xawtv(1)xawtv(1)NAMExawtv - a X11 program for watching TV
SYNOPSISxawtv [ options ] [ station name ]
DESCRIPTIONxawtv is a X11 application for watching TV with your unix box. It uses
the Athena widgets.
OPTIONS
All command line options also have a Resource, so you can put them into
your .Xdefaults file too.
-h, -help
Print a short description of all command line options.
-hwscan
Print a list of available devices.
-f, -fullscreen
startup in fullscreen mode.
Resource: xawtv.fullscreen (bool).
-n, -noconf
don't read the config file ($HOME/.xawtv).
Resource: xawtv.readconfig (bool).
-o, -outfile base
set basestring for the snapshot output files. The filename will
be "base-timestamp-nr.ext".
Resource: xawtv.basename (string).
-c, -device device
set video4linux device (default is /dev/video0). This option
also disables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.device (string).
-D, -driver name
set video4linux driver (default is "libv4l"). This option also
disables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.driver (string).
-C, -dspdev device
set audio device (default is /dev/dsp).
Resource: xawtv.dspdev (string).
-vbidev device
set vbi device (default is /dev/vbi0).
Resource: xawtv.vbidev (string).
-c, -xvport number
set Xvideo port (defaults to the first usable if Xvideo is
available). This option also enables Xvideo support.
Resource: xawtv.xvport (int).
-joydev device
joystick device to use for controlling xawtv.
Resource: xawtv.joydev (string).
-v, -debug level
Be verbose, level may be 0 (default), 1 or 2. It exists just
for debugging and trouble-shooting.
Resource: xawtv.debug (int).
-remote
X11 display is remote. This basically disables overlay mode,
you might need this if xawtv fails to autodetect a remote X11
display.
Resource: xawtv.remote (bool).
-b, -bpp n
force xawtv into n bpp color depth. Works for switching between
15/16 and 24/32 bpp. This gets just passed through to v4l-
conf(8).
Resource: xawtv.bpp (int).
-shift n
Shift the video display by n bytes. Try this if your video dis‐
play isn't within the xawtv window, some older matrox cards show
this problem. This gets passed through to v4l-conf(8) too.
Resource: xawtv.shift (int).
-fb Use the framebuffer device to determine the video framebuffer
address (instead of the DGA extension). Yet another pass
through argument.
Resource: xawtv.fbdev (bool).
-xv/-noxv
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension altogether,
i.e. -noxv has the same effect as both -noxv-video and -noxv-
image switches (see below).
Resource: xawtv.xv (bool).
-xv-video/-noxv-video
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for video over‐
lay (i.e. XvPutVideo). overlay mode uses this. default is on.
Resource: xawtv.xvVideo (bool).
-xv-image/-noxv-image
enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for image scal‐
ing (i.e. XvPutImage). grabdisplay mode uses this. default is
on.
Resource: xawtv.xvImage (bool).
-vm/-novm
enable/disable the usage of the VidMode extension, default is
off. If there is a fullscreen video mode configured in the con‐
fig file, the vidmode extension will be enabled automatically.
Resource: xawtv.vidmode (bool).
-dga/-nodga
enable/disable the usage of the DGA extension, default is on.
Resource: xawtv.dga (bool).
-parallel n
use n compression threads (default: one).
Resource: xawtv.parallel (int).
The usual toolkit options like -geometry are supported too.
SUPPORTED HARDWARE / INTERFACES
v4l2 video4linux two - modern standard linux video capture API
libv4l work through the libv4l library, which provides an additional
thin layer on top of video4linux2 devices for support of more
wide range of devices' pixel formats (often required for webcams
etc.) It is default for Xawtv on Linux systems.
bktr FreeBSD / OpenBSD driver for bt848/878 grabber cards.
Xvideo X11 Extension for video devices. Note that the Xvideo extension
does support overlay only, you can't capture images/movies if
the Xvideo extension is used. On the other hand this is the
only way to scaled video overlay (i.e. fullscreen without black
borders @ 1024x748) if both hardware and xfree86 driver support
it. See README.xfree4 for more details and hints on how to set‐
up Xvideo.
GETTING STARTED
Just start xawtv. Then verify the settings in the options menu (right
mouse button) and adjust the settings (TV norm, Video source, frequency
table). With the cursor keys you can control the tuner and look for TV
Stations. Other useful hotkeys are listed below.
The hotkey 'E' will show the channel editor where you can create/edit
entries your TV stations. Don't forget to click on "save" to write a
config file. You can also create/edit a config file with any text edi‐
tor, see xawtvrc(5) for a description of the config file syntax. There
are a number of config options which can only be set by editing the
config file.
You can also check out scantv. That's a command line tool which will
perform a channel scan and write out a xawtv config file with all chan‐
nels it has found.
Mouse functions
The left mouse button will popup a menu with all TV stations found in
the config file. The middle button switches to the next station. The
right button brings up a window with a lot of options and control func‐
tions.
Keyboard Shortcuts
V Video (Capture) on/off
A Audio on/off
F Fullscreen on/off
G Grab picture (full size, ppm)
J Grab picture (full size, jpeg)
Ctrl+G Grab picture (window size, ppm)
Ctrl+J Grab picture (window size, jpeg)
O Popup Options Window
C Popup Channels Window
E Popup Channel Editor
R Popup AVI Recording Window
Z Channel Hopper (zapping, tune in every
station a few seconds)
Ctrl+Z Fast Channel Hopping (grab the images for the
Channel Buttons)
up/down tune up/down one channel
left/right fine tuning
pgup/pgdown station up/down (the ones you have in the config file)
space next station (same as pgup)
backspace previously tuned station
Ctrl+up scan for next station
F5-F12 adjust bright/hue/contrast/color
ESC,Q Quit
+/- Volume up/down (keypad)
Enter mute (keypad)
BUGS
Bug reports with images attached go to /dev/null unseen.
xawtv depends on a correct driver configuration. If you can't tune TV
stations even if the settings in the options window are correct it is
very likely a driver issue.
The mono/stereo display is not reliable due to v4l API restrictions.
The API can not report back the current audio mode, but a list of the
currently available modes. xawtv just does a guess based on that,
assuming the driver uses the best available mode. Depending on your
hardware this might not be true. If in doubt whenever stereo really
works, please tune in MTV and listen, don't trust what xawtv says.
SEE ALSOxawtvrc(5), fbtv(1), v4l-conf(8), scantv(1)
http://bytesex.org/xawtv/ (homepage)
AUTHOR
Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>
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 MER‐
CHANTABILITY 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.
MISC
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(c) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr xawtv(1)
