[ltp] RE: svideo output on thinkpad z61e

[Richard Neill]

>>
>>
>> P.S. If you've not done this before, you'll notice horrible 
>> "comb-distortion" aka "mice teeth". This is related to 
>> interlacing/de-interlacing. http://100fps.com/
> 
> my television doesn't have an option to change it's region, so i'm
> going to assume--possibly incorrectly--that it is set correctly. one
> down, many to go.

Some TVs are capable of receiving multiple different encodings, such as 
NTSC or PAL. Sounds like your TV isn't multi-format capable (which is 
perfectly OK). Therefore ,you will need to make sure your computer is 
set to output video in the same format as your TV expects.

More here, including a useful map.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal


> under-/overscan? what do you mean?

Is the TV a CRT, or an LCD?  If the latter, this is a non-issue. If the 
former:
   underscan = "image fits on TV with black border"
   overscan =  "image cropped by the bezel of the CRT".
This is because CRTs have rounded corners.



> 
> the widescreen is a likely culprit, as my lcd IS widescreen and my
> television is not.

Perhaps. However, it shouldn't be relevant, if you are trying to run a 
multi-screen system rather than cloning one. Either way, this affects 
resolution, not colour.

> 
> i don't want to get into a "why can windows do it and linux can't," but
> this would seem like something relatively straight forward... if
> windows can do this seamlessly and intel has native drivers for linux,
> why can't linux achieve the same thing?
> 
> overall, any suggestions on how i could proceed?

I'd suggest you start by making sure your PC is outputting the right 
encoding.

Usually UK/Europe =  PAL  (sometimes SECAM), and USA = NTSC.

The computer should support both; make sure you have switched it to the 
correct value. This is probably an xorg setting, but it might be an 
intel-hardware one, and it might even be in the BIOS.

Sorry I can't help more specifically. I do recall experimenting, and 
seeing that coloured images rendering in monochrome is a typical 
failure-mode of TVs when they receive the wrong format.

Some more info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_television

Basically, Black and White analog TV is the same the world over 
(excepting the clock frequency*); but the colour-encoding method is 
different. One of the design-goals of (then new) colour TV transmissions 
was that an older black-and-white set should not be confused, but should 
be able to receive the colour transmission, compatibly falling back to B/W.

This is similar in principle to FM-stereo on a mono-receiver. It's a 
very clever "hack", which results in a horridly ugly specification.


* Most decent TVs will tolerate either 25 Hz or 30 Hz frame-rate, and 
will just sync up to the input clock.


Regards,

Richard




P.S. If you have a camcorder with S-video in/out, this may be useful in 
debugging. Likewise, a digital camera with composite video out. Most of 
these are designed to work internationally, so make it simple to switch
the encoding.