Jani Reinikainen, devel (at) reinikainen.net
21. March 2003
Introduction
Hardware: Matrox G400 32mb AGP.
Software: Debian GNU/Linux Sarge (aka. testing), MPlayer 0.90rc3, Linux
kernel 2.4.20.
This guide will show you how to use your Matrox graphics card with TV-Out
in Linux. Unfortunately, hardware acceleretion is not available on the second
head under Linux 
Kernel Configuration
Code maturity level options --->
[*] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
Processor type and features --->
[*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support
Character devices --->
I2C support --->
<M> I2C support
<M> I2C bit-banging interfaces
Console drivers --->
Frame-buffer support --->
[*] Support for frame buffer devices
<M> Matrox acceleration
[*] G100/G200/G400/G450/G550 support
<M> Matrox I2C support
<M> G400 second head support
MPlayer Installation
libvorbis-dev libdv-dev liblzo-dev libmad0-dev
# /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh
$ mkdir /usr/lib/win32; cd /usr/lib/win32
$ tar xfvj win32codecs.tar.bz2
$ mkdir /usr/lib/xanim/mods; cd /usr/lib/xanim/mods
$ tar xfvj xanimddls.tar.bz2
$ tar xfvj mplayer-<version>.tar.bz2
$ cd mplayer-<version>
$ ./configure –enable-gui –enable-xinerama –enable-menu
$ make
# make install
$ cd TVout/matroxset
$ make
# cp matroxset /usr/local/bin
$ cd ../fbset
$ make
# cp fbset /usr/local/bin
$ cd ../../drivers
$ make
# cp mga_vid.o /lib/modules/<kernel-version>
# mknod /dev/mga_vid c 178 0
# insmod mga_vid.o
# depmod -a
$ vim matroxtv
$ chmod +x matroxtv
Usage
# ./matroxtv
My shell script for starting MPlayer in the framebuffer-enabled console
(“matrox” is maven-prog, which is available at
http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/~vana/ftp/pub/linux/matrox-latest/maven-prog.tgz):
#!/bin/sh if [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; then # Disable cursor setterm -cursor off # Disable screen blanking setterm -blank 0 # Adjust second head contrast and hue ./matrox 0x1e 0xd0 ./matrox 0x20 0xff ./matrox 0x22 0xff # Clear the screen clear # Start MPlayer and load the specified file mplayer -vo mga -fs -screenw 640 -screenh 512 $* >/dev/null 2>&1 # Once MPlayer has exited, turn cursor back on setterm -cursor on else echo "Error: Need at least one argument (filename)." echo "Usage: $0 [filename]" exit fi
Below is my other shell script for starting a new X server just for TV-out.
Fluxbox is my choice of window manager, you probably want to replace that
with yours. Also, note that I have separate Fluxbox and XFree86 configuration
files for TV-out.
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; then
# Backup existing xinitrc
mv ~/.xinitrc ~/.xinitrc.bak
# Generate auto-starting MPlayer
touch ~/.xinitrc
echo "fluxbox -rc ~/.fluxbox/init-tvout & wmpid=$!" >> ~/.xinitrc
echo "mplayer -vo x11 -fs -zoom $* &" >> ~/.xinitrc
echo "wait $wmpid" >> ~/.xinitrc
# Adjust second head contrast and hue
./matrox 0x1e 0xd0
./matrox 0x20 0xff
./matrox 0x22 0xff
# Checks for open displays and starts X on next available
for display in 0 1 2 3 4 5
{
if [ ! -f "/tmp/.X$display-lock" ]
then
startx -- :$display -xf86config XF86Config-4-tvout
break
fi
}
# Restore original xinitrc
mv ~/.xinitrc.bak ~/.xinitrc
else
echo "Error: Need at least one argument (filename)."
echo "Usage: $0 [filename]"
exit
fi