SDB:Connecting to TV Monitor
This article describes the different methods to connect a PC or laptop to a TV screen or monitor and what (if any) configuration is needed on Opensuse to achieve this.
Situation
There are multiple methods to connect a computer to a TV screen or monitor including HDMI, DVI, VGA cable etc. plus the different methods of connecting speakers. Although Opensuse has improved greatly in this area recently there are still some situations where you need to change some settings to get everything working nicely.
Procedure
This article describes several solutions:
Using HDMI
Using the default Graphics Drivers
The graphics drivers which ship with recent Opensuse versions work out of the box on most Nvidia, ATI and Intel graphics cards. They cannot provide enough 3D capability for complex 3D games but otherwise work quite well.
If the system is already running and logged into the desktop you may need to wait 30 seconds to a minute after connecting the HDMI cable. On the KDE desktop a dialog should appear prompting you to setup the TV/Monitor as a second monitor, if not go into Personal Settings->Display and Monitor->Size & Orientation. To have the picture on the TV screen/Monitor appear as the same you see on your desktop screen you need to set the 'size' to the same as your desktop screen and the 'Position' to be a 'Clone Of' your desktop screen.
To get sound working over the HDMI cable go into YAST->Software Management and install the package 'pavucontrol'. Then start the application whose output you want to appear on the TV screen/Monitor (eg. the video player application). With that application running use start menu to run either 'pavucontrol' or 'PulseAudio Volume Control' (no quotes). In the volume control application on the Playback tab you can change which sound card the application outputs to - change it to the HDMI device.
AMD Open-Source (radeon) Drivers Specific Step
Some Opensuse versions, such as 12.1, have HDMI audio output disabled by default on the radeon driver due to bug reports affecting some hardware. You can re-enable it by going into Yast->Boot, clicking Edit on the default entry, and adding the following to the end of 'Optional Kernel Command Line Parameter': radeon.audio=1
Using the AMD Proprietary (Catalyst) Drivers
With the AMD "Catalyst" drivers installed the procedure is:
- Plug-in the HDMI cable
- Logout and then log back in
- The HDMI output should now be working automatically, you can adjust settings by using the ATI Catalyst Control Centre
- The instructions for the sound are the same as under "Using the default Graphics Drivers"
Using the Nvidia Proprietary Drivers
With the NVIDIA drivers installed the procedure is:
- Plug-in the HDMI cable
- Logout and then log back in
- The HDMI output should now be working automatically, you can adjust settings by using the 'nvidia-settings' utility
- The instructions for the sound are the same as under "Using the default Graphics Drivers"
Quality
The HDMI port(s) on many TVs or monitor/TV combo's are designed to expect input f rom DVD/Bluray players or games consoles. The output from a computer's graphics c ard can differ in some ways and so the image may not be very sharp and have washe d out colours.
The ATI drivers (Catalyst) seem to be able to work around this on both Windows and Linux and produce a perfect image. On Linux the NVIDIA and the Opensource ATI radeon drivers don't seem to be able to at this stage.
Using DVI
TBC