[mythtv-users] nVidia card choices, and processors for HDTV playback

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 02:57:45PM -0600, Aran Cox wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 12:23 -0800, Brad Templeton wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 08:59:24AM -0800, Scott Alfter wrote:
> > > It works for me (the Gainward card is in the Myth box).
> > 
> > Yes, there are reports of working at 720p.  What we want to find out is
> > if anybody is doing 1080i to an HDTV over DVI/HDMI from the 5200, and
> > if so, to what TVs.   Several of us have tried to make this work and
> > get a "double vision" problem where the two half-frames are out of
> > vertical alignment by about 20 lines, I think.  Progressive modes would
> > of course not have this issue.
> > > 
> 
> I'm very interested in the description of the this problem you see when
> doing 1080i over a DVI/HDMI cable.  I'll have to look at it again, but
> it seems that what you are describing is exactly what I see on my Ti4200
> doing the same thing.  I haven't looked at it in a while, but I always
> found it hard to describe the problem.  Usually I just ended up calling
> it "messed up."  But I could still sort of make out images, like the
> nvidia logo, etc.  I'm hopeful that someone will figure this out... I'd
> hate to have to buy a VGA-component converter when there's an all
> digital option...

It's a driver bug of some kind.  With the very same card (FX 5200) I
was able to drive the TV at 1080i in a Windows machine using the powerstrip
software.  I asked the powerstrip software guy for any hints of what
he was doing that might be making the difference, I never heard back
an answer on that.

In a way, seeing that was bad for me.  Had I not seen it drive the
display under Windows, I would have given up much sooner, and switched
to analog as I did.  Instead I pounded away, hoping there was some
magic modeline.

Unfortunately few people report the problem in the nvnews forums, I
guess because most of the people trying to do hdtv from linux are here.

Go over to nvnews linux forum and add comments about it, perhaps the
bug can get escalated.

So what cards have people been able to get 1080i on linux over DVI to
work from?

One thing I have not tried is radeon cards with the ATI binary driver.
Their docs said it didn't work on 2.6.9 kernel so I never tried it,
but I have heard it does work so would be interested in reports from
folks about that.    

Cards with DVI output that can do 1920x1080i in AGP 1.5v are not that
common.   The main vendors are Nvidia (with which we have problems)
and ATI (other problems.)  I guess we need a wiki database on this.