xine Digital TV (DVB)
=====================
xine can be used to watch digital television.
xine supports Digital TV (Digital Video Broadcasting - DVB) cards
using the Linux DVB driver from Convergence (http://www.linuxtv.org).
DVB-S (direct satellite reception), DVB-C (Cable) and DVB-T (Teresstrical)
cards should be supported (e.g. the Hauppauge WinTV Nova DVB-S card).
driver download and installation
--------------------------------
Download and install the drivers from http://www.linuxtv.org, the 1.0.0 or later release
should work fine.
You will need kernel sources configured for your configuration for
a successfull build, preferably in /usr/src/linux plus a link to them in
/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/build. Once you have that you should be ready
to compile the driver
# cd linuxtv-dvb-1.0.0/driver
# make
if that doesn't fail, do a
# make insmod
UPDATE: the latest 2.6 kernels include the necessary drivers for most
cards, check on the linuxtv.org website for information about supported
cards, or read the documentation available in the linux kernel
sources (linux/Documentation/dvb/*).
to load the generated modules into your running kernel. If everything went
fine, you should have something like
DVB: registering new adapter (TT-Budget/WinTV-NOVA-S PCI).
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:0d.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:0c.0
DVB: registering frontend 0:0 (stv0299 based (e.g. Alps BSRU6 or LG TDQB-S00x))...
in your dmesg.
install a channel list
----------------------
xine's dvb input plugin needs a channel/transponder list that fits your
dvb equipment. xine now uses the channels.conf format of szap, czap and
tzap as appropriate for DVB-S, DVB-C and DVB-T. it will search the channel
list file in ~/.xine/channels.conf
channel list format for DVB-S: (satellite)
-------------------------------------------
NBC :11053 :h :1 :27500 :550 :551 :1 :8008
station name:freqency:h/v:sat no :symbol rate:vpid:apid:sid:????
-------------------------------------------
channel list format for DVB-T (terrestrial):
-------------------------------------------
WINSA :557500000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_7_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64: \
TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_8:HIERARCHY_NONE :33 :36 :1
station name:frequency:config options go on seemingly forever ... :vpid:apid:serviceid
-------------------------------------------
you automatically scan for all available channels using the scan utility
which comes with the dvb package. compile it using something like
# cd linuxtv-dvb-1.0.0/apps/scan
# make
then start scanning
# scan >~/.xine/channels.conf
newer versions of scan (after July 2004) are called dvbscan, but you can use it much the same way:
# dvbscan Hotbird-13.0 >~/.xine/channels.conf
this can take a while. in a DiSEqC environment, use the -s N switch to select
different sattelites to scan and paste the results in one big channels.conf file. As always,
please be sure to read the man page for the version of the tool you are using.
HINT 1: you might want to manually sort the channels.conf file to have your favourite
channels at the top and maybe remove scrambled channels which you don't have access to.
************************ If the dvb plugin doesn't seem to work for you ******************
* if xine doesn't seem to work for you, double check to make sure that the channels.conf *
* file is _NOT_ in vdr format, which looks something like this: *
* WINSA:557500:I999B7C23D0M64T8G8Y0:T:27500:33:36:47:0:1:0:0:0 *
******************************************************************************************
using xine to watch digital television
--------------------------------------
make sure you have a recent libxine and frontend installed (latest CVS as of
this writing). then simply start something like
$ gxine dvb://
or click on the DVB button in xine-ui. you should be able to zap around using
the NumPad-9 / NumPad-3 keys, the xine playlist, or using the next/previous chapter
buttons in your gui.
An OSD menu is available too. Press NumPad-8 / NumPad-2 to scroll
through the channels, then press NumPad-Enter to switch to the channel
you have selected. As of 06-12-2004, the channel list can be brought up and scrolled
through via the wheel on many mouses. Use the left mouse button to switch to
the channel you've selected. The side buttons (6 & 7) can be used to rapidly switch
to previous/next channels, if they are available on your mouse.
You can use MENU3 (F2 in xine-ui, F3 in gxine) to zoom into the centre of a videostream.
This will allow you to view 4:3 content that has been embedded into a
16:9 stream in fullscreen (no more black borders). Press the key again
to return to normal viewing. There is also an option in the xine
preferences to zoom automatically when using xine to view DVB.
MENU7 (F6 in xine-ui or F7 in gxine) will toggle viewing of the current channels'
Electronic Program Guide (information on the current/next program) on the OSD, if available.
HINT: if audio or video is stuttering, pause (space key) shortly
to give xine a chance to fill up it's buffers. If watching a large HDTV stream, you
may need to increase the xine video & audio buffer size - increasing audio buffers to
300 and video buffers to 700 has been known to work with streams up to 1920x1088 in size.
recording digital television
----------------------------
there is a very simple vcr-like feature built into the xine engine. just press
MENU2 (that is F2 in gxine, or F1 in xine-ui for example) to start/stop recording
the currently displayed program to your local disc. a small osd in the upper
left corner of your screen will tell you the file name the recorded stream is
written to. You can select the directory to save to in the xine configuration under
the MISC tab, otherwise the plugin will record to your home directory. You can
pause the recording at any time by pressing MENU4 (F3 in xine-ui, F4 in gxine).
An OSD in the top left hand corner will notify you of the status of the recording.
Pressing MENU4 again will resume recording.
Have fun.
