S-Video output, dual monitor with VGA possible?

[Eucalyptus]

Hi,

Is it possible to use a computer to output video playback on an analogue TV screen? If yes what is the common recommend practice for doing so?

Using Mint 7 RC1 x32. Video card is nVidia GeForce4 MX 420. It has VGA and S-Video output. I would like to display the video screen of VLC or Totem Movie player on the TV screen using S-Video. However, I prefer the computer display still remains on the VGA 1280x1024 screen. Basically, I would like to use a dual monitor configuration. The TV screen is the 2nd monitor and it is used only for displaying video playback.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[emorrp1]

I believe you can get S-Video to RGB conversion cables, which will allow you to connect to your TV. You should then be able to go to your nvidia control centre to enable dual monitors.

[Eucalyptus]

I believe you can get S-Video to RGB conversion cables, which will allow you to connect to your TV. You should then be able to go to your nvidia control centre to enable dual monitors.

Do you mean a kind of cable that connect to the Video graphic card with S-Video connector and to the TV with component connector (the Red, Green, Blue RCA style cable) ? I am not sure if it is compatible with my video card, I believe it needs a 7 pins S-Video connector, mine has 4 pins.

Even though, I would like to know the experience from users who already dealt with TV output. Even if you don;t have a solution, I would like to know if PC to analogue TV will incur a lots of inconveniences or setup difficulties. All I am trying to do now is an attempt to save my good working analogue TV, mainly for environmental concerns.

[mukmaster]

I use the SVGA output of my NVidia card to connect to my TV. I have a scart-input on my TV and use a converter to hook it up with the SVGA cable.
In the NVidia settings manager you can assign the TV as second monitor, choose resolution etc.

I use the TV output just as you would like to do; I watch video fullscreen on the TV while my primary screen stays available.
Via a plugin in Firefox (MediaPlayerConnectivity) it is even possible to open video in webpages automaticly in an external application, wich works in many cases. For instance when I browse youtube the video is automaticly opened fullscreen on my TV with VLC.

For me it works like a charm!

[michellejane]

Honestly saying I never heard about S-Video output, dual monitor with VGA possible? before here . Provided discussion include informative information . After saw this discussion I searched about this and I found very inserting and positive view about this .I will try it as soon as possible .

[eiver]

I would love to see a solution to enable dual monitor using a TV connected through s-video. I tried to solve the problem of years under Linux and failed.

On XP: dual monitor via both s-video and VGA works
On Mint: VGA works like charm, but s-video does not

I have geforce 4,6,8.

Did they fix the problem with more recent cards?

[WoollyMammoth]

I am trying to do exactly this on Linux 9 - I have the cable, card & connectors all plugged in and working. The set up worked perfectly when this machine was XP only two days ago. But now the TV isn't registering in the NVIDIA X-server settings gui.

EDIT: oh, my G-card is the GeForce 9600 GT

Any ideas?

[WoollyMammoth]

Wow, okay, I must have done something right. What I noticed was that the configuration requires a precise procedure. First, there is a drop-down menu that says "Screen position - Absolute" - this needs to be changed to left or right... then the TV appears! Yay! I then clicked the TV box on the gui and hey presto, I could tell a similar menu to make clones or whatever.

I can be clever sometimes... *whistles*

(( Oi - Linux minions! You can do better than this! Feed your monkeys more bananas! ))

[Lord_Titan]

I'm running Mint 10 with a Geforce2 MX400 and i don't see the second (s-video) monitor in the monitor preferences. any help?

[AlbertP]

You need to use the nvidia-96 driver to get tv-out working on the GeForce2/3/4. The nouveau driver only supports TV-out on Geforce 5 series.
For the GeForce 6 and up, including the 100-500 series, you need nvidia-current (or perhaps nvidia-173 for cards up to GeForce 9).

[DrHu]

I would probably use a 2nd graphics card, there must be swap/flee markets or liquidators that have older vga cards, many included an s-video output..
--and setup for a 2 monitor display, the main one for the PC and the 2nd card fro the TV..

[AlbertP]

Displaying from 2 graphics cards isn't supported well on Linux. All 3D acceleration including Compiz is off, and you may not be able to move windows between the two screens. And you have to set it up manually in Xorg.conf.