S-Video

This article focuses on using a TV plugged into the S-VIDEO port on your Video card.

There are multiple ways to utilise your TV.
 * As a second monitor, positioned above, below, left or right of your main monitor
 * As a your main monitor
 * As a temporary replacement for your second monitor, when you want to watch media on your TV and still be able to use your primary montior for linux stuff.

This section assumes you already have your card working, read the appropriate guides to manage that.

What you can also do is to be able to retain use the dual head LCD/CRT monitors, only using the TV, when required.

So, using a combination of
 * the nVidia docs
 * the guide at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/NVidia/TV-OUT
 * the man pages for

= Options = Current nvidia cards cannot output to two monitors and S-Video at the same time.

Your options are to:
 * Run a script which uses mplayer to play the movie on your PC but displays it on the TV - leaving the PC useless till the movie ends, other than keyboard controls of the media player. Both monitors on your computer go black (no signal) whilst the TV is being used.
 * Run a script which runs up a second X session with on the LCD console with the TV as a second screen, which you can direct mplayer to play on. The original X session with the dual head config is still running, just not displayed - You can switch back to it using CTRL-ALT-F7 - but that turns off the TV.

= Configuring X.org = Basically, the default, on boot up, is to start up in Dual Head mode (DualSingleDesktop), as configured in the "ServerFlags" section.

The second configuration, TV only (tv), which, if X is started with this, will display only on the TV.

A third configuration continues to use the Prime LCD as the prime display and the TV as a second one (DualHeadTv) - the one we use if we startup the fluxbox instance.

The xorg.conf file
The file is as follows :-

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

The TVStandard and TVOutFormat''' values can be determined by referencing the nVidia documentation

Option 1: Disable One Monitor for S-Video
Script to play a movie on the TV

The above script takes 1 or 2 parameters. If the first parameter is 'nox', it assumes that X is already running in DualHeadTv layout and will start playing the second parameter using mplayer, on the second display. If there is only 1 parameter, it starts up the second instance of X that displays using the (tv) config and then starts playing the 2nd parameter using mplayer. In the second case, once the movie ends, the X instance quits and the normal Dual Head display returns.

= Options 2: Separate X Screen = Start FluxBox with TV Enabled

The above script which simply starts up fluxbox using the (DualHeadTV) configuration. Within this fluxbox, I can then run the first script with 'nox' and have the movies play on the TV.

Once you quit the FluxBox session, your original session will return. You can switch back and forth between your normal session using CTRL-ALT-F7 and CTRL-ALT-F8. If you switch back to your normal session, the TV will cease to display.