(External links open in a new window) | Page last modified: 2007/05/16
SourceForge Project Info

Recent News/ChangeLog

Download of releases and CVS access

Supported hardware

Currently, the following hardware is supported:

The developers' hardware

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Applications

Overlay TV & Video display: We recommend XawTv. There are a patch available for the latest version of XawTV that make it work better with the Marvel driver; grab it here (3.95). Older patches are available here. Tip of the day: Put "xawtv.xv: false" into your .Xdefaults file.

MJPEG recording & playback: Please have a look at the ongoing development at The MJPEG/Linux square. You can also find a driver for a number of other MJPEG cards there. The Buz/Linux page can also offer valuable information (see the Buz/Linux FAQ, for example).

Documentation

TV out info

Marvel framebuffer TV out

This is not directly related to the marvel driver, but it is becoming a FAQ on the marvel-list.

Enable all matroxfb related options in the kernel; use modules where possible/practical. Then:

# modprobe i2c-matroxfb
# modprobe matroxfb_maven
# modprobe matroxfb_crtc2

For the G200 use something like:

# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 3
or (tv only)
# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 2

then
# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -o 1 X  (where X is 1 or 2 to get PAL or NTSC).
You should then get 50/60Hz picture on your monitor, plus picture on your 
TV.

To get back to monitor-only output:
# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 1

To get TV-only output (monitor will powerdown):
# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 2

If you will see green artifacts on TV, make sure that your vertical
picture size is at least 525 for NTSC and 625 for PAL (i.e. for
PAL you cannot use 640x480, you must use at least 640x576).

(credits: Petr Vandrovec and James D. Bearden)

For the G400 use:

- eg. replicate display 1 on display 2:
# matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -m 0
# matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 3

If head 2 is connected to a TV, set the output to PAL:
# matroxset -f /dev/fb1 1
[ use 2 for NTSC ]
... and back to monitor ...
# matroxset -f /dev/fb1 128

(credits: Cameron Hutchison)

What's the Marvel G200?

The Matrox Marvel G200-TV (PCI and AGP versions) are produced by Matrox. They use Matrox' G200 chip (now being eclipsed by the recent G400), and we are most interested in the video features, specifically from the MARVEL series and the extra hardware.

Nice - but the G200's an SVGA chip - what about the VIDEO stuff?

The G200 has special registers and functions which enable us to communicate with the rest of the hardware, namely:

Directions already taken

Our options are: Video4Linux, Video4Linux II, Most work already out there regarding video and the G200's is more or less V4L related, and that's why the current development mainly focuses on Video4Linux I(incl. the new MJPEG extensions introduced by the Buz driver). But the driver is layered in its inside, too, which makes it a lot easier to "make up" a new API on it (like V4L2, which is already working for TV).

Xv, also called Xvideo, is a slightly confusing description for the scaling facility inside XFree86 4.x.x - it can scale up a window without any CPU consumtion (it is done by the graphics hardware) - it also allows to feed the card with YUV-data, which is converted to RGB on the fly. but it has nothing to do with MJPEG playback, and not even with TV or video overlay (although it is used by xawtv to scale up the picture).

So - lemme see what other's have done!

Related hardware

Relevant Card details

TV Tuner: Philips FI1216. The docs I found at Philips was FM1236 TV Tuner. But the tuner used in the PAL version is a Philips FI1216MKMF2 (actually a PAL/SECAM tuner).

Video Decoder: KS0127

Card and chipset picture!

Links

These are some other pages you can visit alongside with this one for various info. VERY random for now.

I can help! I've got some info! Who are you?

There is a mixed developer/user list called marvel-linux. Just click on the link to subscribe and/or access the archives. (Do you feel the power of sourceforge already ? I do ;) )

How can I contact Matrox to bug 'em some more?

By all means - BUG 'em! Visit Matrox's Techical Support Forums to see what they offer. They have been quite sloppy in answering our questions - but still: be nice, don't flame them !! We will be able to complete the driver even without their help :-)



Marvel Team
(Tribute to Eddie Galvez who has established this webpage)