V4L TV Viewing

Applications for watching TV

• fftv] -- tv/radio viewer/recorder -- sourcecode
• kdetv] -- for the KDE desktop -- sourcecode
• MPlayer -- the movie player
• tvtime -- high quality video for Linux -- user manual
• VLC -- media player and streaming server
• xawtv and motv -- original TV viewers for bttv by Gerd Knorr
• XdTV -- XdTV is a software that allows you to watch record & stream TV
• xine -- a multimedia player that also reads from v4l devices
  • kaffeine -- a KDE frontend
• zapping -- for the Gnome desktop

Common configuration and control commands

1. v4l2ucp -- universal control panel for v4l2 devices (available for Debian from Marillat)

2. Command-line control of the TV card

• v4lctl -c /dev/video1 list
• v4lctl setnorm ntsc-m
• v4lctl setfreqtab us-cable
• v4lctl setfreqtab us-bcast
• v4lctl setchannel 3
• v4lctl volume mute off
• v4lctl volume 100
• v4lctl audio stereo
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 setattr 'chroma agc' on (bttv only)
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 hue "100%" (or "0%" -- same thing)
• v4lctl -c /dev/video1 bright "50%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video2 contrast "45%"
• v4lctl -c /dev/video0 color "50%"

3. Test the video

• xawtv -hwscan
• xawtv -remote -noxv -c /dev/video0 -vbidev /dev/vbi0

4. Test overlay mode (capture card controls display -- easy on CPU)

• xawtv -noxv -capture overlay
• xawtv -v4l1 -capture overlay
• xawtv -xvtv -capture overlay
• xawtv -xvtv_overlay on -capture overlay
• xawtv -xvtv_overlay off -capture overlay

5. Test grabdisplay mode (application controls display -- required for deinterlacing and other effects)

• xawtv -noxv -capture grabdisplay
• xawtv -v4l1 -capture grabdisplay
• xawtv -xvtv -capture grabdisplay
• xawtv -xvtv_overlay on -capture grabdisplay
• xawtv -xvtv_overlay off -capture grabdisplay

6. Test streamer

• streamer -i "S-Video Input"