HOWTO: Watch videos with TV-Out from Xrandr

[Jonte_J]

Hello
Great tutorial, finally my TV out is working the way I want it to in Ubuntu, or at least almost, there is only one small problem left:

When I watch a movie on my TV, the movie window doesn't use the entire TV width. There is an about 2 cm black area to the left of the movie. Does anybode else have this problem, and how is it solved?

Thank you

Jonas

[chronographer]

Hi all.

i just thought i'd add this script I made, which you can right click on a movie, and play it on the TV. The only thing left to work out (we can do it folks!) is to play a movie on the tv while leaving the monitor free to do other things, this way I can put finding nemo on for the kids, and work hard at the desk!

Anywho here's the script, put it in ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ and then it should appear in a right click menu 'Scripts' oh. you have to name it, 'movie.sh' and then make it executable, by right clicking it, go to permissions and checking 'Allow execution file as a program' enjoy!

#!/bin/sh
xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600
xrandr --output S-video --mode 800x600 --set tv_standard pal
xvattr -a XV_CRTC -v 1
/usr/bin/mplayer -fs "$*"
xvattr -a XV_CRTC -v 0
xrandr --output S-video --off

[jocko]

I think I may help with getting movies to play only on the tv.
I have set up dual head in my xorg.conf, with the second screen running as a separate session on the tv (i.e not cloned mode or xinerama/big desktop or whatever).
Unfortunately I have no idea how to use xrandr to set that up (but in the manual (man xrandr) there are commands for where to place the second output relative to the primary screen, so it should not be that hard to figure out).
Then to set mplayer to show videos fullscreen on the tv, add these two options to ~/.mplayer/config (hidden folder in your home directory):

DISPLAY=:0.1
fs=1

[chronographer]

Can you do a dual head set up with an ati card? I used to have this setup with my nvidia, separate screens and had a script which had something like 'DISPLAY=:0.1 /usr/bin/vlc -f $*' but you can use mplayer -fs $* and it puts the video fullscreen on the other monitor. But I am now using the above script which works real nice! Just doesn't let me use the monitor at the same time...

[jocko]

Can you do a dual head set up with an ati card?

Yes. I don't think amdcccle can set it up, but aticonfig can:

sudo aticonfig --initial=dual-head

(first backup your xorg.conf if you have made any manual changes in it)
And: compiz does not work with a dual head setup unless you inactivate aiglx and install xgl.

[chronographer]

hey I got dual head working with the fglrx drivers, but the problem then is that compiz wont run. I checked compiz IRC and they said nobody has got 2 separate x-screens with prop-ati drivers working with compiz. So I am gonna leave it as it is, using xrandr script above to turn the tv on and play a movie!

[Placenta Juan]

Well, I've gotten my TV to display an 800x600 portion of my desktop, and thanks to xvattr I can get video to display on the TV rather than the monitor, the problem is when I fullscreen the video, it fullscreens to the desktop's resolution, so I only see the upper left portion of the video on my TV. Additionally, the video is dim and white areas show static/flickering.
I've been trying to get video to play on my TV for nearly two years, and this is the closest I've come (in Linux, anyway). It's frustrating to get so close and yet not quite have it...

I'm using a Radeon 9600XT with the latest xorg ati drivers (6.9.0) on Kubuntu 8.04, by the way.

[CarpKing]

when I fullscreen the video, it fullscreens to the desktop's resolution, so I only see the upper left portion of the video on my TV. Additionally, the video is dim and white areas show static/flickering.

What player are you using? I had the fullscreen problem with Totem and VLC, but Mplayer and SMplayer work fine.

As for the static problem, I've gotten around it by adjusting the brightness down in gxvattr. The problem is that I have to do it each time a video starts; it doesn't seem to "stick."

I should probably update the first post.

[Crafty Kisses]

Nice tutorial, smoothly written.

[stevan2002]

Good tips, here is a bigger tutorial on using XranR to dualscreen with different types of outputs.

http://navetz.com/v/132/Simple-dual-...n-Ubuntu-Linux