I'm blogging this in case any one else has the same issue.
In my attempt to start building a multimedia/Home Theater PC I was trying
to connect the nvidia card to a (smallish) CRT television. For a while it
seemed like there were two options, no picture or black & wite only.
I kept adjusting xorg.conf over and over trying to find the right combination
of options.
I knew the card was working because the console printed color up until X
started. It turns out it was a hardare problem though, with the cabling!
I had an S-video to composite adapter pugged into the video card. The composite
cable then connected the TV to the adapter. Nothing seemed to work until
I found this post at fedoraforum.org. Apparently, X is being too smart for
its own good.
Once I set Xorg's TVOutFormat to COMPOSITE (the black screen when using the
S-video adapter), I plugged in the "octopus" that came with my other
nvidia card to the computer and connected the yellow composite cable to the
blue connector on the octopus. Restarted X and everything began to work.
I'm glad my other card came with that adapter, but I wonder why the output
seems to be so convoluted. It doesn't immediately come to mind that the
component cable is sometimes used for composite output.
Hey at least I was able to watch my Matroska encoded Star Trek episodes on
the TV. :-)
