[mythtv-users] OT - MX4000 to FX5200

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Thu May 4 10:39:09 EDT 2006


On May 4, 2006, at 8:22 AM, Brad Fuller wrote:

> Brian Wood wrote:
>> On May 4, 2006, at 2:20 AM, David Watkins wrote:
>>
>>
>>> It's possible that you've damaged your S-Video cable (Have a look  
>>> for
>>> bent pins).  That could explain the intermittent operation and the
>>> colour/B&W thing.  I don't understand why some modes are in colour
>>> though - maybe the output defaults to composite until the nvidia
>>> driver loads?  Otherwise you have to start wondering if you've got a
>>> bad card.
>>>
>>
>> I can personally attest to how easy it is to damage S-Video
>> connectors, a really crappy design.
>>
> the pins were the first thing I checked
>
>> The cards use the same connector for S-Video and composite, and one
>> of the symptoms of getting it wrong is a loss of colour.
>>
>> I think this was mentioned before but have you tried forcing S-Video:
>>
>> Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
>>
> yep, that's always been in my xorg.conf
>
>> Also, what resolution are you running? Beyond 800x600 things can get
>> flaky, depending on the encoder on your nVidia card. you might try
>> going to 640x480 just to see if things start working OK, which would
>> indicate a bad encoder on the card.
>>
> just 640x480
>
>> It is still very possible that you have a flaky card, but the only
>> way to really test that is by trying another
>>
> I'm going to swap out the cable. The first thing I thought of when the
> B&W popped up was that since the MX4000 works and the FX5200 doesn't,
> maybe the S-Video out voltage level is flaky and maybe at the edge.
> Since I'm running a long cable (10ft of S-Video going to a
> S-Video<->Composite converter and about 20ft of RG6) that maybe it's
> just not making it somehow. I realize that this is no where near the
> length limit, but what the heck.


"Composite Converter" ????? Oh Ho.

This may not be presenting the proper load to the card, which thus  
does not detect the presence of an S-Video device connected to the  
output.

If you're converting to composite anyway, why not just go composite  
out of the card and eliminate one device and a couple of connectors?

Simpler is usually better.


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