WaveTV 0.6.0

This is a pretty shallow documentation for the WaveTV application.
 

Features

• TeleText browser with Auto Grabbing. (when reading TeleText pages, all the "sub" pages are automatically captured).
• Frame Grabbing.

Installation

• VideoHandler
  If you want to use the frame grabber you have to compile and copy the VideoHandler data type that comes with the Datatypes library into the directory /boot/home/config/add-ons/Datatypes/
  If you don't know how to do this (or don't want to), I have included a compiled version.
• Plug a Bt848 card into a free PCI slot :)
• Copy the Bt848 driver into /boot/home/config/add-ons/kernel/drivers, the newest version can be found at ftp://ftp.scruz.net/users/sakoman/public
• Copy the WaveTV application anywhere you want it.
• If you don't know what the Bt848.xMAP file is, just delete it.

Usage

I hope the application is so easy to use that I don't have to write anything here :)

• Viewing TV
  Use the + and - keys to change channel
• Fullscreen mode
  Keys:
  Esc/Space/Return  quit back to desktop.
  +/-  change channel

Known problems

• Frame Grabbing
  Currently it is only possible to capture in the raw Mediaformat (mhi!)
  Audio saving is untested!!!
  The "dropped frames" counter sometimes display bogus values (this mostly happens when the framerate you are grabbing in are not dividable with the video-sources framerate).
  Some notes about ShowApp (comes with Datatypes): it does not support 16 bits gfx-modes, and do not have audio support.
• Auto scanning for channels
  On some cards ALL the channels are added to the channel-list (may only be specific for cards with Philips tuners).
• TeleText
  It is possible to open the TeleText browser, even it the required hardware are not found.
  Sometimes a page full of question marks is shown.
  The TeleText cache is global for all channels, so sometimes a page from another channel is shown. If the current channel has the selected page, the right page will be shown when it is received.
  Double height, flash and hidden text are not supported.
  Sometimes the bottom half of a page is missing (if you wait, the complete page should be received after a couple of seconds).
• SVideo input has not been tested, so if there are any problems (video/audio), please let me know.
• 16bit colorspace has not been tested.
• General
  When the main window is resized to a certain size (heights between 240 and 288) the display is garbled (I think this one only shows up on PAL cards).
  When WaveTV is started on a "cold" machine (the power has been off for some time), there is no picture in the main window, but only some static on the top most line.

Stuff I will (hopefully) add later:

• TeleText on ALL Bt848 cards
  I Thing this is possible with the VBL data capture feature in the Bt848 chip. The necessary functions in the Bt848 driver is not yet there.
• Save audio when grabbing movies.
• Decoding of Intercast data.
  When I get find some documentation on the Intercast format, a European TV-station starts to send it and the Bt848 driver gets the VBL data capturing functions, I might try to implement it :)
• TopText
  As soon as I find out exactly what it is, some documentation (and find a local station that broadcast these).
• FastText
  Almost there.
• FM Radio support

Tested cards

Hauptpauge Model 418 - Works OK, the FM radio is not yet supported.

Credits

Datatypes by Jon Wätts hplus@mindcontrol.com
Libprefs by Jon Wätts hplus@mindcontrol.com
Bt848 driver by Steve Sakoman steve@sakoman.com
Icon by Dennis Hansen dennis@funcom.com

Where to contact me

Jesper Hansen jesper@funcom.com

Where to find the newest release

BeWare : http://www.be.com/BeWare
My homepage : http://www.geocities.com/SilicomValley/Bay/4096

History

• 0.6.0 970725 (Submitted to Be's Master Awards)
  New stuff: a 16 channel mode (click on the current TV stations name, in the lower left corner of the window). "TV Cube", a bit like the old DR8 version of 3dmov, where you could have live video on the faces.
  Fixed stuff: STUPID ME, STUPID ME :) I claimed that the video grabber had become more stable... døøøh, I did not work at ALL with audio :) This has offcause been fixed, and the frame grabber is actually pretty useable now. And the 800x600x8 mode works now.
• 0.5.7 970724
  Audio saving added to the frame grabber.
  Some bugs have been removed from the Video grabber, and it is now MUCH more stable.
  Added support for libprefs (WaveTV should function without it)
  New icon! (thanks must go to Dennis Hansen)
  The main window how has a status bar, where the name of the current channel is shown (this also functions as a PopUpMenu).
  It is no longer possible to make the window larger that 640x480 on NTSC (on PAL the max. size is 768x576)
  The scrollbar in the Settings window now has the right size!
  "Fixed" the setup window resize "bug" (some people says that this is a feature of the OS??).
  Before when changing channel there was a LOUD "scratch" noise, this has been eliminated.
  A couple of other fixes.
• 0.5.1 970718
  Fixed the videograbber bug that resulted in garbage data in the right side of the grabbed video.
  "Ported" to PR.
• 0.5.0 970714
  New features: fullscreen mode, TeleText browser, video grabber.
  All the InterfaceElements code was removed, and a new layout engine was created to replace it.
  Some major and minor bugs fixed.
• 0.1.0 970613
  First public release