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Welcome to the linuxtv.org V4L-DVB Wiki !

This wiki is intended to become an authoritative source of information regarding the use of analog video and digital TV sources under Linux -- i.e. the subject matters covered under the V4L-DVB framework. The basic plan is to aggregate information about: available hardware; how v4l or dvb work; software used with the hardware and so forth. Like all other wikis, the V4L-DVB wiki relies upon the contributions of its users. Hence, it will only be as useful as we make it! So we encourage you to share your knowledge and help with the task of turning this site into a grand repository of knowledge. Your input (whether it be by providing a set of instructions for how to get a certain device working; a minor improvement to an existing article; or an explanation for some complex concept) will be highly appreciated. -- The LinuxTV V4L-DVB wiki team People behind V4L-DVB

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Hi everyone, the merger of the V4L and DVB wikis is now underway! Articles within the V4L wiki will progressively be transferred into this wiki. Please see here for the important details.

User Section: The Wiki's Indexes Getting Started: Supported Hardware How to install DVB device drivers How to build drivers from Mercurial Driver List Testing your DVB device (PCI, USB, ...) Having Trouble?: FAQ & Troubleshooting V4L Test Suite Filing a Bug Report Finding the source of the error via a Hg Bisect [1] (i.e. being proactive and helping out) Software Applications and Usage: Example setups and Use cases by country Applications to watch and record TV Software to Watch Digital TV Software to Watch Analogue TV ... also see V4L TV Viewing V4L capturing ... also see Transcode Full Media Centers Applications to show Videotext/Teletext/Closed Captioning Text capture Tools for testing, tuning, streaming Tools for unattended/headless recording Radio Listening Tutorials, Howtos, Usage Info & Guides: Howto record multiple programs at once Post-processing of recorded material Testing reception quality Further DVB Links Further V4L Links The Wiki - How Can I Help? Everything you need to know about editing wiki pages but were afraid to ask A list of things that need to be tackled

Technical Background: Systems: Analog TV Radio Data System (RDS) Digital TV (DTV) ATSC Standards DVB Standards ISDB-T Modulation Schemes used for Analog & DTV MPEG-2 Standard DSM-CC Object Carousel Protocol DiSEqC Protocols Hardware Related: Sortable List of Chipset Vendors Anatomy of a V4L-DVB device Anatomy of a V4L device Anatomy of a DVB device Tuners Supported Tuners Interface chipsets PCI interface chipsets used for V4L cards GPIO pins I²C Protocol Hardware or Software Decoder? Hardware vs software encoders Developer Section: Repos: Master V4L-DVB development repository v4l-dvb experimental repository Current git log Maintaining Mercurial (Hg) trees Kernel Driver Development: Application Programming Interface (API): DVB API history and future Linux DVB API Version 4 Multiproto (API v5.0 candidate) S2API (API v5.0 selected) Video4Linux APIs Drivers: Anatomy of a V4L driver Anatomy of a LinuxTV driver Hints for Refactoring existing DVB drivers Coding Style Submitting your work: Invitation for Code Review How to submit patches Rules for submitting patches Linux Kernel patch submittal checklist Rules for submitting drivers Next subsection: The DVB Decoder Challenge How to extract a firmware How to develop drivers for USB based devices General Information Regarding DVB via USB Reverse Engineering USB Webcams Userspace Development: V4L2 Userspace Library

Hardware Information: Sortable List of Device Vendors Analogue Devices (V4L): Graphics cards with TV Tuner and/or Capture facilities: ATI/AMD based combo cards NVIDIA based combo cards Video via PCI: Bttv devices (bt848, bt878) cx18 devices (cx23418) cx88 devices (cx2388x) ivtv devices (cx23415, cx23416) Matrox Meteor II cards (not working) saa7146 devices zoran devices (zr36057, zr36067) zoran devices (zr36120, zr36125) Video via PCI Express (PCIe): nGene devices (not supported) saa7162 devices (will be supported) Video via USB: DiBcom USB devices pvrusb2 devices OmniVision USB devices (OV511, etc) TM6000 based devices USBVision devices Other devices: IEEE1394 devices (aka FireWire or i.LINK) Loopback Radio Scanners Webcams Digital Devices (DVB): Some descriptive name for the section ATSC Devices DMB-T/H Devices DVB-C Devices DVB-S Devices DVB-S2 Devices 8-PSK Turbo Coded Devices DVB-T Devices ISDB-T DVB Devices User Modifications to Supported Devices Pre-configured DVB Systems and Set Top Hardware: Barebones and bundles Commercial solutions VDR-based STBs MythTV STBs Enigma on the dbox2 Neutrino on the dbox2 Enigma on the Dreambox Streaming clients Peripheral Components: Dolby Digital receiver DiSEqC related hardware DVB Conditional Access Modules DVB-T antenna Remote Controllers Switches, attenuators, and amplifiers Sat antenna