MythTV Setup for sony Bravia
I’m in the middle of building a MythTV so I can have Tivo-like capability for high definition shows.
So far, I spent a lot of time getting the basic Linux system up and running… I chose Fedora Core 4, for no particular reason. I might end up trashing that and trying Ubuntu or Arch if I run into a dead end. I took an “old” (c. 2003) PC I had made for playing games. It has lots of RAM, a decent processor (P4/2.4) and should be good enough to at least learn about how to make a MythTV.
For now, I’m doing the “front-end” and “back-end” on the same PC, to simplify things. I got an HD-3000 high def tuner card from pchdtv.com. Hopefully that plus a remote-control device will be all I will have to spend on this.
The first real snag I ran into was getting the display to use the TV in full, native widescreen mode. I plugged the computer into the VGA connector on the TV (I wish the thing had a DVI input!), and had no luck using the build-in configs that were in.
Then I found this config on avsforum. It works pretty well. Here is the snippet from my xorg.conf file:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SonyBravia"
HorizSync 47.7
VertRefresh 60
ModeLine "1360x768" 85.500 1360 1424 1536 1792 768 771 777 795 +Hsync +Vsync
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "SonyBravia"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection
I still haven’t actually got the tuner card to tune anything. Maybe next weekend.
January 18th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Sweet. Finally :)
Please post when you get the 3000 to work – I got one (just before the whole broadcast flag fiasco), but never put time into setting it up. I can access it’s /dev/whatever devices, but I just get static. Of course, since I don’t have HD cable, I’m not sure if I should be getting anything else.
September 28th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Perfect setting for a Bravia KDL-32V2000 and MythTv looks the nuts on this LCD screen. Many thanks ;-))
March 27th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Works for Sony Bravia KDL-32M3000, at least with VGA. I can’t seem to get much of anything to work with DVI->HDMI
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Works for a Sony Bravia KDL-40S4100 with the minor change of Modes”1360×768″ One step closer to a mythtv setup on a mac mini.
February 16th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Not sure how much interest there is, but I managed to get a Bravia KDL-40W4000 working in 1920×1080.
Its kind of the nuclear option, but hey, seems to work!
The concept is, define a bunch of modes you know the TV will render (the list at http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Modeline_Database#EDID_modelines_from_HDTVs is VERY useful), then disable as many mode checks as you possibly can and pray.
I’m running a Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H mainboard with NVIDIA 9400.
My xorg.conf ended up looking like this :
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “Unknown”
ModelName “CRT-0″
DisplaySize 884 495
HorizSync 31.5 – 64.0
VertRefresh 60.0 – 75.0
Option “DPMS”
Option “RenderAccel”
ModeLine “1920×1080″ 148.50 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +HSync +VSync
ModeLine “1920×1080″ 89.01 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +HSync +VSync
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “Device0″
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName “GeForce 9400″
Option “ModeValidation” “NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowNon60HzDFPModes, NoVirtualSizeCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxSizeCheck, NoHorizSynCheck, NoVertRefreshCheck, NoWidthAlignmentCheck, NoExtendedGpuCapabilitiesCheck, NoTotalSizeCheck”
Option “UseEDID” “False”
Option “NoBandWidthTest” “True”
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Option “metamodes” “1920x1080_50 +0+0; 1920x1080_30 +0+0; 1360x768_60 +0+0; 1280×960 +0+0; 1024x768_60 +0+0″
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Device0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
Option “UseEdid” “False”
Option “TwinView” “0″
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “CRT-0″
Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “True”
EndSection
I’m sure this is overkill, and could be optimised, but it works, and I’m lazy :)