From 1e4640f2ef06a37110d1531df0018201f06bcb95 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bdale Garbee Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:01:00 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 1/1] post --- bdale/blog/posts/Adventures_with_DVI.mdwn | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 41 insertions(+) create mode 100644 bdale/blog/posts/Adventures_with_DVI.mdwn diff --git a/bdale/blog/posts/Adventures_with_DVI.mdwn b/bdale/blog/posts/Adventures_with_DVI.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..118c965 --- /dev/null +++ b/bdale/blog/posts/Adventures_with_DVI.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +Our new display device, a Panasonic +PT-50LC13 +LCD rear-projection HDTV set, +arrived and got turned on only a couple of hours before I left for +LCA 2004 +in Adelaide. Ever since returning home, I've been working on how to get the +MythTV +frontend driving it optimally. + +I'm pretty happy with the results so far. + +After trying lots of combinations, I've ended up with an AGP video card using +the nVIDIA FX 5200, driving the TV through the DVI cable that came with the +set, at 1280x720 pixels resolution to match the display's native resolution +(this is 720P in HDTV terminology). The only trick was figuring out a +reasonable Modeline for the X config file: +
+        Modeline        "720p" 74.25 1280 1312 1592 1648 720 735 742 757
+
+With that, the display is rock-solid and crisp. As a digitally-oriented kind +of guy, I find the whole concept of "overscan" in televisions mildy offensive, +but the industry is accustomed to not having viewers see to the edge of the +transmitted image... and that's just life. What this means in practical terms +with this display is that only the middle 1210x680 of the total 1280x720 pixels +are actually visible. I'm told that's a completely typical overscan percentage +by the folks who hang out on the MythTV IRC channel. + +Two consequences of the overscan that I'll have to figure out eventually are +that text in the Linux console framebuffer is clipped off on the left and sort +of hard to read (only an issue when something breaks), and the MythTV on-screen +display could stand to be shrunk slightly to fit into the visible pixel area +better. That's probably tweakable in the setup, but I haven't looked yet. + +Now I guess I have to decide whether to play with the HD-2000 card I bought +from pchdtv.com first, or start tweaking the +video capture and display parameters to optimize picture quality. Since it +appears that we might actually be able to watch the Super Bowl in HDTV if I +get all of that together in time, I'm pretty sure I know what my wife's vote +would be... ;-) + +[[!tag tags/pvr]] -- 2.30.2