[mythtvnz] MythTV & ATI & Freeview HD

[banksie at paradise.net.nz]

Quoting Richard Watson <richardwatson at hotmail.com>:

> First of all I decided that I needed a dedicated graphics card as
> opposed the onboard Nvidia 6150. I found a pretty cheap ATI HD3540 card
> that had a native HDMI output for around $100, no fan either so great
> for media PCs. Getting this running under Linux was a bit of a struggle
> and I'm still 50/50 on whether it was worth it. I'm using the latest 8.9
> Catalyst drivers.

This is the card I am running my Mythtv box with - while the ATi binary drivers
are a little fiddly to set up they do seem to work quite well. (Aside from the
whole XOrg 7.4 issue which is claimed to be being looked into by ATi for a
future driver release.)

> Pros:
> - Doesn't use system memory
> - Actually accepts my LCD TVs EDID modelines correctly (My onboard
> Nvidia 6150 was perfectly capable of doing 1080i on the component
> output, but refused to do anything above 720p on the DVI without EDID
> being disabled and a manual modeline added)
>  
> Cons:
> - Bizarrely it only uses about 90% of the screen under X-Windows. There
> is about a 1-2cm band all the way around the displayed image that is
> unused and left black. The LCD TV says its getting a 1080i signal ok but
> unless my TV actually has more than 1920x1080 pixels then one of the
> them is lying. The TV won't automatically expand the used space to the
> full panel either....

   This is usually the overscan/underscan settings not having been tweaked.
Admitedly I am using the SVideo output rather than the HDMI port but a quick
check on the Rage3D forums show this :-

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33893978&highlight=HDMI+black+border

Which is people messing in the Windows registry for Overscan/Underscan settings
to correct a black border with an HDMI TV. I am guessing a little here but
hopefully if you check under the device properties list in the Catalyst Control
Center there should be an adjustments Tab to let you tweak the screen size and
position. 

Annoyingly each time you reinstall the driver set, like for future versions of
the driver, you will have to redo this.

> - Contrast seems to be permanently wrong. "black" is just a medium
> grey.

There should be a colour balance Tab in the CCC that will let you tweak this.
I'll try and remember to look for this tonight when I get home. It certainly is
present in the windows version of the Catalyst drivers - usually hidden in the
AVIVO settings.

Philip