QV4L2(1)

📦
version 1.32.0 · 4 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 QV4L2 — the manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, so this is qv4l2, a page from the User Commands manual. it's a whole vibe, let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

qv4l2 — a test bench application for video4linux devices 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

qv4l2 [-R] [-h] [-d <dev>] [-r <dev>] [-V <dev>] [-S <dev>]

that's it, that's the whole summoning circle 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the qv4l2 tool is literally made for testing video4linux capture and output devices — and when we say devices we mean any of them: video, vbi, radio, or swradio 👑

it can also double as a generic video/TV viewer app, or as a video generator for video output devices. multi-hyphenate queen behavior, no cap 🌈

but here's the thing — it does not (yet 😭) support compressed video streams other than MJPEG. MJPEG only, bestie. that's the rule.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d, --device=<dev> — use device <dev> as the video device. and if <dev> is a number, then it becomes /dev/video<dev>. cute, right? 🎀
  • -V, --vbi-device=<dev> — use device <dev> as the vbi device. if <dev> is a number, then /dev/vbi<dev> is what you get ✨
  • -r, --radio-device=<dev> — use device <dev> as the radio device. and if <dev> is a number, boom: /dev/radio<dev> 📻
  • -S, --sdr-device=<dev> — use device <dev> as the SDR device. if <dev> is a number, then /dev/swradio<dev> 💜
  • -R, --raw — open the device in raw mode, i.e. without using the libv4l2 wrapper functions. straight up, no middleman 🫶
  • -h, --help — prints the help message. the classic. the icon 👑

✨ HOTKEYS ✨

🌸 Main Window

  • Ctrl + O — open device
  • Ctrl + R — open device in raw mode
  • Ctrl + W — close the device
  • Ctrl + V — start capture
  • Ctrl + F — resize Capture Window to frame size
  • Ctrl + Q — exit the application

🦋 Capture Window

  • Ctrl + W — closes the window and stops capture
  • Ctrl + F — resize Capture Window to frame size
note it: Ctrl + W and Ctrl + F are doing double duty depending on which window you're in. main character energy in both rooms 💅

✨ EXIT STATUS ✨

on success, it returns 0. otherwise, it will return the error code. so like, 0 = slay, anything else = read the number, bestie 🔥

✨ BUGS ✨

found a bug? report it to Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@kernel.org> 🫶 don't be shy, he wants to know.

and that's the whole page!! this one came from v4l-utils 1.32.0, dated March 2015 — yes bestie, 2015, she's vintage and she still ate 💖✨🎀🦋🌸

periodt. 💅

📦 where this page comes from