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Nvidia TV-out on a laptop

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Problem setting

I have a laptop on which I wanted to make the Nvidia TV-out work. I wanted to clone the screen on a plasma TV.

Environment

• Dell Vostro 2510 laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS graphic card
• Ubuntu 9.04 with Nvidia proprietary driver ver. 180
• an LG HD-ready plasma TV
• the connection is established via a VGA cable

Steps to follow

• Make a backup of the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. If anything goes wrong, you have the original file that you can restore.
• Start nvidia-settings as root. Go to X Server Display Configuration. We'll only need the Display tab there.
• You have two models available: LPL means your laptop screen, and CRT means the TV screen. Our goal is to have the same result on the two screens (clone).
• Choose LPL. At Configuration, choose TwinView. Since I have an HD-ready TV, I had to choose the following resolution: 1152x864. Position: absolute. Make this the primary display for the X screen: tick it.
• At model, change to CRT.
• The configation must be TwinView, and the resolution must be the same, i.e. 1152x864. Position: clones (however, when I opened nvidia-settings another time, it was set to absolute). This is not the primary display for the X, so don't tick that option.
• Don't click on Apply. Save the result to X config. file. It can save to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and leave merging enabled. Save.
• Now you can restart X. Cross your fingers :)

Important points

• The configuration is TwinView in both cases.
• The resolutions must be the same. In my case it was decided by the plasma TV whose maximal resolution is 1152x864.
• LPL's position is absolute, CRT's position is clones (maybe absolute?)
• LPL is the primary display for the X
• save to xorg.conf at the end, then restart the X