TV Out

The following guide is for Ubuntu Edgy

If you are having trouble getting TV-Out functionality on a Radeon graphics card below Radeon 9500, the following instructions may help you.

Try these instructions if: Installing the proprietary drivers gives you a "high gamma" or "washed out" looking screen whenever the TV jack on card is in use at boot-time.

This process modifies the Xorg drivers with a TV-out patch.

First, install driver and other needed packages. Copy/enter the following into the terminal.

  sudo apt-get install build-essential libdrm-dev mesa-common-dev \
  render-dev x11proto-core-dev x11proto-fonts-dev x11proto-gl-dev \
  x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-video-dev x11proto-xext-dev \
  x11proto-xf86dri-dev x11proto-xf86misc-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev \
  xserver-xorg-dev

Second, use wget in terminal to download the driver and patch

    mkdir ~/ati cd ~/ati 
    wget http://megahurts.dk/rune/stuff/xorg7.1-6.6.3-tv_output.patch.gz  
    wget http://xorg.freedesktop.org/releases/individual/driver/xf86-video-ati-6.6.3.tar.bz2

Next, patch the driver

    tar xjvf xf86-video-ati-6.6.3.tar.bz2 gunzip -c xorg7.1-6.6.3-tv_output.patch.gz | patch -p1 -d xf86-video-ati-6.6.3

Next, configure, build and install the driver

   cd xf86-video-ati-6.6.3 export XORG_PREFIX="/usr" export    

   XORG_CONFIG="--prefix=$XORG_PREFIX --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var" 

   ./configure $XORG_CONFIG --with-xorg-module-dir=$XORG_PREFIX/lib/xorg/modules  

   make

then

   sudo make install

Lastly, tweak xorg.conf by entering

    sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and editing it with the following changes, note the specified lines:

 Section "Device"
    Identifier "<YOUR CARD NAME HERE>"
    Driver "ati"                #<---------Important line here
    BusID "PCI:1:0:0" 
    Option "TVOutput" "NTSC"    #<---------Important line here
 EndSection

 Section "Monitor" 
    Identifier "SyncMaster" 
    HorizSync 30 - 50           #<---------Important line here
    VertRefresh 60 - 60         #<---------Important line here
    Option "DPMS" 
 EndSection

 Section "Screen" 
    Identifier "Default Screen" 
    Device "<YOUR CARD NAME HERE>" 
    Monitor "SyncMaster" 
    DefaultDepth 24             #<---------Important line here
    SubSection "Display"        #<---------Important line here
         Depth 24               #<---------Important line here
         Modes "800x600"        #<---------Important line here
    EndSubSection               #<---------Important line here
 EndSection

After this point, check for any typos, and save the file.

Then press CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart X. If all went well, you should come back up to the login screen and your TV-out should be working fine.

Note, the cable to your TV should be plugged in when you boot up the PC.

Thanx goes out to dlg from the ubuntu forums for posting this on the thread found here.