the image is drawn left to right, up to down, via an electron beam sometimes called the raster. When the raster goes out of the viewable area, then you are said to be in the vertical blanking interval (VBI). For the purposes of this discussion, we'll ignore that some TV signals have Closed Captioning data sent during the VBI on the input signal. Generally speaking, when you are within the VBI, you may update any portion of the screen that you want, and have no tearing or artifacts (because the raster isn't updating it). It is extremely important that you update your screen fully during the VBI, or, at the very least, update your screen before it is drawn by the raster (otherwise, you will see tearing/jitter). If your output driver/software doesn't have any way of knowing when it is within the VBI area, then you can't hope to accomplish this, and there are very good odds that you will see tearing or jitter. As Isaac said in his response, DRM is one method. The OpenGL vsync is another. Now, on with (2): Knowing when the VBI occurs isn't enough - you must be able to get control of things while you're still in the VBI to be completely effective (again, otherwise, you might be updating the screen while the raster is drawing it). The biggest problem that MythTV faces is that Linux is not a real-time operating system (this problem is not limited to Linux, Windows suffers from the same fate). While the 2.6 kernel has a much improved scheduler (and I was actually at the Embedded Systems Conference today, discussing some scheduler related issues my employer is having on one of their products, with MontaVista, LynuxWorks and TimeSys to see if any of them can help us), it is still not real-time (like vxWorks). So, although you might know that you're in the VBI, your task might not have gotten it's time-slice from the kernel yet. This means that you have this precious time you should be drawing in, going to another task/thread, and by the time you get the time-slice, you might be out of the VBI. Now, back before computers (and their OS') became so complicated, I used to be able to get perfect, tear free displays back on my Commodore 64 with the VIC-II chip, all in software. How, you might ask? Well, first of all, I wrote my code in 6510 assembly language, and chained it off of the IRQ (interrupt request). Secondly, the VIC-II had a register, which, when read, would give you the scan line (raster line) the chip was drawing on, writing to this register would allow you to trigger an interrupt whenever the chip hit the desired scan line. Thus, I was able to have such complicated things as splitting the screen into five parts, making changes to part two, while part four was being drawn by the raster. Unfortunately, we don't have such control over regular Linux... (As an aside, cards like the PVR-350 handle this in their hardware, as part of the video decoder chip, that's why they get such a clean image. I suspect that XvMC also helps in this regard, but I really don't know anything about XvMC, so I might be talking out of my ass on that one). -- Joe --- Jeroen Brosens [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 09 March 2005 02:06 pm, Jeroen Brosens wrote: I'd like to add that I'd like to challenge the MythTV dev-people to review the Xv/XvMC code regarding the handling of vsync while using bobdeint. One needs hardware with OpenGL support to have a Vsync to get bobdeint working without going out of sync now and then (horrible jittering occurs) and that isn't good news for users of a barebone with built-in graphics that can't support that, like myself (using an ASUS Pundit). Well, how do you expect it to know when to flip the buffers, if the video card can't tell it accurately? Magic? Isaac No Isaac, just something else than GL Vsync. I am not venting my frustrations upon people either, rather just stirring up some new ideas on this. Afterall, this is MythTV, Linux, Open Source... where meeting challenges is the fun of everything! I also could have installed Windows MCE and to be 'just a regular user on the safe side' but I want to be able to participate in meeting the challenges where I can. What I understand now is that all of the devvers use nVidia, can you agree that this diminishes compatibility regarding video-related functionalities? I am not a C++
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
HI! Cory Papenfuss wrote: I've mentioned what I did in the past, starting with http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/45910#45910 Basically built up the circuit in the AD724 datasheet. It's a surface-mount chip, and circuit layout is a little important (a few MHz bandwidth video signal), so I make a PCB. I've thought of making a slightly nicer one (with VGA loop, though, etc). If there were enough interest I suppose I could finish it off and send off for a limited run of PCBs. Any chance for a PAL version? Thomas ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
HI! Will Dormann wrote: Will Dormann wrote: While the combination of settings I originally posted does give excellent results, I've recently discovered that that particular combination does not actually do Bob Deinterlacing. Ok, I'm very close to getting this right! For those of you running MythTV 0.17, I think the only thing you'll want to change is the resolution. Rather than using the coryntsci resolution, try 800x600. This fixes the bob vertical resolution problem I was seeing. Should this 800x600 resolution be interlaced or not? Thomas ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Jeroen Brosens wrote: Therefore, using bob is paramount for a smooth video playback. All other deinterlacers as well as no deinterlacing (!) can't provide this. Just a follow-up to this thread. While the combination of settings I originally posted does give excellent results, I've recently discovered that that particular combination does not actually do Bob Deinterlacing. I had a hunch that this was the case, as the non-XvMC settings @ 640x480 + Bob enabled did seem to produce a slightly smoother picture than XvMC @ coryntsci + Bob. Although the smooth motion was excellent with the former, the OSD was ugly and the Bob didn't always seem to get the picture right, especially after a seek. (Sometimes 1/2 the vertical resolution would appear to be lost) The way I determined this was by zooming in significantly and pausing the video during a high motion scene. This made the mouse tooth appearance of the interlacing effects quite evident. If the Bob was actually taking place, none of the frames should have any interlacing at all. (Since each frame is derived from a single field). The mythfrontend log does indicate that the Bob is taking place: 2005-03-08 19:20:41 XvMC will use bob deinterlacing 2005-03-08 19:20:41 Using deinterlace method bobdeint but visual analysis of the picture shows otherwise. I'm not sure if this is some sort of problem with the drivers, resolution and/or rounding errors, or MythTV itself. I think the combination of the low CPU usage of XvMC and the Vsync provided by OpenGL provides a very good looking picture. However, if the Bob would actually take place, I think it might indeed be optimal as I had originally stated. -- -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Will Dormann wrote: While the combination of settings I originally posted does give excellent results, I've recently discovered that that particular combination does not actually do Bob Deinterlacing. Ok, I'm very close to getting this right! For those of you running MythTV 0.17, I think the only thing you'll want to change is the resolution. Rather than using the coryntsci resolution, try 800x600. This fixes the bob vertical resolution problem I was seeing. For those of you running MythTV 0.16, try applying this patch first: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/87191 This fixes the problem with Bob and XvMC not displaying the second field. Also change the resolution to 800x600 to fix the video resolution problem. Note that 0.16 plus the above patch will result in a flickering (nearly unusable) OSD. I'll have to figure out what other change between then and 0.17 fixes that. But the end result is: - Double Frame Frame Rate - No Interlacing artifacts - Very low CPU usage - Proper Vsync Add all of those up, and I'd say it's close to perfect! -- -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
This is a great post! Im looking forward to trying this. Thanks for sharing the knowledge. Will Dormann wrote: I recently added an nVidia graphics card to my Asus Pundit, in hopes of improving the TV-out quality. The onboard SIS chip isn't bad, but I figured I could do better. After tweaking settings for quite a bit, here's how I achieved what I believe to be the optimal output. I have an SDTV connected to the card via S-Video, FWIW. Some of these settings may be redundant and/or unnecessary, but I'm just relaying all the steps I've taken. 1) Install nVidia 6229 drivers 2) Recompile MythTV (0.16) with support for XvMC and OpenGL (via settings.pro) 3) Modify your ~/.nvidia-settings-rc with the following values. You may need to run nvidia-settings once to create this file initially. 0/SyncToVBlank=1 0/TVOverScan[TV-0]=125 0/TVFlickerFilter[TV-0]=1 0/TVSaturation[TV-0]=156 0/XVideoOverlaySaturation=4250 0/XVideoOverlayContrast=4096 0/XVideoTextureSyncToVBlank=1 0/XVideoBlitterSyncToVBlank=1 4) Modify the XF86Config file with the following: Add to Monitor section: ModeLine coryntscpi 28.6 720 760 824 912 480 484 492 525 interlace Add to Device section: Option NoLogo true Option HWCursor true Option RenderAccel true Add to Screen section: DefaultDepth 24 Option TVStandard NTSC-M Option ConnectedMonitor TV Option TVOutFormat SVIDEO Option TVOverScan 0.8 Add to Display subsection: Modes coryntscpi 5) In the MythFrontend Setup screen for TV Playback, enable: - Deinterlace - Mode: Bob (2x) - Use Video for Timebase - XvMC Playback That's it. With these settings, I get great image quality, great motion, and great smoothness (no jitter in scrollers across the bottom of the screen, for example).X CPU usage is between 1-2% during playback. I don't see any interlacing artifacts in high-motion scenes. The special modeline is required to get good resolution with Bob Deinterlacing. With the standard modeline and 640x480 resolution, I seem to lose about 1/2 of my vertical resolution when enabling Bob Deinterlacing or XvMC. You can temporarily add --verbose playback to the mythfrontend command line to troubleshoot your playback. I see the following in mine: -- This means XvMC is working -- 2005-03-05 13:56:48 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 720, h 1, c 1, i 2, m 0,sw 0, sh 10 5, disp, p= 105, 4800 =p, port, surfNum) 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Trying XvMC port 105 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Using XV port 105 -- This means XvMC is working -- -- This means Bob Deinterlacing is working -- 2005-03-05 13:56:48 XvMC will use bob deinterlacing 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Using deinterlace method bobdeint -- This means Bob Deinterlacing is working -- -- This means OpenGL Vsync + Video Timebase is working -- 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Using video as timebase 2005-03-05 13:56:48 Video timing method: SGI OpenGL -- This means OpenGL Vsync + Video Timebase is working -- -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.2 - Release Date: 3/4/2005 ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 14:35 -0500, Will Dormann wrote: After tweaking settings for quite a bit, here's how I achieved what I believe to be the optimal output. Hrm. Optimal meaning as good as it can get with this card but not quite ultimate?, or do you believe you have a TV-Out signal that represents how the content was originally broadcast (i.e. perfectly interlaced fields)? I have an SDTV Which is just a regular old interlaced 59.94 fields/s TV right? Is SDTV Standard Definition TV? Add to Monitor section: ModeLine coryntscpi 28.6 720 760 824 912 480 484 492 525 interlace OK. Seems like you are using the SDTV native resolution, so you are displaying vertical lines one to one with what was received and recorded (presumably). 5) In the MythFrontend Setup screen for TV Playback, enable: - Deinterlace - Mode: Bob (2x) Why de-interlace? Why not send the interlaced recorded signal you recorded back to the TV in the format that it expects to be played in, interlaced, with each field being shown for 1/59.94th of a second instead of combined with another field and only shown for 1/29.97th of a second. If you de-interlace you are essentially decimating any temporal (i.e. movement from one scene to another) down from 60/s to 30/s. b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 23:20 +0100, Jeroen Brosens wrote: You probably don't know how bob works too well. Using bobdeint is the *only* way to achieve the original field rate of the broadcast, as played on a TV. Just outputting frames that are captured by the MPEG2 encoder (which are a combination of the even and odd fields!) 1:1 using an interlaced modeline leaves you with a setup that plays back at 30 f(rames)ps, whereas TV signal is 60 f(ields)ps (replace with 25 and 50 respectively for PAL). If that is how your video card is dealing with frames sent to it. It was explained to me that the G400 will, when programmed into proper TV-Out mode, take a frame (i.e. the odd and even fields together in one frame @29.97/s as you explain above) and first display one field and then the other, each at the proper interval of 59.94 _fields_ per second. I don't know what your card does but it sounds like it's wanting a field per transaction rather than a frame of two fields (which it will then separate and display one after the other) which is what the Bob/(Progressive Scan) filter explanation on the below reference page shows. I guess this is just another way to skin the same cat. Whether you send two fields at once and have the card display them separately or send them indvidually is pretty much six of one, half dozen of the other I guess, video card transfer overhead not-withstanding. Therefore, using bob is paramount for a smooth video playback. All other deinterlacers as well as no deinterlacing (!) can't provide this. It can, as long as the video card understands it is getting an interlaced frame and that it is to show the frame's two fields separately. Please do read this: http://www.100fps.com/, it offers excellent explanations! b. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
Brian J. Murrell wrote: Hrm. Optimal meaning as good as it can get with this card but not quite ultimate?, or do you believe you have a TV-Out signal that represents how the content was originally broadcast (i.e. perfectly interlaced fields)? optimal meaning the best quality out of the nVidia card using the various combinations of options that I have used. Not quite as good as broadcast quality. (Or possibly the PVR-350) Which is just a regular old interlaced 59.94 fields/s TV right? Is SDTV Standard Definition TV? Yes. Why de-interlace? Why not send the interlaced recorded signal you recorded back to the TV in the format that it expects to be played in, interlaced, with each field being shown for 1/59.94th of a second instead of combined with another field and only shown for 1/29.97th of a second. From what I've gathered, the nVidia cards (or pretty much any other computer video card) won't retain the original recording's interlacing. Dedicated hardware such as the PVR-350 is required for this.I could be wrong, though, so feel free to correct me. XvMC + Bob gives me a better resolution picture than XvMC + No Deinterlacing. I'm not sure why this is, but the difference is pretty clear. Interestingly enough if I'm not using XvMC, no deinterlacing give me the better quality picture and Bob gives me something that looks like 1/2 the vertical resolution is lost. (The opposite results). I had a sample video segment that had some text and some diagonal lines. In the low vertical resolution mode (either XvMC w/ no deinterlacing or non-XvMC with Bob deinterlacing), the diagonal lines would have a stairstep appearance. Also, the text of the OSD would be very blocky. Toggling the deinterlace option would make the picture (and OSD) look right again. I've read that the Bob deinterlacing for XvMC is completely different code than the Bob deinterlacing without. So perhaps that has anything to do with it. Now that I think about it, I wonder if it's a field order issue? I'm not totally certain how the Bob deinterlacer in mythtv works, but let's say that it pushes the top field down by a half line and the bottom field up by a half line. If the field order is reversed, then it's pushing the top field up by a half line and the bottom field down by a half line. (Which could possibly explain the stair-stepping of diagonal lines and resolution loss in the OSD) If so, I wonder if it's possible to reverse it somehow?Or then again, maybe I'm just seeing this: http://mythtv.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=167 (though in my case, it's not a jitter up and down, it's an obvious loss of resolution) -- -WD ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] How I got great quality TV-out on my nVidia MX4000
5) In the MythFrontend Setup screen for TV Playback, enable: - Deinterlace - Mode: Bob (2x) Why de-interlace? Why not send the interlaced recorded signal you recorded back to the TV in the format that it expects to be played in, interlaced, with each field being shown for 1/59.94th of a second instead of combined with another field and only shown for 1/29.97th of a second. If you de-interlace you are essentially decimating any temporal (i.e. movement from one scene to another) down from 60/s to 30/s. b. You probably don't know how bob works too well. Using bobdeint is the *only* way to achieve the original field rate of the broadcast, as played on a TV. Just outputting frames that are captured by the MPEG2 encoder (which are a combination of the even and odd fields!) 1:1 using an interlaced modeline leaves you with a setup that plays back at 30 f(rames)ps, whereas TV signal is 60 f(ields)ps (replace with 25 and 50 respectively for PAL). Therefore, using bob is paramount for a smooth video playback. All other deinterlacers as well as no deinterlacing (!) can't provide this. Please do read this: http://www.100fps.com/, it offers excellent explanations! ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
