Maximum/native/recommended S-Video TVOut resolutions for IGP9100 radeon?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 4:11 PM, Alex Deucher<alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 7:00 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>   I'm wondering how I determine what resolutions are supported using
>>> xf86-driver-ati with TVOut turned on? My machine is an older Asus
>>> Pundit-R with an ATI IGP9100 chipset. I have the Open Source driver
>>> running and it's currently set to 800x600 (recommended on the Xorg
>>> site) and I'm getting a pretty good picture compared to the older
>>> closed-source ATI driver. Big improvement on the noise though. The old
>>> ATI driver used a lot of CPU and made the fans run at high speed. So
>>> far your Open Source driver doesn't seem to kick the fans up at all so
>>> thanks for that.
>>>
>>>   I've read on the web that S-video was inherently limited to
>>> 720x480. Is that true? Does the IGP9100 support that sort of
>>> resolution? This machine is hooked only to a TV and only used for
>>> MythTV so there are no other considerations other than getting a good
>>> picture a few hours a day.
>>
>> tv-out always outputs native tv timing (NTSC or PAL, etc.).  The
>> tv-out block has a scaler the downscales the desktop image to the
>> native tv timing.  In theory you can scale any mode with the
>> appropriate timing, but at the moment, the driver only supports
>> 800x600.
>>
>> Alex
>>
>
> Alex,
>   Thanks for the response. Let me see if I understand it correctly.
>
> 1) My MythTV backend server is tied to an HD Homerun digitizer and the
> program is recorded on the backend at whatever resolution it comes in
> on the cable, but let's assume it's 1080i just to make things clear.
>
> 2) My MythTV frontend requests to play the program and it's sent over
> my network, probably still at 1080i.
>
> 3) The frontend program locally converts the program from 1080i to
> either a) the resolution MythTV is set to play at or b) the screen
> resolution. Those two may or may not be the same but I assume in my
> case they are and it's currently 800x600.
>
> 4) Whatever the resolution is coming out of MythTV then the radeon
> driver & TVOut hardware in the radeon chip then convert to whatever
> X-video can actually handle which is something like 720x480?
>
>   If that's fundamentally correct then at least would I be burning
> less power or requiring less of the driver if I set the X11 screen
> resolution to the same thing as S-Video?
>
> Thanks much,
> Mark
>

Or the alternative is that none of that matters because the OS radeon
driver must be set at 800x600 or it doesn't work with TVOut. I guess
that's what you are saying.

Thanks,
Mark