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AgainstK
November 17th, 2008, 11:40 PM
Hey there, new to Ubuntu. I was wondering if there are any apps such as "tvtools" for Ubuntu.

Or if anyone has taken a different approach for tv output with Ubuntu?

laceration
November 18th, 2008, 08:29 PM
My approach is to get a huge monitor and use that for tv too. I have a 42" lcd. Big is good. It is a bit of overkill for a monitor as it magnifies everything and a smaller monitor, 32" to 37" or even smaller, would probably have the same amount of screen real estate. When I slide my desk chair out of the way and retreat to the sofa, the hidef is awesome.

I don't know if this is what you were asking exactly, but I have an uncommon approach, which I think is a good one, especially since big monitors are getting affordable and supposedly are going to plunge in the coming weeks.

My video is all sourced from my computing environment too, through a dvb card, bittorrent or saving web video.

AgainstK
November 19th, 2008, 02:15 AM
Right, that would certainly be nice. I was looking more on the tv-output note though. I have no funds to go out and get a 40" flat monitor.

I have read the forums, and searched. Seems like everyone's having problems with s-video outputs. I love tvtool, and I was wondering if anyone has it working on ubuntu, or something similar.

If not, does the nvidia cards crappy software work fine on ubuntu?

king vash
November 19th, 2008, 02:51 AM
I used the nvidia drivers to run the tv out (through components) on my geforce 8800. It works well on my old tv and on my friends shiny 42" 1080p set. I now you a DVI > HDMI cable

laceration
November 19th, 2008, 05:47 PM
I wish the nvidia software(drivers) were as "crappy" as on windows. They are not as mature at this point. Nvidia's PureVideo feature is able to utilize the gpu for better video. I just learned yesterday a new linux nvidia driver beta is just starting to support this. So things are looking good on the horizon. At this point comparable video performance on linux takes a good chunk more of cpu to achieve.

here's some info if you're interested:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_180_vdpau&num=1
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6205409

AgainstK
November 21st, 2008, 04:15 AM
Thanks a lot. I'll look into it. I was really hopeful someone had developed a tool similar to tvtools for linux.. or maybe tvtools work on linux even.

We'll see how that works out.