Kaffeine

Kaffeine is a very versatile KDE media player that, by default, utilizes Xine as its backend. It has a simple but intuitive interface (example screenshot) and is easy to setup. Amongst its list of supported formats are CDDA, VCD, DVD, .... and, since versions >0.5, it also provides full DVB support:

• TV and Radio
• Time Shifting
• Recording -- including unattended recording
• Network streaming (transmission and reception)
• EPG, EPG-driven recording timers, OSD EPG now and next.
• AC3
• DVB subtitles
• HDTV: Kaffeine will display HDTV delivered over DVB-S (e.g. BBC HD on Astra 2 at 28.8 degrees East). To use multithreaded ffmpeg decoding set the xine option video.processing.ffmpeg_thread_count equal to the number of CPUs, ie. 2 for a Dual-core or 4 for a Quad-core (in the GUI it is in Settings/Xine engine config/Video/Advanced). BBC HD and LUXE HD working. A patch (now in SVN) adding DVB-S2 support to Kaffeine (via S2API) is available here:

http://linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2008-October/029839.html.

• Remote control
• Handles multiple devices of any type (DVB-{C,S,T} and ATSC¹ ).... and even if you have only one DVB device, Kaffeine can simultaneously play and record different channels within a same transponder).
• Handles mutiple frontends on a single device (for example a multi-standard card supporting say DVB-S and DVB-T).
• Channel scanning on multiple devices/frontends, and multiple satellites.
• Channel favourites lists.
• DiSEqC 1.x switches, DiSEqC 1.2 rotors and USALS type goto longitude feature.
• Supports both Low and High level CI.
• KDE application style, rather than set top box (like MythTV or VDR)

Note 1: Scanning with ATSC hardware is supported since version 0.8.7. For older versions, to configure tuning support for ATSC devices, refer to the directions contained in this thread.

Bleeding-edge KDE3 Version

To make use of the latest features (e.g. HDTV and S2API support) you might need to compile bleeding-edge versions of ffmpeg,xine-lib and kaffeine.

Remove old versions of ffmpeg,xine-lib and kaffeine first.

Get SVN ffmpeg, compile and install

svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg

Get latest xine-lib, compile with --with-external-ffmpeg option, install

hg clone http://hg.debian.org/hg/xine-lib/xine-lib

Get SVN kaffeine, compile and install:

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/extragear/kde3/multimedia

Remove all projects (subdirs) you don't want to build. At least you need admin and kaffeine of course.

make -f Makefile.cvs
./configure
make
cd kaffeine
sudo make install

KDE4 Version

The latest Kaffeine release is a KDE3 application although it runs with no problems under KDE4. A KDE4 version (kaffeine4) is under development here http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/extragear/multimedia/kaffeine/ . As of September 2008 it's alpha, but plays DVDs and videos. Try it out: get KDE4.1 (http://kubuntu.org) and do the following:

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/extragear/multimedia/kaffeine
mkdir kaffeine-build
cd kaffeine-build
cmake ../kaffeine
make
./src/kaffeine4

The authors claimed a while ago that they required new features in Phonon, although this was disputed by Aaron Seigo. See http://dot.kde.org/1166377123/1166385374/1166438293/ and http://hftom.free.fr/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18.

KDE4 Version with OpenGL OSD

Some work has been done on a better on-screen display (OSD) using OpenGL. It is under development here http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/extragear/multimedia/kaffeinegl/. It looks like this repo is for testing the interface rather than a full Kaffeine program. Hopefully the result will be an improved OSD in Kaffeine4. Try it out and contribute: get KDE4.1 (http://kubuntu.org) and do the following:

svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/extragear/multimedia/kaffeinegl
mkdir kaffeinegl-build
cd kaffeinegl-build
cmake ../kaffeinegl
make
./src/kaffeinegl

Links

• Kaffeine Homepage
• atsc-converter sources