Specifications

5. Television Applications
Now that your kernel is configured, your devices have been configured, and your modules are inserted, you
will also need an application to actually view or capture the images from your card.
5.1. Console−Based Applications
5.1.1. FbTV
Fbtv is a console−only mode TV viewing program available for viewing on a framebuffer−video enabled
system with a Bt8x8 card. If you don't know what a framebuffer is you can read the Framebuffer HOWTO.
Fbtv is available from the Bttv homepage with Xawtv.
5.1.2. AATV
AATV is a simple program to watch TV on a text console under Linux using aalib and a Bt8x8 card. While
the graphics are enabled in ascii graphics only, the advantage is that you (or anyone) can watch television
from anywhere over the internet using your local Bt8x8 hardware.
5.2. GUI−based Applications
The following applications require a graphical user interface such as GNOME, KDE etc.
5.2.1. Xawtv
Xawtv is arguably the best−known Linux application used for viewing TV from video sources including
Bt8x8 devices; most Linux distributions have packaged versions. If you're not sure of your device
configuration you probably ought to start with Xawtv and the −hwscan option to check for suitable devices:
$ xawtv −hwscan
This is xawtv−3.94, running on Linux/i686 (2.6.8)
looking for available devices
port 139−139
type : Xvideo, image scaler
name : NV17 Video Overlay
port 140−140
type : Xvideo, image scaler
name : NV17 Video Texture
port 141−172
type : Xvideo, image scaler
name : NV05 Video Blitter
port 173−173 [ −xvport 173 ]
type : Xvideo, video overlay
name : NVIDIA Video Interface Port
/dev/video0: OK [ −device /dev/video0 ]
type : v4l2
name : BT878 video (Hauppauge (bt878))
5. Television Applications 12