PCI-card for RGB/SCART output

[jib]

As a long time Matrox user I've been using these forums as an invaluable information source .. thanks everyone

I'm pretty much finished building my htpc and have it working great on a regular monitor using and old ati card I had lying around. Now I've come to the point where I want to switch that card for something better (a Matrox card hopefully) and start experimenting with tv-out through a SCART/RGB connection. Ideally I'd like to use XFree and a couple of different modelines depending on type of content I were to display. This typically involves two problems, one being the vidcard needs to handle the correct resolutions and refresh rates (preferably interlaced modes), the other tied to syncing the RGB signal output to the TV.

I've done some research and it seems like learned that there are two basic ways of doing this - dependent on wheter your videocard supports generating composite sync (CSYNC/HVSYNC) or not. The first (and simplest .. cheapest) is where your videocard generates the composite sync, the other involves creating circuitry that merges HSYNC and VSYNC into one signal.

According to the MatroX Files website some older Matrox cards are able to output composite sync if you modify a bios setting on the card.

The perfect fit seems to be the G200 which should be able to do composite sync while having good, accelarated drivers for XFree (xvideo) and framebuffer.

Anyone have any experience using any of the older Matrox cards in similar configurations?

[dZeus]

excuse me if I am supposing you don't know some facts that you might do know about, but:
What do you want to display on the tv-out? If it's interlaced video content, and you would like to display it in the correct frame order with proper scaling (if needed), the only way to do that is to use the G400/G450 with mplayer and dfbmga output. And I don't know to what degree the PCI G450 supports that if at all.

If you don't mind scaling/underscan/deinterlacing to get watcheable tv-output, then you can safely go the route you're talking about. afaik all matrox cards can generate composite sync, probably through the default X drivers (there's a composite sync switch in the modelines stuff, see the X documentation).