Hi,

so first of all I want to say hello. I am new to this forum. Normally I post in german forums so excuse my english.

I am developing a program called TV-Viewer. It is a small GUI to control TV Cards like the Hauppauge PVR 150 and others.
The reason for me to start with this program was because standard applications like tvtime or kdetv do not support these devices. MythTV or Freevo are good programs but overkill for just wathing tv on your machine.

TV-Viewer is written in Tcl/Tk. It is an easy to use programming language which allows you to develop sophisticated programs and graphical user interfaces.
One big advantage is that software based on Tcl/Tk nearly runs on every platform without big adaptions to the code. However TV-Viewer will only be developed for Linux.

So whats this all about?
In generally you should know, that this is not a complete viewer for wathing tv on Linux. With the gui I am developing you can get rid of using a terminal with pvr devices and it provides some more advantages.
Still you'll have to use one of the provided video players like MPlayer, Kaffeine, Vlc or Xine.

Features:

• Easy to use gui to control your device.
• Automatic installation (There are no packages for major distributions yet).
• Configuration wizard for all relevant settings.
• Simple configuration file for your channels. This can be applied by using an automatic channel search with the build in "channel editor". There you can activate or deactivate channels, rename them or change their order.
• Volume control.
• "On screen display", that shows the actual channel and the volume on your screen.
• Videocard control (Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Contrast)
• Support for your remote control using Lirc.
• Build in user guide.
• And many more

The most recent version of TV-Viewer is 0.7.5-2 which you can download here.
In order to use the program your system has to fullfill the minimum requirements.
Please follow the installation instructions carefully!
You want to see how TV-Viewer looks like? No problem just refer to the screenhots section.

I will keep you updated about new versions in this thread. News about future releases and the development stage can also be found on the homepage.

So I hope you'll like the program. If there are any questions please feel free to contact me or to post them here.

Best regards

Saedelaere

@Admin
If there is a better location for this thread please place it there! Thanks

Today I make a new version of TV-Viewer available. Actually the next planed release was Version 0.8. But the new gui is'nt ready yet and this may take a bit more time. Meanwhile lot's of users asked for a record function so I decided to bring the development of this feature forward.

Bugfixes:

• TV-Cards which do not provide a VBI device node could no longer be used. This problem has been solved.
• The tool v4l2-ctl was not recognized by the configuration wizard from version 1.2.0 (ivtv) upwards. Fixed.
• Some text improvements.
• Smaller things in the source code.

New features:

• Record wizard, which can be operated from a terminal. Time controlled recordings and many more.
• TV-Viewer was previously installed into the users home directory. This has been changed. Now only the configuration files are located there.
• Diagnostic routine is now part of TV-Viewer and can be started from within the GUI.
• New installer.
• Packages for various distributions.

The installation has changed, more informations in the Download section and in the user guide.
The record-wizard only supports recordings from the tuner of the tv-card. This will be changed soon see roadmap.
New Screenshots are available soon.
If you encounter any problems, or you have improvement suggestions, contact me.

Best regards
Saedelaere

Here it is. The probably last version of the 0.7.x development branch. Nevertheless there will be one more version (probably beta), which allows the use of frequencies instead channels. This is because some users asked for it and with this feature you may be able to finetune your stations.
But now to the new version. There are no big changes this time.

Bugfixes:

• After an automatic station search the tv-card gets muted. Fixed.
• Smaller things in the source code.

New features:

• A standard "cat" is now used to perform recordings. This means mencoder is no longer needed.
• If you try to start TV-Viewer Gui while a recording you'll be asked if the recording should be canceled.
• Command line option --vresolution replaces --vaspect in tv-viewer_rec. You may now specifie the resolution of the recording.

The project is now also hosted on sourceforge.net. But the old website will stay active. I mainly use sourceforge.net to host the downloads and to provide a forum and a bugtracker.

Work on Version 0.8.x suffers at the moment from my lack of time. Check back for any news on this version.

But for now you may want to enjoy version 0.7.6.2

Best regards

TV-Viewer 0.7.7b1

The first beta version for public use. It brings some new features as well as some bugfixes. Nevertheless it is beta release. So there could be some problems

Bugfixes:

• Translation issues.
• The scheduler produced an error when the video device is already in use.
• Minor things in the code.

New features:

• Now using frequencies instead channels. This will allow you to use finetuning.
• Automatic station search no longer depends on scantv or a working VBI device node. Now all users should be able to use it.
• Update-Daemon is now a News-Reader.
• Videocard control options (Hue, saturation...) and video standard (Pal, secam, ntsc) will only be changed if necessary.
• Splash screen.

In fact I've changed hundred of lines of code. Not all changes are visible to the user, but it should be worth to upgrade. Note that TV-Viewer now depends on Tcl/Tk version 8.5 or higher. If this version is not provided by your distribution you may use ActiveTcl from ActiveState.
These new features are a preparatory work for version 0.8.x.
Normaly BETA versions are only announced on the website and with the News-Reader of TV-Viewer. As this version brings lot's of changes I will announce it the same way as always.

See the download section on how to get this version.

Some ultimate words to the last version of TV-Viewer. Until today sourceforge.net registrated 154 downloads of this version. This is far more as I expected and it motivates me to begin as early as possible with the 0.8.x development branch.

Best regards
Saedelaere

New stable release 0.7.7

After a long beta period, with five beta versions, it is time for the next stable release.
Many things have been changed since 0.7.6.2 Please note the bugfixes and new features mentioned below refer to version 0.7.6.2 and not to the last beta.

Bugfixes:

• Removed some mistakes and crudities in the text passages.
• The scheduler produced an error if the video device node was already in use and did not try again to finish the job.
• Minor things in the source code.

New Features:

• Now using frequencies instead channels. This will allow you to use finetuning.
• Automatic station search no longer depends on scantv or a working VBI device node. Now all users should be able to use it.
• Update-Daemon is now a News-Reader.
• Videocard control options (Hue, saturation...) and video standard (Pal, secam, ntsc) will only be changed if necessary.
• Splash screen.
• You may now dock TV-Viewer into the system tray (Does not work on Ubuntu).
• Added an entry field to the Station-Editor. It may be used to get the frequency of a specific channel.
• The record wizard is now able to parse output files with blancs.

If you want to have a more detailed overview of what has changed since 0.7.6.2, have a look at the changelog.
Here you can download the new version. Please note, that some system requirements have been changed!
Older configuration files and station files (< 0.7.7b1) will no longer work with this release. Create a new configuration with the "Configuration-Wizard". Use the "stations-editor" (Options --> convert stations) to convert old station files to the new format.

With this release I'am finishing the 0.7.x development branch. Only if there will be grave bugs i will make a bugfix release.
The planning for 0.8.x is mostly completed. So it is quite sure what will be included in the development branch and how to implent them. Nevertheless most of the code has still to be written. I'am looking forward to release a first alpha version within the next weeks.

Enjoy the new version

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

today i'am releasing the new stable version 0.8.1, after one year of development with several alpha and beta versions. During this period of time TV-Viewer evolved from a simple Gui, able to change stations, to a stand-alone TV Application.
The most important features are listed here, and please note the screenshots.

An important hint for all users of TV-Viewer < 0.8.1a1. Please delete the configuration directory "~/.tv-viewer" und create a new stations list and check the configuration before you install the new version. Otherwise problems can be expected.

As always if you find errors or you have something else on your mind, please contact me.

Best regards
Christian

Just installed the application on Mandriva 2010 to take a look at it. You have written a very slick application! Well done! I look forward to testing it.

Now I need to go out and purchase a Hauppauge USB as my Pinnacle USB [I just sold it to someone!!!] didn't work with Linux.

Will post back with my results.

Thanks

Purchased a Hauppauge HVR 850 USB TV Tuner

None of the ususal TV software [TVTime Xawtv] work. Your Excellent looking software also does not work for me.

The issue is the TV software only are able to see my integrated Webcam. None of the configuration options on the menu allow selecting another device. [No other device is listed.]

I installed Kaffeine which I remembered was also supposed to work with TV. I was able to scan channels! Kaffeine looked at the Tuner not the webcam.

To get the TV to play I needed to also install phonon-xine

I would appreciate if anyone tells me how to get the TV software working.

Meanwhile I can watch using Kaffeine.

What are you trying to achieve? Watch digital TV like DVB-T? TV-Viewer only supports analog TV tuners.

Regards

I have analog and digital tv over the air in my area. I cannot watch anything with the dedicated Linux TV tuner software.

With Kaffeine [for KDE4] I am able to tune both digital and analog and watch TV.

As I posted the dedicated TV tuner software does not allow me to select my USB tuner from any of the settings I can find. They all look at the integrated webcam.

Hi

I've just released a new stable version 0.8.1.1

I don't want to write to much here, because all you need to know is located on our new web site.

Enjoy!

Hi,

just to inform interested users. We are now providing precompiled packages for openSUSE, Ubuntu (and all variants) and archlinux. Details can be found on our download page.

Thank you for your TV-Viewer - great program

I've been trying to find some software to use the Hauppauge pvr 150 and after a lot of searches found your TV-Viewer
To set it up on my computer in Mint Linux 10.10
1) In the terminal I typed: v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 -i 2 setting the card to composite the card replied that is was set to composite
2) Started TV-Viewer Preferences > Analogue
Video Device Node /dev/video0
Video Standard NTSC
Frequency us-cable

Video Settings Tab
xv
etc etc...

Ran the station search and preview a channel -- all ready to go

Thanks Saedelaere

Glad you like it