dvbv5-scan(1)

🌸 dvbv5-scan — the girlies' guide to scanning for channels 💅

okay so bestie, you know how you want your TV to actually find stuff? this is the manual page for dvbv5-scan, from the dvbv5 suite of User Commands (section 1 of the manual, iykyk). it's a whole frequency-scanning tool. let's get into it 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

dvbv5-scan — DVBv5 tool for frequency scanning

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

dvbv5-scan [OPTION]... initial-file

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so dvbv5-scan is a command line frequency scanning tool for digital TV services. it's compliant with version 5 of the DVB API, and it's also backward compatible with the older v3 DVB API. flexible queen 👑

by default it uses the new channel/service file format, which is capable of supporting all types of Digital TV standards. it can also support the legacy format used by the legacy dvb-apps. so no matter which era of vibes your setup is giving, she's got you.

here's the tea: a single physical channel (also called a transponder) can have several virtual channels inside it, all encapsulated via a MPEG Transport stream. those virtual channels are called a 'service' in MPEG-TS terminology, and each one may have one or more audio, video and other types of elements inside it.

the goal of dvbv5-scan is to scan for a list of physical channels/transponders and identify the MPEG-TS services available in them. and because she's smart enough to read the room, the tool also retrieves info from the MPEG-TS Network Information Table (NIT) about other channels available on the stream. main character energy fr 💫

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🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

the following options are valid:

• -3, --dvbv3 — Force dvbv5-scan to use DVBv3 only.
• -a, --adapter=adapter# — Use the given adapter. Default value: 0.
• -C, --cc=country_code — Set the default country to be used by the MPEG-TS parsers, in ISO 3166-1 two letter code. If not specified, the default charset is guessed from the locale environment variables.
• -d, --demux=demux# — Use the given demux. Default value: 0.
• -f, --frontend=frontend# — Use the given frontend. Default value: 0.
• -F, --file-freqs-only — Don't use the other frequencies discovered during scan. By default, dvbv5-scan will find new transponder/physical channels and add them at the internal frequency table it uses for scan. This option disables such feature.
• -G, --get_frontend — Use data from get_frontend on the output file. By default, dvbv5-scan will repeat the same network parameters as found at the scan file. This should work fine if the output file will be used by the same frontend. However, if you intend to use the generated file on another frontend, or wants a faster tuner, this option can be used to store the actual detected parameters, instead of the ones that came from the source channel file.
• -I, --input-format=format — Format of the input file. Please notice that caps is ignored. It can be:
  • channel — for dvb-apps compatible channel file;
  • zap — for dvb-apps compatible zap file;
  • dvbv5 (default) — for the dvbv5 apps format.
• -l, --lnbf=LNBf_type — Type of LNBf to use; help lists the available ones.
• -N, --nit — Use data from NIT table on the output file. By default, dvbv5-scan will repeat the same network parameters as found at the scan file. This should work fine if the output file will be used by the same frontend. However, if you intend to use the generated file on another frontend, or wants a faster tuner, this option can be used to store the parameters that are announced by the broadcaster via the MPEG-TS Network Information Table (NIT), instead of the ones that came from the source channel file.
• -o, --output=file — output filename (default: dvb_channel.conf)
• -O, --output-format=format — Output format:
  • channel — for dvb-apps compatible channel file;
  • zap — for dvb-apps compatible zap file;
  • vdr — for vdr compatible zap file;
  • dvbv5 (default) — for the dvbv5 apps format.
• -p, --parse-other-nit — Parse the other NIT/SDT tables that could be found mainly on some DVB-C carriers.
• -S, --sat_number=satellite_number — Satellite number. Used only on satellite delivery systems. If not specified, disable DISEqC satellite switch.
• -T, --timeout-multiply=factor — Multiply the scan lock wait time and MPEG-TS table parsing by this factor.
• -U, --freq_bpf=frequency — SCR/Unicable band-pass filter frequency to use, in kHz. Used only on satellite delivery systems.
• -v, --verbose — Be (very) verbose. Useful to check if the MPEG-TS is happenning fine. This option can be used multiple times to increase verbosity.
• -w, --lna=LNA — Enable, disable or put LNA power in auto mode. Not all frontends support it. Valid values are:
  • 0 — disable
  • 1 — enable
  • -1 — auto
• -W, --wait=time — Adds additional wait time for DISEqC command completion.
• -?, --help — Outputs the usage help.
• --usage — Gives a short usage message.
• -V, --version — Prints the program version.

mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional for any corresponding short options. (yes bestie, the rule applies both ways 💅)

📌 NOTE 📌

if both --nit and --get_frontend options are used at the same time, the --nit parameters will be applied after the ones that the frontend detected. order matters, periodt.

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🫶 EXIT STATUS 🫶

on success, it returns 0. clean. iconic.

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

$ dvbv5-scan /usr/share/dvbv5/dvb-c/the-brownfox

Scanning frequency #1 573000000
Lock   (0x1f) Quality= Good Signal= 100.00% C/N= -13.80dB UCB= 0 postBER= 3.14x10^-3 PER= 0
Service The, provider (null): digital television
Service Quick, provider BrownFox: digital television
Service Brown, provider (null): digital television
Service Jumps, provider (null): digital television
…
Service Dog, provider (null): digital television
New transponder/channel found: #2: 579000000
…
New transponder/channel found: #39: 507000000

the scan process will then scan the other 38 discovered new transponders, and generate a dvb_channel.conf with several entries with will have not only the physical channel/transponder info, but also the Service ID, and the corresponding audio/video/other program IDs (PID), like:

[Quick]
        SERVICE_ID = 5
        VIDEO_PID = 288
        AUDIO_PID = 289
        FREQUENCY = 573000000
        MODULATION = QAM/256
        INVERSION = OFF
        SYMBOL_RATE = 5247500
        INNER_FEC = NONE
        DELIVERY_SYSTEM = DVBC/ANNEX_A

like... look at her go 😭 the whole channel list just falls out of the sky.

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💀 BUGS 💀

Report bugs to Linux Media Mailing List <linux-media@vger.kernel.org>

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright (c) 2011-2014 by Mauro Carvalho Chehab.

License GPLv2: GNU GPL version 2 <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

bestie, note that "NO WARRANTY" bit — it's real, it's legally real, it's not a vibe, it's the actual terms. love that for us but also respect it 💖

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and that's the whole page, no cap. this was DVBv5 Utils 1.32.0, dated Fri Oct 3 2014 — shoutout to the dvbv5-scan(1) manual page for being the blueprint. go scan something slay 💅✨🦋