[ltp] RE: svideo output on thinkpad z61e

[Bryan Moore]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:22:40 +0200
"Gilson Laurent" <pumpkin@gmx.de> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> About your B/W problem: your laptops sends composite
> FBAS/CVBS signal over the s-video cable. That happens
> a lot since the GFX-chips only have one output for both
> signals and the drivers are not very smart at switching
> between the formats. Try xrandr and any tv-out tool you
> can find for that card.

i've tried changing/altering my xorg.conf and run xrandr until i was
blue in the face and still nothing. many other posts on an assortment
of websites talk about how xrandr solves everthing for them, but no
dice for me. does it really need to be this difficult?

> 
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-video first diagram on
> the left side. You send (a) over a (b) link).

okay... that makes it a bit clearer.

> 
> Some TV-sets can switch and accept FBAS over svideo,
> but not all. Mine can do it if i switch to the right input
> (AUX 1 = SCART, AUX 2 = svideo, AUX 3 FBAS over
> svideo)
> 

mine would seem to have no such choices, unfortunately.

> > > > that's just it... i'm trying to mirror my desktop so as to be
> > > > able to show my students a movie from my laptop onto a
> > > > classroom tv.
> 
> You may run into a 2. problem: overlays (= a fast way to
> display videos) only works on the first head. switching to
> a slower way (like -vo x11 for mplayer) solves that.
> 

not sure i follow. if i'm trying to mirror the desktop, how would i set
this?

> > i'm assuming windows does that automatically/natively? it is a
> > laptop with an s-video port;
> 
> The s-video should show a scaled or cropped version of
> your main desktop. It will never send a 1920x1200 
> image over s-video. Set you main desktop to 800x600
> and it should look about right on the TV.
> 
> cu

windows doesn't degrade my lcd to show-out on the tv... in fact, the tv
isn't even set at 800x600; windows sets it at 1024x768.