V4L TV Viewing

There is a large number of applications for watching tv; here are a few:

• kaffeine
• motv (Motif-based GUI for xawtv)
• tvtime
• xawtv (original TV viewer for bttv from Gerd Knorr)
• zapping (TV viewer for the Gnome desktop)
• kdetv (TV viewer for the KDE desktop, successor of kwintv)
• v4l2ucp (Universal control panel for v4l2)

Some users report kaffeine can work even when the others don't.

Common configuration and control commands

1. Control 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%"

2. Test the video

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Test streamer

• streamer -i "S-Video Input"