ModeLine for a Sony KDF-E42A10

Connecting the MythTV box to a TV was the stumbling point last time: I couldn't get a clean s-video connection. DVI and a Sony KDF-E42A10 took some effort but works much better.

Trying other's ModeLines was an exercise in futility, and search as I might, I couldn't find that anybody else had posted one for this TV. I finally installed PowerStrip on our Windows XP desktop and had it working in short order. But when I dropped the new ModeLine into /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and restarted X, it didn't work. Some quick searching told me that the ModeLine had to be divisible by 8; mine wasn't (Windows must be more forgiving). I went back to PowerStrip and did some tweaking, then plugged the new ModeLine in, but it still didn't work. /var/log/XF86Config-4.0.log was telling me that 1280 × 720 wasn't a valid resolution according to the EDID information from the TV. I needed to disable EDID detection by adding this setting in the Screen section of XF86Config-4:

Option "IgnoreEDID" "true"

That option, combined with my new ModeLine, resulted in a nice, wide, TV-filling picture! The ModeLine I'm using for the Sony KDF-E42A10:

ModeLine "1280x720" 74.25 1280 1390 1430 1648 720 725 732 752 +hsync +vsync

The result is a little overscan, but enough to almost hide the Cancel, Previous and Next buttons of all the frontend setup screens. A little modification of Myth's Screen Settings puts everything where I want it.