fbtv - a console program for watching TV
SYNOPSIS
fbtv [ options ] [ station name ]
DESCRIPTION
fbtv is a program for watching TV with your linux box. It
runs on top of a graphic framebuffer device (/dev/fb0).
You'll need a new 2.1.x kernel to play with this. fbtv
shares the config file ($HOME/.xawtv) with the xawtv
application. Check the xawtv(1) manpage for details about
the config file format.
OPTIONS
-o base
set basestring for the snapshot output files. The
filename will be "base-timestamp-nr.ext".
-v Be verbose.
-c device
video4linux device (default is /dev/video0).
-d device
framebuffer device (default is $FRAMEBUFFER;
/dev/fb0 if unset)
-g grayscaled display (works for 256 color mode only)
-s widthxheight
display the TV picture in width x height size in
the upper right corner.
-f font
font for text. Default is to look for lat1-16.psf
in /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts and /usr/share/con
solefonts. If you have a local X11 font server
running (or the FONTSERVER environment variable set
to some working server), you can also give X11 font
specs here.
-m mode
video mode for TV. fbtv will look up the mode in
/etc/fb.modes.
-k keep capture on when switching consoles. Might be
useful together with -s switch, you have a video
picture while working on another console. This is
more or less a dirty hack. Works only if all your
consoles have the same video mode and fbcon does
not use panning to speed up scrolling. For a mul
tiheaded setup this is useful too.
line at the top, does'nt display the status mes
sages and clock. You can toggle this at runtime
too ('F').
-M EXPERIMENTAL: Turn on backend scaler mode (write
yuv to offscreen memory and let the gfx board scale
up the video). Supported hardware: Matrox
G200/G400 (with matroxfb) and ATI Mach64 VT/GT
(with atyfb, 16bpp only). You'll need at least
bttv-0.7.16 or kernel 2.3.50.
USAGE
fbtv is supported to work much like xawtv from user's
point of view. You might have noticed that xawtv has alot
of keyboard shortcuts. They work in fbtv too (if it use
ful). Here is the list:
G Grab picture (full size, ppm)
J Grab picture (full size, jpeg)
F Fullscreen. Toggle quiet mode (see above).
up/down tune up/down one channel
left/right fine tuning
pgup/pgdown station up/down
ESC,Q Quit
+/- Volume up/down
Enter mute
The channel hotkeys defined in $HOME/.xawtv are supported
too, with one exception: modifier keys (something like
"key = Ctrl+F1") do not work.
FULLSCREEN TV
Some hints from Dag Bakke <dag.bakke@riksnett.no>:
The BT8xx cards can produce images up to 768x576 pixels.
In order to have fbtv make use of your entire monitor-size
and get maximum image quality, you need to create a
768x576 pixels framebufferconsole. This can be accom
plished with the fbset(1) utility, which is availabile at
various locations. See: http://www.cs.kuleu
ven.ac.be/~geert/bin/
Or, you can let fbtv handle the videomode changes with the
-m switch. This requires that you have a small database
with the various videomodes availabile. The file contain
ing the videomodes is normally named /etc/fb.modes. For
example, the following entry produces a 768x576x32bpp
mode, with 75Hz refresh on a Matrox G200.
# D: 49.188 MHz, H: 46.580 kHz, V: 75.008 Hz
geometry 768 576 768 576 32
timings 20330 128 32 32 8 128 5
endmode
The command "fbtv -q -mtv" thus gives you crisp clear
(well, as good as the received signal anyway) tv on your
entire screen. Alias this command to 'tv', and you're set.
NB! Please note that your monitor may or may not be able
to handle such a "custom" resolution. And that misuse of
the aforementioned fbset utility can toast your monitor.
It is a lot easier to pull smoke out of electronic compo
nents, than to put it back in.
A database of the standard VESA-modes can be downloaded
from: ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-lat
est/fb.modes.vesa60.gz
SEE ALSO
xawtv(1)
AUTHOR
Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1997,98 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-
berlin.de>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA.
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