Topic: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

I just got my CHB Hacker Board version 1.0 from adafruit.com today.   After carefully modifying my FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB to serial cable so that only the TX, RX and GND pins connect to the proper pins on the Hacker Board header per the instructions on the adafruit wiki site, I powered up the unit with the approved 2 Amp 5V power supply also supplied by adafruit.  I was able to get a console prompt through the USB serial cable with minicom on a separate linux machine, but when I attach the Composite Video cable to the designated port on the Hacker board and plug the Yellow phono plug into the video input on the back of my NTSC TV and the audio plugs into the audio inputs on the back of my TV, I get no video or audio.  I did a multi term search of the forum to see if I could find any reference to "Composite"  "TV" "NTSC" "PAL" "VIDEO" and nothing came up in the forum posts about this issue.  Does any one else have the NTSC video output working on their CHB Hacker Board Version 1.0?  I noticed that the data sheet says that the board is compatible with both NTSC and PAL so I was wondering if it needs some setup to be properly configured to output the NTSC signals.  Again I found no reference to anyone asking this question.

2 (edited by ecurtz 2011-02-25 08:35:44)

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

First thing to do is try the other plugs. The adafruit a/v cable doesn't break out the signals to the correct colors. I have the beta version, but haven't had any problems with NTSC out, it should just work (although the resolution can be set wrong at boot, so you only get a partial screen.)

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

ecurtz wrote:

The adafruit a/v cable doesn't break out the signals to the correctly colors.

Do you have a pointer to the colors in their cable?  Or can you post it here?  I've got one of those cables but haven't used it yet.

4 (edited by BarryMead 2011-02-25 02:13:05)

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

I knew about the non-standard cable colors, because I ohm'ed out the cable to the phono plug contacts and compared it with the schematic, when I noticed no video on two separate TV sets.  My Adafruit cable configuration is lilke this.  (RED=VIDEO,YELLOW=LEFT,WHITE=RIGHT).  Adafruit warned me that the various cable vendors ship cables with different configurations, so you might want to check yours with an ohm meter.  My 3.5mm A/V cable is wired like this:

Tip = Left Audio, connected to Yellow Phono plug tip.
Ring1 = Right Audio, connected to White Phono plug tip.
Ring2 = Ground, connected to all Phono plug shields.
Base Shaft = Video, connected to Red Phono plug tip.

When you said the resolution can be set wrong at boot,  What file(s) do I change to make these changes.  I am familiar with a few windowing systems, including FluxBox, KDE, and GNOME, but I don't know the file structure for the windowing system that they use on the CHB.  A small tip would help me a lot in knowing where to dive in to this unknown territory.
What I see on the TV is a zig zaggy bunch of squashed up un-synced video that only occupies the top 1/5th of the
screen.  I suspected that the video mode was set wrong, but didn't know where to start looking to see how to change it.

Thanks for any suggestions or pointers.

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

chumbyflashplayer.x -x 720 -y 480 -i /usr/widgets/alt_opening.swf

or

fbset -g 720 480 720 480 16

should fix the framebuffer configuration, but I haven't tried to figure out how to permanently adjust it. It sounded from some other posts like the "right" way would be to change the firmware, but I suspect you could just adjust one of the boot scripts.

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

yes, if it was me after verifying the fbset I would just put it into one of the userhook boot scripts.  Or for my current usage, I'd probably make it an alias so that the framebuffer wasn't consuming memory unless I was actually looking at the video out (which in my application I don't very much.)

7 (edited by BarryMead 2011-03-19 17:49:33)

Re: Does Hacker Board Video Out Work in NTSC mode?

Thanks ecurtz this one single command was all it took to fix it:

chumbyflashplayer.x -x 720 -y 480 -i /usr/widgets/alt_opening.swf

worked pefectly and displayed a properly formatted NTSC animated chumby logo on my TV screen.