I won't go into how to get the new kernel set up with lilo. After the kernel is in place, you must set a FB video mode. You can catch LILO and add "video=matrox:vesa:0x111" to the boot prompt. Mode 0x111 is for 640x480 at 16bit colour and mode 0x112 is 640x480 at 32bit colour. I believe that 640x480 is the largest resolution that is supported. Once you get things working, you can make lilo append this for you. Here is a sample entry from my /etc/lilo.conf file.

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.19
  label = linux-tvout
  append = " ide1=autotune ide0=autotune video=matrox:vesa:0x111"
  root = /dev/hda2
  read-only   # use read-write if you use reiserfs, don't know about other filesystems

Just be sure to run lilo after making the change.

5) Activate TV-out

    Before we proceed, it is important to make sure that the TV-out cable is hooked-up correctly. The TV-out adaptor must be connected to the secondary output.
There are two kinds of outputs, HD-15 (which is an ordinary analog monitor output) and DVI.

If your card has two HD-15 connectors, then you will need to look closely for a "1" ( or "1/3" ) and "2"( or "2/4" ) stenciled beside each connector. Plug the TV-out adaptor to the second one ("2" or "2/4").

If you have a HD-15 and a DVI connector, then you will need to plug the TV-out adaptor to the HD-15 connector (regular video port). In this case, your DVI output is your primary output.

    Now to actually activate it.
Your video card is capable of a few different configurations, so the command line tool "matroxset" was created to be able to change those settings.
Building matroxset is fairly simple.

            # tar -xzvf matroxset-0.3.tar.gz
            # cd matroxset
            # make
  [root]# cp matroxset /usr/sbin

The matroxset tool doesn't have to be run as root, as long as the current user has read/write access to the framebuffer devices.
Once you have found what settings you use, you may also want to add them to your startup scripts

    # matroxset -f /dev/fb0 -m 5
        This turns secondary output off
    # matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -m 2
        Connect secondary output to /dev/fb1
    # matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -o 1 2
        Set output 1 (secondary output) to NTSC.
    # matroxset -f /dev/fb1 -o 1 1
        Set output 1 (secondary output) to PAL.

At this point, TV-out should be working, but it may look like it isn't (snowy or odd pattern). You should now be able to use /dev/fb1. Now would be a good time to test it. If you have a program that supports output to a framebuffer device, try it (but be sure to send it's output to /dev/fb1).

    # mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 myfile.mpg

"-vop scale" tells mplayer to resize in software, so it might make it choppy. Using the expand/scale options together will scale the video to fill the screen, while preserving the aspect ratio. The "expand" option tells mplayer how big of a screen to use (putting a black border around the extra area) and "scale" will scale the video to fill the area specified. One could just leave the scale option out to have the video displayed centered while in it's original size.
I had some "tearing" issues when playing complex videos (mostly DVDs) that I was able to make look alot better by using "-ssf lgb=1". This applies a gaussian blur to the luma data. It looks better, but who really wants to be bluring their videos?

    # mplayer -vo fbdev -fb /dev/fb1 -vop expand=640:480,scale=640:-2 somefile.mpeg

TV-out (fb1) should be set by default to 640x480x32. To change it use fbset, but I don't recommend changing it unless you have a specific need.

    # fbset -fb /dev/fb1 -xres 400 -yres 260 -depth 16    <-- just an example

Recommended resolution for PAL is
    # fbset -yres 576 -xres 768 -upper 44 -lower 4 -vslen 1
You can set -xres to (512 <= xres < 1024).

6) Adjusting the picture

Petr Vandrovec says that he has got a few people asking about making the screen brighter, but I haven't needed to adjust my settings.
v4lctl can be used to make these adjustments. v4lctl is part of xawtv and fbtv. Please notice that I am specifying fb0 with v4lctl.

    # v4lctl -c /dev/fb0 bright XXX
        Set brightness 0-1023
    # v4lctl -c /dev/fb0 contrast XXX
        Set contrast ...
        See v4lctl -c /dev/fb0 list for list of option

The following is from Maarten ter Huurne on his experience with brightness/contrast
------------------------------------------------
I had a serious brightness/contrast problem; the output looked very bad.
Strange that you didn't experience it, maybe this problem only occurs with
PAL? (assuming Canada uses NTSC)
Anyway, I tried various brightness/contrast settings and they all looked
awful, until I set contrast to 0. On my setup, there is a very discontinuous
change at contrast 185: 185 shows high contrast, 186 shows a black screen.
The entire range 0..185 has a lot more contrast than any value in the range
186..1023. I cannot explain it.
------------------------------------------------

Canada and the US do use NTSC. It appears the brightness/contrast problem is a PAL issue (possibly).

7) Getting a console

Uncompress con2fb
    # gunzip con2fb.c.gz
Then compile and install
    # gcc -Wall -o con2fb con2fb.c
    # mv con2fb /usr/sbin

Now to set a console on fb1. Change tty5 to whichever console you want to be connected to fb1.
    # con2fb /dev/fb1 /dev/tty5
Now hit alt-f5 and you should see picture on the TV.

8) Getting XFree86 to play nicely (recently revised, may need corrections)

    Now we need to add some options to the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file. This will vary depending on what you want your setup to do. If you have a G450 (the G550 doesn't appear to have this problem), then you will have to contend with the BusID problem. This problem comes into play when the first head uses the mga driver, but the second needs the fbdev driver. The second driver fails to initialize because the first head (mga driver) has already claimed that BusID. The solutions available are:

a) Not use X on the second head, just use it as a FB (you can play movies with a console and direct the output to the fb1 device, this is what I do)

Only the two options marked below need to be added to get XFree86 to cooperate. This setup doesn't allow XFree86 any control of the second head. You can simply use a terminal (xterm, aterm, etc...) to launch any fb programs. Just make sure that you tell the program to use the fb1 device.

b) Use the same driver for both heads. This means that any features (DRI, XVideo, etc...) will not be available. If you use Xinerama, the colour depth must be the same for both heads.

Look for a Device section (there could be several, but there needs to be one for each head that you want to use). This section is from my config for the first head.

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "MATROX CARD 1"
    Driver      "fbdev"        <-- fewer features, but won't conflict with second head
    VendorName  "Matrox"           note that G550 users can try the mga driver instead
    BoardName   "G450"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"    <-- This number will vary, but AGP cards will use this number
    Option    "UseFBDev"       <-- Add this option, otherwise the screen will be corrupted
    Option    "HWcursor" "no"  <-- Make sure to add this to prevent a corrupted cursor
    Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0"
EndSection

The second head will need something similar to the following.

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "MATROX CARD 2"
        Driver      "fbdev"
        VendorName  "Matrox"
        BoardName   "G450"
        Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
EndSection

Teletux Digital Video - SyncFB module. This module is better for viewing movies on your monitor.

Macro disable - Perl script to disable Macrovision copy protection

MPlayer Docs - section on TV-out

DirectFB - using DirectFB to provide features similar to windows DVDMax.