Anybody trying to make a video call with Skype and ATI fglrx drivers has had problems due to Skype using the “xv” video mode with the driver can’t handle. For anyone interested that is affected by this, there is a workaround:
- Run the xvinfo command and look at the number of xv sessions available. Some cards have only 1, some have as many as 4. This is the number of xv occurances that the card can do at one time.
- “Use up” all these xv sessions by opening videos in your favorite video player making sure to use xv for the video output. The videos can then be paused.
- Once this (or they) are open, skype can be started and will default to X11 video and work properly with video calls.
I know this is a goofy way to get around this issue, but until fglrx can handle xv or skype allows an option to choose X11 for video render, I don’t know of any other way to do it.
(From what I hear, the 11.1 fglrx drivers can handle xv, but I haven’t confirmed this.)
Hope this helps.