~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/wily/smplayer/wily

Since 0.6.8 it's possible to watch the TV in smplayer (dvb:// and tv://).

This document provides some info about how to do it.

INTRO:

smplayer doesn't include any option to scan for channels, so mplayer must be 

configured to tune to TV channels.

That means that the following:

mplayer dvb://

or

mplayer tv://

should work (should display a TV channel).

And the following should tune to the specified channel:

mplayer dvb://Channel_name

or

mplayer tv://Channel_name

DVB:

The support for dvb in smplayer is intented for dvb-t (terrestrial). It can 

work with dvb-c and dvb-s (cable and satellite) but it hasn't been tested.

smplayer will look for the file ~/.mplayer/channels.conf.ter (or 

~/.mplayer/channels.conf if that doesn't exist), and the menus Open->TV and 

Open->Radio will be populated with the channels there (the menu Open->Radio 

will show the channels without video pid. Notice that for dvb-s and dvb-c the 

check for audio and video pids will probably fail and all channels will end up 

in the TV menu).

If you don't have a ~/.mplayer/channels.conf you can create with scan (in

ubuntu is in the dvb-apps package):

scan initial_file > ~/.mplayer/channels.conf 

The initial_file contains info about the frequencies that have to be scanned,

you'll find a lot in /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/ (use the one for your town).

You can also use w_scan, which doesn't require any initial file.

TV:

The support for analog TV (tv://) in smplayer is very basic  (it can recognize

a tv:// stream as being a TV channel, but that's all) and configuration

has to be done manually.

First you need some lines in your ~/.mplayer/config with the TV configuration

(driver, norms, frequencies...). Example:

tv=driver=v4l:input=0:width=768:height=576:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:n

orm=PAL:chanlist=europe-west:channels=46-TV_1,43-TV_2,50-TV_3,53-TV_4

For more info take a look at the mplayer manpage.

After that you have to introduce all channels in smplayer (Open->TV->Edit).

THE CHANNEL EDITOR:

The channel editor allows you to add, modify and remove TV channels. You'll

see a table with all channels. Each channel contains 3 fields: icon, name

and stream. The name will appear in the menu, the stream is what mplayer will

open to tune the channel. Examples:

ICON   NAME          STREAM

       CNN           dvb://CNN

       BBC           tv://TV_1

       Webcam        tv://

The list of TV channels is saved to ~/.config/smplayer/tv.m3u8, while the

list of radio is saved to ~/.config/smplayer/radio.m3u8.

Note 1: by default smplayer will scan the file ~/.mplayer/channels.conf on every

startup and will add the new channels it finds there. That means that if you

delete dvb channels from the editor they will appear again in the next session

(smplayer will think they are new). To avoid that, there's an option in 

Preferences->TV to disable the scanning of the channels.conf file.

Note 2: it's possible to set an icon for each channel. The icon will be 

displayed in the menus. Currently it's possible to set an icon, change it

but there's now way to remove it... (unless you edit manually the *.m3u8 files)

Note 3: the tv and radio lists can be "misused" as favorite lists, you can

enter any other kind of media (internet streams, local files...) not only tv

channels.

OPTIONS FOR TV

Some options have been added for TV:

 * there's a new section for TV in Preferences, which allows for instance to

   set the default deinterlacer to be use with TV channels.

 * it's possible to set a cache for TV in Preferences -> Performance -> Cache

REMEMBERING THE TV SETTINGS

One nice thing: the settings of TV channels are remembered. That means that

filters, options (like zoom) and so on will be remembered when you tune that

channel again.

(ADVANCED) ADDITIONAL AUDIO TRACKS IN DVB CHANNELS

You'll notice that when you tune a dvb channel only the first audio track is

available. To fix the problem you need to add manually the additional audio pids

to channels.conf.

For instance, take a look at this line taken from ~/.mplayer/channels.conf:

ANTENA.NEOX:858000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:501:503:141

Let's see the 3 last fields:

501:503:141

501 is the video pid, 503 is the audio pid (and 141 I think is the teletext pid)

Several audio pids can be added separated by "+". For instance:

501:503+504:141

This way the 2nd audio track (504) will be available when you watch that channel

in smplayer. Notice that to be able to actually switch audio tracks in dvb 

channels you need a recent version of mplayer (r29381).