In clone mode, TV display is black and white

[Guest JRSly]

It was a couple months ago when I was having trouble getting a game to work when I found this wonderful site. I downloaded the 61.70 driver and it fixed my problems with the game completely. But, I did notice one downside, the TV out, which had displayed perfectly before, was now in black and white.

This wasn't a really big deal, I certainly was happier that the game was working than i was disappointed with TV out, but I recently decided to try and fix it. I searched the forums and found some other people with the same problem, but it seemed to be a problem with PAL TV's, which deosn't help me in the U.S. I just downloaded the 66.77 driver after reading someone suggest that as a solution to the problem, but it didn't help in my case.

So has anyone else encountered this problem and found a solution? Other than being in black and white, the display is fine and everything else related to the driver seems to be working a-okay. Oh yeah, I'm on a Dell laptop with the 4200 Go.

[Bill]

Which Dell laptop?

What kind of encoder does it say you have in the driver properties pages?

Try unistalling the driver you have and installing the 67.50 driver with Pieter's mod INF and tell me if you still get that problem.

I used to get that with a lot of 60s drivers but it seems to have gone away almost completely with these latest ones.

Are you using S-Video and/or composite out?

You also have to make sure it is set to NTSC since you are using a U.S. TV, but it should set it to that by default.

Does the problem happen all of the time or does it show in color then show in black and white when you switch on video overlay or something?

Bill

[Guest JRSly]

Latitude D800

Encoder-Chrontel 7009

I'm using the S-video out, with the S-video to composite adapter that came with the laptop. I'll let you know if the 67.50 driver works, I'm on dial-up though so it'll be a little while.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[LSudlow]

Try adding the following line to the [nv_SoftwareDeviceSettings] section of your inf:

HKR,, DisableTVClockInversion, %REG_DWORD%, 1

...then reinstall and see if it helps.

[Guest JRSly]

Forgot to add to my first reply, that it is indeed set to NTSC and the picture is always black and white, doesn't start in color or anything.

Well I tried the 67.50...same problem. Tried adding that line to the .inf...same problem. :)

[LSudlow]

It may be hardware-dependent. Among Inspiron 5150 owners, for example, tv-out works fine for most, but a couple of people (with supposedly identical equipment) have the same problem as you. For some, a new driver seems to work, others have had luck with a different s-video cable.

Unfortunately, I don't think we've ever come up with a definitive answer to this problem.

[mobilenvidia]

It might related to this Dell's Svideo/Composite converter, in here it has to combine the seperate colour signals (Svideo, RGB) to a single combined (Composite).

There is a sync signal as well I do believe, this is where the problem might be.

Some drivers might not be outputting the right signal for this converter to work in colour.

Try taking the laptop to a person with a svideo capable TV and see what happens.

This problem is very common amonst Dell owners, why they didn't just add a composite plug to the laptop is beyond me (as the Chrontel converts it internally).

I hope this helps.

[Guest JRSly]

Dang, well thanks for the help, just the same.

Is there a possibility that if I just go down the list of drivers that one might work for me? Or is it a problem with my specific laptop and the problem is likely to still exist?

And I'll try it straight to S-video and let you knowwhat happens.

EDIT: Just tried it with just the S-video cable and it worked fine! Still wished it would work like it used to since the TV I wanted to use doesn't have S-Video in, but at least I've got somewhere with it. Now, I know nothing really about all this driver stuff, but shouldn't the code to corrrectly display the picture be in an official INF somewhere? And could be put into the modded one?

[mobilenvidia]

The Converter is to blame here, it must only sync to either + or - not both.

You could enquire about a converter that can handle both syncs (ask a shop that knows what their talking about, a specialist electronics store)

Or just try different drivers, this is a very common Dell problem (the only laptop with only Svideo only output)

Start with 66.10 (a Dell driver) even comes with Dell OEM INF.