motv(1)

📦 version 3.107, in fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

💖 motv 💖

okay so bestie, buckle up, because this is the manual page for motv, and it lives in the General Commands Manual section — so its full little name-tag is motv(1). 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

motv — a Motif program for watching TV 📺

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

motv [ options ] [ station name ]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

motv is a Motif application for watching TV with your unix box. that's it, that's the whole pitch. 🫶

it is basically xawtv with a more userfriendly GUI. same features. same config file. same command line switches. you can control it using xawtv-remote. most keyboard shortcuts are identical too. so if you already speak xawtv, congrats, you're already fluent. no cap. 🔥

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

the main character detail first: all command line options also have a Resource, so you can drop them into your .Xdefaults file too. periodt. ✨

  • -h, -help — prints a short description of all the command line options. your lil cheat sheet, love that for you.
  • -hwscan — prints a list of available devices. vibe check your hardware first, bestie.
  • -f, -fullscreen — start up in fullscreen mode. Resource: motv.fullscreen (bool).
  • -n, -noconf — do not read the config file ($HOME/.xawtv). Resource: motv.readconfig (bool).
  • -o, -outfile base — sets the basestring for the snapshot output files. the filename will be "base-timestamp-nr.ext". Resource: motv.basename (string).
  • -c, -device device — set the video4linux device (default is /dev/video0). this option also disables Xvideo support. Resource: motv.device (string).
  • -D, -driver name — set the video4linux driver (default is "libv4l"). this option also disables Xvideo support. Resource: motv.driver (string).
  • -C, -dspdev device — set the audio device (default is /dev/dsp). Resource: motv.dspdev (string).
  • -vbidev device — set the vbi device (default is /dev/vbi0). Resource: motv.vbidev (string).
  • -c, -xvport number — set the Xvideo port (defaults to the first usable one if Xvideo is available). this option also enables Xvideo support. Resource: motv.xvport (int).
  • -joydev device — the joystick device to use for controlling xawtv. Resource: xawtv.joydev (string).
  • -v, -debug level — be verbose; level may be 0 (default), 1 or 2. it exists just for debugging and trouble-shooting. Resource: motv.debug (int).
  • -remote — the X11 display is remote. this basically disables overlay mode, and you might need it if xawtv fails to autodetect a remote X11 display. Resource: motv.remote (bool).
  • -b, -bpp n — force xawtv into n bpp color depth. works for switching between 15/16 and 24/32 bpp. this gets just passed through to v4l-conf(8). Resource: motv.bpp (int).
  • -shift n — shift the video display by n bytes. try this if your video display is'nt within the xawtv window; some older matrox cards show this problem. this gets passed through to v4l-conf(8) too. Resource: motv.shift (int).
  • -fb — use the framebuffer device to determine the video framebuffer address (instead of the DGA extension). yet another pass-through argument. Resource: motv.fbdev (bool).
  • -xv / -noxv — enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension altogether, i.e. -noxv has the same effect as both the -noxv-video and -noxv-image switches (see below). Resource: xawtv.xv (bool).
  • -xv-video / -noxv-video — enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for video overlay (i.e. XvPutVideo). overlay mode uses this. default is on. Resource: xawtv.xvVideo (bool).
  • -xv-image / -noxv-image — enable/disable the usage of the Xvideo extension for image scaling (i.e. XvPutImage). grabdisplay mode uses this. default is on. Resource: xawtv.xvImage (bool).
  • -vm / -novm — enable/disable the usage of the VidMode extension, default is off. if there is a fullscreen video mode configured in the config file, the vidmode extension will be enabled automatically. Resource: motv.vidmode (bool).
  • -dga / -nodga — enable/disable the usage of the DGA extension, default is on. Resource: motv.dga (bool).
  • -parallel n — use n compression threads (default: one). Resource: xawtv.parallel (int).
not me noticing the page lists -c twice, once for the video4linux device and once for the Xvideo port 🙈 that's just how it's written, bestie. i'm not touching it.

the usual toolkit options like -geometry are supported too. 🎀

🌈 SUPPORTED HARDWARE / INTERFACES 🌈

  • v4l — video4linux, the linux video capture API.
  • v4l2 — video4linux two, the new, improved capture interface which fixes a number of v4l design bugs. glow-up fr fr.
  • bktr — FreeBSD / OpenBSD driver for bt848/878 grabber cards.
  • Xvideo — the X11 Extension for video devices. note that the Xvideo extension does support overlay only — you can't capture images/movies if the Xvideo extension is used. on the other hand, this is the only way to get scaled video overlay (i.e. fullscreen without black borders @ 1024x748) if both hardware and xfree86 driver support it. see README.xfree4 for more details and hints on how to setup Xvideo. 👑

🦋 GETTING STARTED 🦋

motv starts up with the TV window. the left mouse button shows a menu with all TV Stations (empty until you have defined some). the right mouse button brings up the control window. that's your whole navigation, slay. 🖱️

the first time you have to configure motv, i.e. set TV norm and frequency table to the correct values. check if the hardware works correctly — if tuning does not work it is very likely a driver configuration issue. if the hardware operates fine, you can let motv look for TV stations (Options => Channel scan). the channel buttons have a context menu for deleting and editing. don't forget to save your configuration when you are done. 💖

you can also create/edit a config file with any text editor — see xawtvrc(5) for a description of the config file syntax. there are a number of config options which can only be set by editing the config file. iykyk. 📝

💅 KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 💅

some of them work in the TV window only. the cursor keys for example are used by the motif toolkit to allow full keyboard control of the GUI and therefore have other functions in the control window. heads up bestie, context matters. ⚠️

  • V — Video (Capture) on/off
  • A — Audio on/off
  • F — Fullscreen on/off
  • G — Grab picture (full size, ppm)
  • J — Grab picture (full size, jpeg)
  • Ctrl+G — Grab picture (window size, ppm)
  • Ctrl+J — Grab picture (window size, jpeg)
  • Ctrl+C — Copy to clipboard.
  • C — Popup Control Window
  • R — Popup AVI Recording Window
  • S — Popup Scale controls
  • Z — Channel Hopper (zapping, tune in every station a few seconds)
  • Ctrl+Z — Fast Channel Hopping (grab the images for the Channel Bottons)
  • up/down — tune up/down one channel
  • left/right — fine tuning
  • pgup/pgdown — station up/down (the ones you have in the config file)
  • space — next station (same as pgup)
  • backspace — previously tuned station
  • Ctrl+up — scan for next station
  • ESC,Q — Quit
  • +/- — Volume up/down (keypad)
  • Enter — mute (keypad)

💀 BUGS 💀

bug reports with images attached go to /dev/null unseen. 😭 brutal. iconic. the void ate them.

motv depends on a correct driver configuration. if you can't tune TV stations even if the settings in the options window are correct, it is very likely a driver issue. so like, check the driver first before you spiral, bestie. 🫶

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

xawtvrc(5), xawtv(1), fbtv(1), v4l-conf(8), mtt(1)

http://bytesex.org/xawtv/ (homepage)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>

Copyright (C) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>

this program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

this program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. see the GNU General Public License for more details. 🫡

you should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

🙈 MISC 🙈

Huh? still with me? looks like some people do read manuals carefully. not me getting emotional over you actually reading this whole thing. 🥹💖

and that's the whole page, bestie — from the General Commands Manual, dated (c) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr, signed off at the bottom as motv(1). go watch some TV. 📺✨

📦 where this page comes from