How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-21 13:25:44

Hey guys, I've got a HDMI to COMPONENT converter, which is claimed to work as this reddit post says:

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comm … o_your_tv/

But the best I could get was this:
https://i.imgur.com/SDOs6zs.jpg

I don't know what can I do, I tried to use the commands in the reddit post, but I've got this error:

xrandr --addmode HDMI-0 2720x240_1 --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32
xrandr: --scale-from must be used after --output
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.

and then tried this:
https://github.com/alphanu1/MME4CRT-Auto-Script

Which gave me the same image issue.
Is anyone there who can help me with this issue?
(ans YES, I DO WANT TO USE A CRT TV, NOT A MODERN ONE, that's why I'm asking to use it here)

seth · 2021-04-21 15:01:19

S-Video/Component or PAL[A-/-B]/SECAM confusion?
The CRT has likely a setting on how to interpret the signal => play with that.

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-21 17:36:56

seth wrote:

S-Video/Component or PAL[A-/-B]/SECAM confusion?
The CRT has likely a setting on how to interpret the signal => play with that.

Looks like it's an issue related to the xrandr config, cause the image looks okay, but there is a black border in the right side of the screen as shown here: https://i.imgur.com/ZrXINmH.jpg

Ropid · 2021-04-21 17:43:31

On my CRT monitors twenty years ago, the border problem in your last photo would be something that I would have to tweak on the monitor side with the monitor's buttons/menu, and not on the PC side.

seth · 2021-04-21 19:58:39

Ah, sorry - I thought this was because the image had a blue tint.
AndreyTarkovsky sounds like that's probably a 50Hz Tv?

What's the output of "xrandr -q"?

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-23 12:30:39

seth wrote:

Ah, sorry - I thought this was because the image had a blue tint.
AndreyTarkovsky sounds like that's probably a 50Hz Tv?
What's the output of "xrandr -q"?

It's not, it's a 60Hz NTSC.
I did get the black border out just just by trying to set another resolution, the TV reject it and then when xrandr gets back to the one set with the script, the black border goes out. But now I'm facing another issue: The script is setting 1400 x 400 interlace, and I don't want that, I just want 1280 x 240 15Khz without interlace. Does anyone here know how? - yes, I read the wiki and when tryig to get this resolution, xrandr doens't work:

xrandr: Configure crtc 1 failed

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-23 12:31:18

Ropid wrote:

On my CRT monitors twenty years ago, the border problem in your last photo would be something that I would have to tweak on the monitor side with the monitor's buttons/menu, and not on the PC side.

Dude, it's not a monitor as I said the title, it's a SONY WEGA TV

seth · 2021-04-23 14:52:40

Televisions, like any CRT, had likewise features to correct the image, though sometimes hidden in the service menu (where you had to enter ridiculous codes on the rc to get in… "press these 12 buttons at once - what do you mean, you only have 10 fingers?")

What modeline did you provide?
=> http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl <= pass the crt's specs there.
Can maybe "xvidtune" help you here?

Ropid · 2021-04-23 15:51:44

AndreyTarkovsky wrote:

Ropid wrote:
On my CRT monitors twenty years ago, the border problem in your last photo would be something that I would have to tweak on the monitor side with the monitor's buttons/menu, and not on the PC side.
Dude, it's not a monitor as I said the title, it's a SONY WEGA TV

EDIT: I didn't notice that manual was about an LCD TV, disregard this post:

I found the manual online. Check out pages 58 and 59 here about moving the picture horizontally and vertically:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/23115 … =58#manual
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/23115 … =59#manual

Page 46 (and the following ones) might also be interesting, it's something about aspect ratio and "zoom":

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/23115 … =46#manual

Last edited by Ropid (2021-04-23 16:40:39)

seth · 2021-04-23 15:58:29

That looks more like panning a blown up 4:3 signal to cover the full width of 16:9 (if any Millenial reads this thread, they're not gonna understand no shit ;-)
Also "KLV-32M1 - 32" Lcd Wega Color Tv" doesn't sound like a CRT ;-)

Ropid · 2021-04-23 16:50:47

Oh, my bad. I tried looking some more to see an example of what Sony CRT TVs were like. I found some CRT manual here:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/16068 … 6%20-%2032

It's really like you mentioned in an earlier post, the TV has nothing intended for a normal user to tweak the picture position etc. There's only obscure stuff mentioned in a separate manual intended for service technicians. That service manual is here:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/15972 … =27#manual

Does this mean the TV has some sort of sophisticated electronics that is supposed to find the edges of the picture in the signal by itself? Or perhaps with a TV picture, people didn't worry too much about the edges being cut off a little?

ewaller · 2021-04-23 17:09:16

What resolution are you trying to use? I have a feeling you are not going to get much better than 720p (maybe 1020i)

https://www.analog.com/media/en/technic … AN_944.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

Also, the Trinitron technology was fabulous for creating crisp, high contrast displays because of it aperture grill; but it was highly optimized for formats used for videos (kind of cheating to make the video appear to have a higher bandwidth). Displays using a shadowmask (Not Sony) tended to be better displays for text, but could not achieve the high contrast video Trinitron could.

https://forums.anandtech.com/featured/

Edit: To answer your other questions: TVs typically adjusted the gains of their horizontal and vertical drive to scale the video to fit the an area slightly bigger than the screen.
https://www.howtogeek.com/252193/hdtv-o … rn-it-off/
You probably do not want overscan, turn it off if you can. Also, the AGC and scaling to fit the screen only work over a range of horizontal scan rates, number of lines and framerates. Televisions were not optimized over a more than a handful of formats, unlike some of the 19" and 21" CRT monitors that were optimized as video displays

Last edited by ewaller (2021-04-23 17:16:49)

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-23 22:47:21

AndreyTarkovsky wrote:

seth wrote:
Ah, sorry - I thought this was because the image had a blue tint.
AndreyTarkovsky sounds like that's probably a 50Hz Tv?
What's the output of "xrandr -q"?
It's not, it's a 60Hz NTSC.
I did get the black border out just just by trying to set another resolution, the TV reject it and then when xrandr gets back to the one set with the script, the black border goes out. But now I'm facing another issue: The script is setting 1400 x 400 interlace, and I don't want that, I just want 1280 x 240 15Khz without interlace. Does anyone here know how? - yes, I read the wiki and when tryig to get this resolution, xrandr doens't work:
xrandr: Configure crtc 1 failed

As I said above, the black border is gone, but now the issue I'm facing is the screen flickering issue, the script I'm using is this:

#!/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode "1400x480_intel" 28.654080 1400 1489 1563 1792 480 490 496 533 interlace -hsync -vsync
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 "1400x480_intel"
xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode "1400x480_intel"

The image fits the screen well, but that's not the resolution I want, and if I try to use 1280 x 240 (which is great for old games), xrandr doesn't accept that. This reddit post show how a guy got it working:
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comm … o_your_tv/

But it didn't work for me, the xrandr doesn't recognize this "--scale-from" as shown in my output:

xrandr --newmode 2720x240_1 53.69318 2720 2900 3154 3410 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync > /dev/null 2>&1
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 2720x240_1 --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32

output:

xrandr: --scale-from must be used after --output
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.

Again, that's nothing related to the TV, it's only about finding the correct configuration for xrandr.

Last edited by AndreyTarkovsky (2021-04-23 22:47:47)

loqs · 2021-04-23 22:56:49

Have you tried:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode "1400x480_intel" --scale-from 1280x960

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-23 23:55:06

loqs wrote:

Have you tried:

xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode "1400x480_intel" --scale-from 1280x960

That's interesting. After tried your suggestion and doing some regulations on the RetroArch's scale option, I've got the flickering issue just in the bottom of the screen, please, take a look the this video below I've recorded and tell me what you think

https://youtu.be/EnC-8DGjOaI

Last edited by AndreyTarkovsky (2021-04-24 00:06:58)

seth · 2021-04-24 07:13:49

xrandr --newmode 2720x240_1 53.69318 2720 2900 3154 3410 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync > /dev/null 2>&1
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 2720x240_1 --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32

The syntax is simply wrong (so much for reddit…)

Try

xrandr --newmode 2720x240_1 53.69318 2720 2900 3154 3410 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync # register modeline
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 2720x240_1 # assign it to an output
xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 2720x240_1  --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32 # set the mode

If the modeline is good for the device, this should™ work.

AndreyTarkovsky · 2021-04-24 14:12:40

seth wrote:

xrandr --newmode 2720x240_1 53.69318 2720 2900 3154 3410 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync > /dev/null 2>&1
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 2720x240_1 --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32

The syntax is simply wrong (so much for reddit…)

Try

xrandr --newmode 2720x240_1 53.69318 2720 2900 3154 3410 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync # register modeline
xrandr --addmode HDMI-1 2720x240_1 # assign it to an output
xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 2720x240_1  --scale-from 1280x960 --pos 0x32 # set the mode

If the modeline is good for the device, this should™ work.

Didn't work: https://i.imgur.com/1GwIUiJ.jpg

seth · 2021-04-24 14:31:19

Not very surprisingly, actually.
The mode almost doubles the pclk - the signal is too much.

Is there no tech sheet for the adapter?

Arch Linux

#1 2021-04-21 13:25:44

How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#2 2021-04-21 15:01:19

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#3 2021-04-21 17:36:56

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#4 2021-04-21 17:43:31

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#5 2021-04-21 19:58:39

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#6 2021-04-23 12:30:39

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#7 2021-04-23 12:31:18

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#8 2021-04-23 14:52:40

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#9 2021-04-23 15:51:44

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#10 2021-04-23 15:58:29

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#11 2021-04-23 16:50:47

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#12 2021-04-23 17:09:16

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#13 2021-04-23 22:47:21

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#14 2021-04-23 22:56:49

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#15 2021-04-23 23:55:06

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#16 2021-04-24 07:13:49

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#17 2021-04-24 14:12:40

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

#18 2021-04-24 14:31:19

Re: How can I get my CRT TV working on ArchLinux?

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