DVBv5 Tools

DVBv5 Tools (not to be confused with the similarly named, but much older, DVB tools legacy project) is a small set of command line utilities that was developed to be compliant with the newer features provided by version 5 of the DVB API.[1] The tools should also be backward compatible with the older v3 DVB API.

This DVB toolset suite resides in the v4l-utils git repository, and uses libdvbv5, also stored at the v4l-utils git tree.

It is composed of 4 tools:

• dvbv5-scan - Scans the channel transponders and gets the services available there;
• dvbv5-zap - Locks into a channel (zap), allowing other applications to get the stream at the dvr devices or to monitor the stream;
• dvb-fe-tool - Lists frontend properties, allow to manually set the DVB frontend delivery system and monitors the frontend;
• dvb-format-convert - Converts from/to other formats used by DVBv3 apps into the dvbv5 format.

There's also a Gtk3 frontend for dvbv5-scan, independently maintained, called dvbv5-scan-gtk.

The DVBv5 default file format is formed by a channel name, followed by a series of key/value properties. Those tools also support the legacy formats used by dvb-apps.

For example, this is a channel file with one DVB-C channel on it:

[CHANNEL]
	DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBC/ANNEX_A
	FREQUENCY = 573000000
	SYMBOL_RATE = 5217000
	INNER_FEC = NONE
	MODULATION = QAM/256
	INVERSION = AUTO

And this is (part of) a service (zap) file, produced from the above channel definition using dvbv5-scan:

[SBT]
	SERVICE_ID = 4
	VIDEO_PID = 42
	AUDIO_PID = 257
	PID_f1 = 768
	FREQUENCY = 573000000
	MODULATION = QAM/256
	INVERSION = AUTO
	SYMBOL_RATE = 5217000
	INNER_FEC = NONE
	DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBC/ANNEX_A

[TNT]
	SERVICE_ID = 48
	VIDEO_PID = 336
	AUDIO_PID = 337 338 849
	PID_86 = 816
	FREQUENCY = 573000000
	MODULATION = QAM/256
	INVERSION = AUTO
	SYMBOL_RATE = 5217000
	INNER_FEC = NONE
	DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBC/ANNEX_A

distro packages

Different distros pack the dvbv5-tools on different packages.

On Fedora, they're part of the v4l-utils package. The Fedora 20 version 1.4 packages are available at: [https://mchehab.fedorapeople.org/libdvbv5/].

On Debian/Ubuntu, they're packaged as dvb-tools. The Debian SID packages are available at: [https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/v4l-utils].