1fbtv(1) General Commands Manual fbtv(1)
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6 fbtv - a console program for watching TV
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9 fbtv [ options ] [ station name ]
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12 fbtv is a program for watching TV with your linux box. It runs on top
13 of a graphic framebuffer device (/dev/fb0). You'll need a new 2.1.x
14 kernel to play with this. fbtv shares the config file ($HOME/.xawtv)
15 with the xawtv application. Check the xawtv(1) manpage for details
16 about the config file format.
17
19 -o base
20 set basestring for the snapshot output files. The filename will
21 be "base-timestamp-nr.ext".
22 -v Be verbose.
24 -c device
26 video4linux device (default is /dev/video0).
27 -D driver
29 video4linux driver (default is "libv4l").
30 -d device
32 framebuffer device (default is $FRAMEBUFFER; /dev/fb0 if unset)
33 -g grayscaled display (works for 256 color mode only)
35 -s widthxheight
37 display the TV picture in width x height size in the upper right
38 corner.
39 -f font
41 font for text. Default is to look for lat1-16.psf in
42 /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts and /usr/share/consolefonts. If you
43 have a local X11 font server running (or the FONTSERVER environ‐
44 ment variable set to some working server), you can also give X11
45 font specs here.
46 -m mode
48 video mode for TV. fbtv will look up the mode in /etc/fb.modes.
49 -j joydev
51 joystick device to use for controlling fbtv.
52 -k keep capture on when switching consoles. Might be useful
54 together with -s switch, you have a video picture while working
55 on another console. This is more or less a dirty hack. Works
56 only if all your consoles have the same video mode and fbcon
57 does not use panning to speed up scrolling. For a multiheaded
58 setup this is useful too.
59 -q quiet mode. Doesn't reserve space for the status line at the
61 top, doesn't display the status messages and clock. You can
62 toggle this at runtime too ('F').
63 -M EXPERIMENTAL: Turn on backend scaler mode (write yuv to off‐
65 screen memory and let the gfx board scale up the video). Sup‐
66 ported hardware: Matrox G200/G400 (with matroxfb) and ATI Mach64
67 VT/GT (with atyfb, 16bpp only). You'll need at least
68 bttv-0.7.16 or kernel 2.3.50.
69
71 fbtv is supported to work much like xawtv from user's point of view.
72 You might have noticed that xawtv has a lot of keyboard shortcuts.
73 They work in fbtv too (if it useful). Here is the list:
74 G Grab picture (full size, ppm)
76 J Grab picture (full size, jpeg)
77 F Fullscreen. Toggle quiet mode (see above).
78 up/down tune up/down one channel
80 left/right fine tuning
81 pgup/pgdown station up/down
82 ESC,Q Quit
84 X Quit, but leave sound on.
85 +/- Volume up/down
87 Enter mute
88 The channel hotkeys defined in $HOME/.xawtv are supported too, with one
90 exception: modifier keys (something like "key = Ctrl+F1") do not work.
91
94 Some hints from Dag Bakke <dag.bakke@riksnett.no>:
95 The BT8xx cards can produce images up to 768x576 pixels. In order to
97 have fbtv make use of your entire monitor-size and get maximum image
98 quality, you need to create a 768x576 pixels framebufferconsole. This
99 can be accomplished with the fbset(1) utility, which is available at
100 various locations. See: http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/bin/
101 Or, you can let fbtv handle the videomode changes with the -m switch.
103 This requires that you have a small database with the various video‐
104 modes availabile. The file containing the videomodes is normally named
105 /etc/fb.modes. For example, the following entry produces a
106 768x576x32bpp mode, with 75Hz refresh on a Matrox G200.
107 mode "tv"
109 # D: 49.188 MHz, H: 46.580 kHz, V: 75.008 Hz
110 geometry 768 576 768 576 32
111 timings 20330 128 32 32 8 128 5
112 endmode
113 The command "fbtv -q -mtv" thus gives you crisp clear (well, as good as
115 the received signal anyway) tv on your entire screen. Alias this com‐
116 mand to 'tv', and you're set.
117 NB! Please note that your monitor may or may not be able to handle
119 such a "custom" resolution. And that misuse of the aforementioned fbset
120 utility can toast your monitor. It is a lot easier to pull smoke out of
121 electronic components, than to put it back in.
122 A database of the standard VESA-modes can be downloaded from:
124 ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-latest/fb.modes.vesa60.gz
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128 xawtv(1)
129
131 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>
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134 Copyright (C) 1997,98 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>
135 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
137 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
138 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
139 option) any later version.
140 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
142 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER‐
143 CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
144 Public License for more details.
145 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
147 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
148 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
149 (c) 1998 Gerd Knorr fbtv(1)