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 kernel newer
14 than 2.1.x to play with this. fbtv shares the config file
15 ($HOME/.xawtv) with the xawtv application. Check the xawtv(1) manpage
16 for details about the config file format.
17
19 -h Display a command line options summary.
20 -o base
22 set base string for the snapshot output files. The filename
23 will be base-timestamp-nr.ext.
24 -v Be verbose.
26 -c device
28 video4linux device (default is /dev/video0).
29 -D driver
31 video4linux driver (default is libv4l).
32 -d device
34 framebuffer device (default is $FRAMEBUFFER; /dev/fb0 if unset)
35 -g grayscaled display (works for 256 color mode only)
37 -s widthxheight
39 sets the V4L2 capture in width x height resolution if possible.
40 -f font
42 font for text. Default is to look for lat1-16 console font. It
43 no path is specified, it will seek for the font at the following
44 directories:
45 /usr/share/consolefonts/
47 /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts/
48 /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/
49 /lib/kbd/consolefonts/
50 If you have a local X11 font server running (or the FONTSERVER
52 environment variable set to some working server), you can also
53 give X11 font specs here.
54 -m mode
56 video mode for TV. fbtv will look up the mode in /etc/fb.modes.
57 -j joydev
59 joystick device to use for controlling fbtv.
60 -k keep capture on when switching consoles. Might be useful
62 together with -s switch, you have a video picture while working
63 on another console. This is more or less a dirty hack. Works
64 only if all your consoles have the same video mode and fbcon
65 does not use panning to speed up scrolling. For a multiheaded
66 setup this is useful too.
67 -q quiet mode. Doesn't reserve space for the status line at the
69 top, doesn't display the status messages and clock. When fbtv
70 is started on this mode, it won't try to load the font file at
71 start.
72 You can toggle this at runtime too (using the 'F' key).
74 -M EXPERIMENTAL: Turn on backend scaler mode (write yuv to off‐
76 screen memory and let the gfx board scale up the video). Sup‐
77 ported hardware: Matrox G200/G400 (with matroxfb) and ATI Mach64
78 VT/GT (with atyfb, 16bpp only). You'll need at least
79 bttv-0.7.16 or kernel 2.3.50.
80
82 fbtv is supported to work much like xawtv from user's point of view.
83 You might have noticed that xawtv has a lot of keyboard shortcuts.
84 They work in fbtv too (if it useful). Here is the list:
85 G Grab picture (full size, ppm)
87 J Grab picture (full size, jpeg)
88 F Fullscreen. Toggle quiet mode (see above).
89 up/down tune up/down one channel
91 left/right fine tuning
92 pgup/pgdown station up/down
93 ESC,Q Quit
95 X Quit, but leave sound on.
96 +/- Volume up/down
98 Enter mute
99 The channel hotkeys defined in $HOME/.xawtv are supported too, with one
101 exception: modifier keys (something like "key = Ctrl+F1") do not work.
102
105 Some hints from Dag Bakke <dag.bakke@riksnett.no>:
106 The BT8xx cards can produce images up to 768x576 pixels. In order to
108 have fbtv make use of your entire monitor-size and get maximum image
109 quality, you need to create a 768x576 pixels framebufferconsole. This
110 can be accomplished with the fbset(1) utility, which is available at
111 various locations. See: http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/bin/
112 Or, you can let fbtv handle the videomode changes with the -m switch.
114 This requires that you have a small database with the various video‐
115 modes available. The file containing the videomodes is normally named
116 /etc/fb.modes. For example, the following entry produces a
117 768x576x32bpp mode, with 75Hz refresh on a Matrox G200.
118 mode "tv"
120 # D: 49.188 MHz, H: 46.580 kHz, V: 75.008 Hz
121 geometry 768 576 768 576 32
122 timings 20330 128 32 32 8 128 5
123 endmode
124 The command "fbtv -q -mtv" thus gives you crisp clear (well, as good as
126 the received signal anyway) tv on your entire screen. Alias this com‐
127 mand to 'tv', and you're set.
128 NB! Please note that your monitor may or may not be able to handle
130 such a "custom" resolution. And that misuse of the aforementioned fbset
131 utility can toast your monitor. It is a lot easier to pull smoke out of
132 electronic components, than to put it back in.
133 A database of the standard VESA-modes can be downloaded from:
135 ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/linux/matrox-latest/fb.modes.vesa60.gz
136
139 xawtv(1)
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142 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>
143
145 Copyright (C) 1997,98 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@goldbach.in-berlin.de>
146 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
148 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
149 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
150 option) any later version.
151 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
153 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER‐
154 CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
155 Public License for more details.
156 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
158 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
159 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
160 (c) 1998 Gerd Knorr fbtv(1)