TVSERVICE(1)

💖 tvservice(1) — General Commands Manual, bestie edition 💖

🎀 NAME 🎀

tvservice — get and set information from attached displays. It’s literally your little display-info bestie: it reads the situation and flips settings when you ask. 🖥️✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

tvservice [-a] [-c modeaspectp] [-d filename] [-e groupmodedrive] [-j]
          [-l] [-m group] [-M] [-n] [-o] [-p] [-s] [-t] [-v id]

tvservice -h
tvservice --help

The help invocations are right there too: tvservice -h and tvservice --help. 🫶

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

tvservice is a command line application used to get and set information about the display, targeted mainly at HDMI video and audio. 🎥🔊 If you type tvservice by itself, it shows you a list of available command line options. No cap, that’s your starting point. 💅

💜 OPTIONS 💜

• -a, --audio — shows the current settings for the audio mode, including channels, sample rate, and sample size. 🔊✨
• -c, --sdtvon — takes "mode aspect [P]" and powers on the SDTV (composite output) with the specified mode and aspect. The mode can be PAL or NSTC, and the aspect can be 4:3, 14:9, or 16:9. The optional "P" parameter can be used to specify progressive mode. 📺
• -d, --dumpid — takes filename and saves the current EDID to that filename. You can then use edid-decode(1) to display the data in human readable form. See [EDID] for more information on the EDID contents. 💾
• -e, --explicit — takes "group mode drive" and powers on the HDMI display with those settings. The group option can be one of CEA, DMT, CEA_3D_SBS, CEA_3D_TB, CEA_3D_FP, or CEA_3D_FS; mode is one of the modes returned from the --modes option. Finally, drive can be HDMI or DVI. 🔌
• -j, --json — when used in combination with the --modes option, displays the mode information in JSON format. 🧾
• -l, --list — lists all attached displays and their display ID. 🖥️
• -m, --modes — takes group and shows a list of display modes available in the specified group, which can be either CEA or DMT. 📋
• -M, --monitor — monitors for any HDMI events, for example unplugging or attaching. 👀
• -n, --name — extracts the display name from the EDID data and shows it. 🏷️
• -o, --off — powers off the display output.

Important Note: powering off the output using this command will also destroy any framebuffers/dispmanx layers associated with the display. These are NOT re-established with a subsequent power on, so it will result in a blank screen. 😭 A better option is to use the vcgencmd(1) display_power option, as this will retain any framebuffers, so when the power is turned back on the display will be returned to the previous power on state. 🫶

• -p, --preferred — powers on the HDMI output with preferred settings. ⭐
• -s, --status — shows the current settings for the display mode, including mode, resolution, and frequency. 📈
• -t, --ntsc — uses 59.94Hz (NTSC frequency) rather than 60Hz for HDMI mode. 🎚️
• -v, --device — takes id and specifies the ID of the device to use; see the output of --list for available IDs. 🆔

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

vcgencmd(1), edid-decode(1)

Full documentation at [SOURCE]. 📚

🌈 REFERENCES 🌈

• [EDID] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Display_Identification_Data
• [SOURCE] — https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/raspbian/applications/tvservice.md

okay that’s the whole tvservice(1) page from the General Commands Manual — the footer didn’t print a separate version or date, so this is your sparkly sign-off bestie 💅✨🫶