<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!--
The FreeBSD Documentation Project
$FreeBSD$
-->
<chapter id="multimedia">
<chapterinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Ross</firstname>
<surname>Lippert</surname>
<contrib>Edited by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</chapterinfo>
<title>Multimedia</title>
<sect1 id="multimedia-synopsis">
<title>Synopsis</title>
<para>FreeBSD supports a wide variety of sound cards, allowing you
to enjoy high fidelity output from your computer. This includes
the ability to record and playback audio in the MPEG Audio Layer
3 (MP3), WAV, and Ogg Vorbis formats as well as many other
formats. The FreeBSD Ports Collection also contains
applications allowing you to edit your recorded audio, add sound
effects, and control attached MIDI devices.</para>
<para>With some experimentation, &os; can support
playback of video files and DVDs. The number of applications
to encode, convert, and playback various video media is more
limited than the number of sound applications. For example as
of this writing, there are no good re-encoding applications
in the FreeBSD Ports Collection that could be used to convert
between formats, as there is with <filename
role="package">audio/sox</filename>. However, the software
landscape in this area is changing rapidly.</para>
<para>This chapter will describe the necessary steps to configure
your sound card. The configuration and installation of X11
(<xref linkend="x11"/>) has already taken care of the
hardware issues for your video card, though there may be some
tweaks to apply for better playback.</para>
<para>After reading this chapter, you will know:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>How to configure your system so that your sound card
is recognized.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Methods to test whether your card is working.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to troubleshoot your sound setup.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to playback and encode MP3s and other audio.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How video is supported by the X server.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some video player/encoder ports which give good
results.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to playback DVDs, <filename>.mpg</filename> and
<filename>.avi</filename> files.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to rip CD and DVD content into files.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to configure a TV card.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>How to configure an image scanner.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Before reading this chapter, you should:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Know how to configure and install a new kernel
(<xref linkend="kernelconfig"/>).</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<warning>
<para>Trying to mount audio CDs with the &man.mount.8; command
will result in an error, at least, and a <emphasis>kernel
panic</emphasis>, at worst. These media have specialized
encodings which differ from the usual ISO-filesystem.</para>
</warning>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sound-setup">
<sect1info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Moses</firstname>
<surname>Moore</surname>
<contrib>Contributed by </contrib>
<!-- 20 November 2000 -->
</author>
</authorgroup>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Marc</firstname>
<surname>Fonvieille</surname>
<contrib>Enhanced by </contrib>
<!-- 13 September 2004 -->
</author>
</authorgroup>
</sect1info>
<title>Setting Up the Sound Card</title>
<sect2 id="sound-device">
<title>Configuring the System</title>
<indexterm><primary>PCI</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>ISA</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>sound cards</primary></indexterm>
<para>Before you begin, you should know the model of the card
you have, the chip it uses, and whether it is a PCI or ISA
card. FreeBSD supports a wide variety of both PCI and ISA
cards. Check the supported audio devices list of the <ulink
url="&rel.current.hardware;">Hardware Notes</ulink> to
see if your card is supported. The Hardware Notes will
also mention which driver supports your card.</para>
<indexterm>
<primary>kernel</primary>
<secondary>configuration</secondary>
</indexterm>
<para>To use your sound device, you will need to load the proper
device driver. This may be accomplished in one of two ways.
The easiest way is to simply load a kernel module for your
sound card with &man.kldload.8; which can either be done from
the command line:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>kldload snd_emu10k1</userinput></screen>
<para>or by adding the appropriate line to the file
<filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename> like this:</para>
<programlisting>snd_emu10k1_load="YES"</programlisting>
<para>These examples are for a Creative &soundblaster; Live! sound
card. Other available loadable sound modules are listed in
<filename>/boot/defaults/loader.conf</filename>.
If you are not sure which driver to use, you may try to load
the <filename>snd_driver</filename> module:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>kldload snd_driver</userinput></screen>
<para>This is a metadriver loading the most common device drivers
at once. This speeds up the search for the correct driver. It
is also possible to load all sound drivers via the
<filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename> facility.</para>
<para>If you wish to find out the driver selected for your
soundcard after loading the <filename>snd_driver</filename>
metadriver, you may check the <filename>/dev/sndstat</filename>
file with the <command>cat /dev/sndstat</command>
command.</para>
<para>A second method is to statically
compile in support for your sound card in your kernel. The
section below provides the information you need to add support
for your hardware in this manner. For more information about
recompiling your kernel, please see <xref
linkend="kernelconfig"/>.</para>
<sect3>
<title>Configuring a Custom Kernel with Sound Support</title>
<para>The first thing to do is add the audio framework driver
&man.sound.4; to the kernel; for that you will need to
add the following line to the kernel configuration file:</para>
<programlisting>device sound</programlisting>
<para>Next, you have to add the support for your sound card.
Therefore, you need to know which driver supports the card.
Check the supported audio devices list of the <ulink
url="&rel.current.hardware;">Hardware Notes</ulink>, to
determine the correct driver for your sound card. For
example, a Creative &soundblaster; Live! sound card is
supported by the &man.snd.emu10k1.4; driver. To add the support
for this card, use the following:</para>
<programlisting>device snd_emu10k1</programlisting>
<para>Be sure to read the manual page of the driver for the
syntax to use. The explicit syntax for the kernel
configuration of every supported sound driver can also be
found in the <filename>/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES</filename>
file.</para>
<para>Non-PnP ISA sound cards may require you to provide the
kernel with information on the card settings (IRQ, I/O port,
etc), as is true of all non-PnP ISA cards. This is done via
the <filename>/boot/device.hints</filename> file. During the
boot process, the &man.loader.8; will read this file and pass
the settings to the kernel. For example, an old Creative
&soundblaster; 16 ISA non-PnP card will use the
&man.snd.sbc.4; driver in conjunction with
<literal>snd_sb16</literal>. For this card the following
lines must be added to the kernel configuration file:</para>
<programlisting>device snd_sbc
device snd_sb16</programlisting>
<para>and these to
<filename>/boot/device.hints</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>hint.sbc.0.at="isa"
hint.sbc.0.port="0x220"
hint.sbc.0.irq="5"
hint.sbc.0.drq="1"
hint.sbc.0.flags="0x15"</programlisting>
<para>In this case, the card uses the <literal>0x220</literal>
I/O port and the IRQ <literal>5</literal>.</para>
<para>The syntax used in the
<filename>/boot/device.hints</filename> file is covered in the
&man.sound.4; driver manual page and the manual page
for the driver in question.</para>
<para>The settings shown above are the defaults. In some
cases, you may need to change the IRQ or the other settings to
match your card. See the &man.snd.sbc.4; manual page for more
information about this card.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="sound-testing">
<title>Testing the Sound Card</title>
<para>After rebooting with the modified kernel, or after loading
the required module, the sound card should appear in your system
message buffer (&man.dmesg.8;) as something like:</para>
<screen>pcm0: <Intel ICH3 (82801CA)> port 0xdc80-0xdcbf,0xd800-0xd8ff irq 5 at device 31.5 on pci0
pcm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
pcm0: <Cirrus Logic CS4205 AC97 Codec></screen>
<para>The status of the sound card may be checked via the
<filename>/dev/sndstat</filename> file:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cat /dev/sndstat</userinput>
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <Intel ICH3 (82801CA)> at io 0xd800, 0xdc80 irq 5 bufsz 16384
kld snd_ich (1p/2r/0v channels duplex default)</screen>
<para>The output from your system may vary. If no
<devicename>pcm</devicename> devices are listed, go back and
review what was done earlier. Go through your kernel
configuration file again and make sure the correct
device driver was chosen. Common problems are listed in <xref
linkend="troubleshooting"/>.</para>
<para>If all goes well, you should now have a functioning sound
card. If your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive's audio-out pins are
properly connected to your sound card, you can put a CD in the
drive and play it with &man.cdcontrol.1;:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>cdcontrol -f /dev/acd0 play 1</userinput></screen>
<para>Various applications, such as <filename
role="package">audio/workman</filename> can provide a
friendlier interface. You may want to install an application
such as <filename role="package">audio/mpg123</filename> to
listen to MP3 audio files.</para>
<para>Another quick way to test the card is sending data
to <filename>/dev/dsp</filename>, like this:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>cat <replaceable>filename</replaceable> > /dev/dsp</userinput></screen>
<para>where
<filename><replaceable>filename</replaceable></filename> can
be any file. This command line should produce some noise,
confirming the sound card is actually working.</para>
<note>
<para>The device nodes <filename>/dev/dsp*</filename> will be
created automatically when needed. If they are not used, they
do not exist and will not appear in the output of
&man.ls.1;.</para>
</note>
<para>Sound card mixer levels can be changed via the &man.mixer.8;
command. More details can be found in the &man.mixer.8; manual
page.</para>
<sect3 id="troubleshooting">
<title>Common Problems</title>
<indexterm><primary>device nodes</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>I/O port</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>IRQ</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>DSP</primary></indexterm>
<informaltable frame="none" pgwide="1">
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Error</entry>
<entry>Solution</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><errorname>sb_dspwr(XX) timed
out</errorname></entry>
<entry><para>The I/O port is not set
correctly.</para></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><errorname>bad irq XX</errorname></entry>
<entry><para>The IRQ is set incorrectly. Make sure
that the set IRQ and the sound IRQ are the
same.</para></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><errorname>xxx: gus pcm not attached, out of
memory</errorname></entry>
<entry><para>There is not enough available memory to
use the device.</para></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><errorname>xxx: can't open
/dev/dsp!</errorname></entry>
<entry><para>Check with <command>fstat | grep
dsp</command>
if another application is holding the device open.
Noteworthy troublemakers are
<application>esound</application> and
<application>KDE</application>'s sound
support.</para></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<para>Another issue is that modern graphics cards often come
with their own sound driver, for use with
<acronym>HDMI</acronym> and similar. This sound device will
sometimes be enumerated before the actual soundcard and the
soundcard will subsequently not be used as the default
playback device. To check if this is the case, run
<application>dmesg</application> and look for
<literal>pcm</literal>. The output looks something like
this:</para>
<programlisting>...
hdac0: HDA Driver Revision: 20100226_0142
hdac1: HDA Driver Revision: 20100226_0142
hdac0: HDA Codec #0: NVidia (Unknown)
hdac0: HDA Codec #1: NVidia (Unknown)
hdac0: HDA Codec #2: NVidia (Unknown)
hdac0: HDA Codec #3: NVidia (Unknown)
pcm0: <HDA NVidia (Unknown) PCM #0 DisplayPort> at cad 0 nid 1 on hdac0
pcm1: <HDA NVidia (Unknown) PCM #0 DisplayPort> at cad 1 nid 1 on hdac0
pcm2: <HDA NVidia (Unknown) PCM #0 DisplayPort> at cad 2 nid 1 on hdac0
pcm3: <HDA NVidia (Unknown) PCM #0 DisplayPort> at cad 3 nid 1 on hdac0
hdac1: HDA Codec #2: Realtek ALC889
pcm4: <HDA Realtek ALC889 PCM #0 Analog> at cad 2 nid 1 on hdac1
pcm5: <HDA Realtek ALC889 PCM #1 Analog> at cad 2 nid 1 on hdac1
pcm6: <HDA Realtek ALC889 PCM #2 Digital> at cad 2 nid 1 on hdac1
pcm7: <HDA Realtek ALC889 PCM #3 Digital> at cad 2 nid 1 on hdac1
...</programlisting>
<para>Here the graphics card (<literal>NVidia</literal>) has
been enumerated before the sound card (<literal>Realtek
ALC889</literal>). To use the sound card as default playback
device, change <literal>hw.snd.default_unit</literal> to the
unit that should be used for playback, enter the
following:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl hw.snd.default_unit=<replaceable>n</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>Here, <literal>n</literal> is the number of the sound
device to use, in this example <literal>4</literal>. You can
make this change permanent by adding the following line to
<filename>/etc/sysctl.conf</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>hw.snd.default_unit=<replaceable>4</replaceable></programlisting>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="sound-multiple-sources">
<sect2info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Munish</firstname>
<surname>Chopra</surname>
<contrib>Contributed by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</sect2info>
<title>Utilizing Multiple Sound Sources</title>
<para>It is often desirable to have multiple sources of sound that
are able to play simultaneously, such as when
<application>esound</application> or
<application>artsd</application> do not support sharing of the
sound device with a certain application.</para>
<para>FreeBSD lets you do this through <emphasis>Virtual Sound
Channels</emphasis>, which can be enabled with the
&man.sysctl.8; facility. Virtual channels allow you to
multiplex your sound card's playback by mixing sound in the
kernel.</para>
<para>To set the number of virtual channels, there are three
sysctl knobs which, if you are the <username>root</username>
user, can be set like this:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl dev.pcm.0.play.vchans=4</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl dev.pcm.0.rec.vchans=4</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl hw.snd.maxautovchans=4</userinput></screen>
<para>The above example allocates four virtual channels, which
is a practical number for everyday use. Both
<varname>dev.pcm.0.play.vchans=4</varname> and
<varname>dev.pcm.0.rec.vchans=4</varname> are the number of
virtual channels <devicename>pcm0</devicename> has for playback
and recording, and are configurable once a device has been
attached. <literal>hw.snd.maxautovchans</literal> is the number
of virtual channels a new audio device is given when it is
attached using &man.kldload.8;. Since the
<devicename>pcm</devicename> module can be loaded independently
of the hardware drivers, <varname>hw.snd.maxautovchans</varname>
can store how many virtual channels any devices which are
attached later will be given. Refer to &man.pcm.4; manual page
for more information.</para>
<note>
<para>You cannot change the number of virtual channels for a
device while it is in use. First close any programs using
the device, such as music players or sound daemons.</para>
</note>
<para>
The correct <devicename>pcm</devicename> device will
automatically be allocated transparently to a program
that requests <filename>/dev/dsp0</filename>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<sect2info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Josef</firstname>
<surname>El-Rayes</surname>
<contrib>Contributed by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</sect2info>
<title>Setting Default Values for Mixer Channels</title>
<para>The default values for the different mixer channels are
hardcoded in the sourcecode of the &man.pcm.4; driver. There
are many different applications and daemons that allow
you to set values for the mixer that are remembered between
invocations, but this is not a clean solution. It is possible
to set default mixer values at the driver level — this
is accomplished by defining the appropriate values in
<filename>/boot/device.hints</filename>, e.g.:</para>
<programlisting>hint.pcm.0.vol="50"</programlisting>
<para>This will set the volume channel to a default value of
50 when the &man.pcm.4; module is loaded.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sound-mp3">
<sect1info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Chern</firstname>
<surname>Lee</surname>
<contrib>Contributed by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<!-- 11 Sept 2001 -->
</sect1info>
<title>MP3 Audio</title>
<para>MP3 (MPEG Layer 3 Audio) accomplishes near CD-quality sound,
leaving no reason to let your FreeBSD workstation fall short of
its offerings.</para>
<sect2 id="mp3-players">
<title>MP3 Players</title>
<para>By far, the most popular X11 MP3 player is
<application>XMMS</application> (X Multimedia System).
<application>Winamp</application>
skins can be used with <application>XMMS</application> since
the GUI is almost identical to that of Nullsoft's
<application>Winamp</application>.
<application>XMMS</application> also has native plug-in
support.</para>
<para><application>XMMS</application> can be installed from
the <filename role="package">multimedia/xmms</filename> port
or package.</para>
<para><application>XMMS</application>'s interface is intuitive,
with a playlist, graphic equalizer, and more. Those familiar
with <application>Winamp</application> will find
<application>XMMS</application> simple to use.</para>
<para>The <filename role="package">audio/mpg123</filename> port
is an alternative, command-line MP3 player.</para>
<para><application>mpg123</application> can be run by specifying
the sound device and the MP3 file on the command line.
Assuming your audio device is
<devicename>/dev/dsp1.0</devicename> and you want to play the
MP3 file <replaceable>Foobar-GreatestHits.mp3</replaceable>
you would enter the following:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mpg123 -a <devicename>/dev/dsp1.0</devicename> <replaceable>Foobar-GreatestHits.mp3</replaceable></userinput>
High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layer 1, 2 and 3.
Version 0.59r (1999/Jun/15). Written and copyrights by Michael Hipp.
Uses code from various people. See 'README' for more!
THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Playing MPEG stream from Foobar-GreatestHits.mp3 ...
MPEG 1.0 layer III, 128 kbit/s, 44100 Hz joint-stereo</screen>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="rip-cd">
<title>Ripping CD Audio Tracks</title>
<para>Before encoding a CD or CD track to MP3, the audio data on
the CD must be ripped onto the hard drive. This is done by
copying the raw CDDA (CD Digital Audio) data to WAV
files.</para>
<para>The <command>cdda2wav</command> tool, which is a part of
the <filename role="package">sysutils/cdrtools</filename>
suite, is used for ripping audio information from CDs and the
information associated with them.</para>
<para>With the audio CD in the drive, the following command can
be issued (as <username>root</username>) to rip an entire CD
into individual (per track) WAV files:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cdda2wav -D <replaceable>0,1,0</replaceable> -B</userinput></screen>
<para><application>cdda2wav</application> will support
ATAPI (IDE) CDROM drives. To rip from an IDE drive, specify
the device name in place of the SCSI unit numbers. For
example, to rip track 7 from an IDE drive:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cdda2wav -D <replaceable>/dev/acd0</replaceable> -t 7</userinput></screen>
<para>The <option>-D <replaceable>0,1,0</replaceable></option>
indicates the SCSI device <devicename>0,1,0</devicename>,
which corresponds to the output of <command>cdrecord
-scanbus</command>.</para>
<para>To rip individual tracks, make use of the
<option>-t</option> option as shown:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cdda2wav -D <replaceable>0,1,0</replaceable> -t 7</userinput></screen>
<para>This example rips track seven of the audio CDROM. To rip
a range of tracks, for example, track one to seven, specify a
range:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cdda2wav -D <replaceable>0,1,0</replaceable> -t 1+7</userinput></screen>
<para>The utility &man.dd.1; can also be used to extract audio
tracks on ATAPI drives, read <xref
linkend="duplicating-audiocds"/> for more information on
that possibility.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="mp3-encoding">
<title>Encoding MP3s</title>
<para>Nowadays, the mp3 encoder of choice is
<application>lame</application>.
<application>Lame</application> can be found at
<filename role="package">audio/lame</filename> in the ports
tree.</para>
<para>Using the ripped WAV files, the following command will
convert
<filename><replaceable>audio01.wav</replaceable></filename>
to
<filename><replaceable>audio01.mp3</replaceable></filename>:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>lame -h -b <replaceable>128</replaceable> \
--tt "<replaceable>Foo Song Title</replaceable>" \
--ta "<replaceable>FooBar Artist</replaceable>" \
--tl "<replaceable>FooBar Album</replaceable>" \
--ty "<replaceable>2001</replaceable>" \
--tc "<replaceable>Ripped and encoded by Foo</replaceable>" \
--tg "<replaceable>Genre</replaceable>" \
<replaceable>audio01.wav audio01.mp3</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>128 kbits seems to be the standard MP3 bitrate in
use. Many enjoy the higher quality 160, or 192. The higher
the bitrate, the more disk space the resulting MP3 will
consume--but the quality will be higher. The
<option>-h</option> option turns on the <quote>higher quality
but a little slower</quote> mode. The options beginning with
<option>--t</option> indicate ID3 tags, which usually contain
song information, to be embedded within the MP3 file.
Additional encoding options can be found by consulting the
<application>lame</application> man page.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="mp3-decoding">
<title>Decoding MP3s</title>
<para>In order to burn an audio CD from MP3s, they must be
converted to a non-compressed WAV format. Both
<application>XMMS</application> and
<application>mpg123</application> support the output of MP3
to an uncompressed file format.</para>
<para>Writing to Disk in <application>XMMS</application>:</para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Launch <application>XMMS</application>.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Right-click on the window to bring up the
<application>XMMS</application> menu.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Select <literal>Preference</literal> under
<literal>Options</literal>.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Change the Output Plugin to <quote>Disk Writer
Plugin</quote>.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Press <literal>Configure</literal>.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Enter (or choose browse) a directory to write the
uncompressed files to.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Load the MP3 file into <application>XMMS</application>
as usual, with volume at 100% and EQ settings turned
off.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Press <literal>Play</literal> —
<application>XMMS</application> will appear as if it is
playing the MP3, but no music will be heard. It is
actually playing the MP3 to a file.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Be sure to set the default Output Plugin back to what
it was before in order to listen to MP3s again.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para>Writing to stdout in
<application>mpg123</application>:</para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Run <command>mpg123 -s
<replaceable>audio01.mp3</replaceable> >
<replaceable>audio01.pcm</replaceable></command></para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para><application>XMMS</application> writes a file in the WAV
format, while <application>mpg123</application> converts the
MP3 into raw PCM audio data. Both of these formats can be
used with <application>cdrecord</application> to create audio
CDs. You have to use raw PCM with &man.burncd.8;. If you
use WAV files, you will notice a small tick sound at the
beginning of each track, this sound is the header of the WAV
file. You can simply remove the header of a WAV file with
the utility <application>SoX</application> (it can be
installed from the <filename
role="package">audio/sox</filename> port or package):</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>sox -t wav -r 44100 -s -w -c 2 <replaceable>track.wav track.raw</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>Read <xref linkend="creating-cds"/> for more information
on using a CD burner in FreeBSD.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="video-playback">
<sect1info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Ross</firstname>
<surname>Lippert</surname>
<contrib>Contributed by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<!-- 5 June 2002 -->
</sect1info>
<title>Video Playback</title>
<para>Video playback is a very new and rapidly developing
application area. Be patient. Not everything is going to work
as smoothly as it did with sound.</para>
<para>Before you begin, you should know the model of the video
card you have and the chip it uses. While
<application>&xorg;</application> supports a wide variety of
video cards, fewer give good playback performance. To obtain
a list of extensions supported by the X server using your card
use the command &man.xdpyinfo.1; while X11 is running.</para>
<para>It is a good idea to have a short MPEG file which can be
treated as a test file for evaluating various players and
options. Since some DVD players will look for DVD media in
<filename>/dev/dvd</filename> by default, or have this device
name hardcoded in them, you might find it useful to make
symbolic links to the proper devices:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>ln -sf /dev/acd0 /dev/dvd</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>ln -sf /dev/acd0 /dev/rdvd</userinput></screen>
<para>Note that due to the nature of &man.devfs.5;,
manually created links like these will not persist if you reboot
your system. In order to create the symbolic links
automatically whenever you boot your system, add the following
lines to <filename>/etc/devfs.conf</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>link acd0 dvd
link acd0 rdvd</programlisting>
<para>Additionally, DVD decryption, which requires invoking
special DVD-ROM functions, requires write permission on the DVD
devices.</para>
<para>To enhance the shared memory X11 interface, it is
recommended that the values of some &man.sysctl.8; variables
should be increased:</para>
<programlisting>kern.ipc.shmmax=67108864
kern.ipc.shmall=32768</programlisting>
<sect2 id="video-interface">
<title>Determining Video Capabilities</title>
<indexterm><primary>XVideo</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>SDL</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>DGA</primary></indexterm>
<para>There are several possible ways to display video under X11.
What will really work is largely hardware dependent. Each
method described below will have varying quality across
different hardware. Secondly, the rendering of video in X11
is a topic receiving a lot of attention lately, and with each
version of <application>&xorg;</application>, there may be
significant improvement.</para>
<para>A list of common video interfaces:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>X11: normal X11 output using shared memory.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>XVideo: an extension to the X11 interface which supports
video in any X11 drawable.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>SDL: the Simple Directmedia Layer.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>DGA: the Direct Graphics Access.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>SVGAlib: low level console graphics layer.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<sect3 id="video-interface-xvideo">
<title>XVideo</title>
<para><application>&xorg;</application> has an extension called
<emphasis>XVideo</emphasis> (aka Xvideo, aka Xv, aka xv) which
allows video to be directly displayed in drawable objects
through a special acceleration. This extension provides very
good quality playback even on low-end machines.</para>
<para>To check whether the extension is running, use
<command>xvinfo</command>:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>xvinfo</userinput></screen>
<para>XVideo is supported for your card if the result looks
like:</para>
<screen>X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
Adaptor #0: "Savage Streams Engine"
number of ports: 1
port base: 43
operations supported: PutImage
supported visuals:
depth 16, visualID 0x22
depth 16, visualID 0x23
number of attributes: 5
"XV_COLORKEY" (range 0 to 16777215)
client settable attribute
client gettable attribute (current value is 2110)
"XV_BRIGHTNESS" (range -128 to 127)
client settable attribute
client gettable attribute (current value is 0)
"XV_CONTRAST" (range 0 to 255)
client settable attribute
client gettable attribute (current value is 128)
"XV_SATURATION" (range 0 to 255)
client settable attribute
client gettable attribute (current value is 128)
"XV_HUE" (range -180 to 180)
client settable attribute
client gettable attribute (current value is 0)
maximum XvImage size: 1024 x 1024
Number of image formats: 7
id: 0x32595559 (YUY2)
guid: 59555932-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
bits per pixel: 16
number of planes: 1
type: YUV (packed)
id: 0x32315659 (YV12)
guid: 59563132-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
bits per pixel: 12
number of planes: 3
type: YUV (planar)
id: 0x30323449 (I420)
guid: 49343230-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
bits per pixel: 12
number of planes: 3
type: YUV (planar)
id: 0x36315652 (RV16)
guid: 52563135-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
bits per pixel: 16
number of planes: 1
type: RGB (packed)
depth: 0
red, green, blue masks: 0x1f, 0x3e0, 0x7c00
id: 0x35315652 (RV15)
guid: 52563136-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
bits per pixel: 16
number of planes: 1
type: RGB (packed)
depth: 0
red, green, blue masks: 0x1f, 0x7e0, 0xf800
id: 0x31313259 (Y211)
guid: 59323131-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
bits per pixel: 6
number of planes: 3
type: YUV (packed)
id: 0x0
guid: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
bits per pixel: 0
number of planes: 0
type: RGB (packed)
depth: 1
red, green, blue masks: 0x0, 0x0, 0x0</screen>
<para>Also note that the formats listed (YUV2, YUV12, etc) are
not present with every implementation of XVideo and their
absence may hinder some players.</para>
<para>If the result looks like:</para>
<screen>X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
no adaptors present</screen>
<para>Then XVideo is probably not supported for your card.</para>
<para>If XVideo is not supported for your card, this only means
that it will be more difficult for your display to meet the
computational demands of rendering video. Depending on your
video card and processor, though, you might still be able to
have a satisfying experience. You should probably read about
ways of improving performance in the advanced reading <xref
linkend="video-further-reading"/>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="video-interface-SDL">
<title>Simple Directmedia Layer</title>
<para>The Simple Directmedia Layer, SDL, was intended to be a
porting layer between µsoft.windows;, BeOS, and &unix;,
allowing cross-platform applications to be developed which made
efficient use of sound and graphics. The SDL layer provides a
low-level abstraction to the hardware which can sometimes be
more efficient than the X11 interface.</para>
<para>The SDL can be found at <filename
role="package">devel/sdl12</filename>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="video-interface-DGA">
<title>Direct Graphics Access</title>
<para>Direct Graphics Access is an X11 extension which allows
a program to bypass the X server and directly alter the
framebuffer. Because it relies on a low level memory mapping to
effect this sharing, programs using it must be run as
<username>root</username>.</para>
<para>The DGA extension can be tested and benchmarked by
&man.dga.1;. When <command>dga</command> is running, it
changes the colors of the display whenever a key is pressed. To
quit, use <keycap>q</keycap>.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="video-ports">
<title>Ports and Packages Dealing with Video</title>
<indexterm><primary>video ports</primary></indexterm>
<indexterm><primary>video packages</primary></indexterm>
<para>This section discusses the software available from the
FreeBSD Ports Collection which can be used for video playback.
Video playback is a very active area of software development,
and the capabilities of various applications are bound to
diverge somewhat from the descriptions given here.</para>
<para>Firstly, it is important to know that many of the video
applications which run on FreeBSD were developed as Linux
applications. Many of these applications are still
beta-quality. Some of the problems that you may encounter with
video packages on FreeBSD include:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>An application cannot playback a file which another
application produced.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An application cannot playback a file which the
application itself produced.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The same application on two different machines,
rebuilt on each machine for that machine, plays back the
same file differently.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A seemingly trivial filter like rescaling of the image
size results in very bad artifacts from a buggy rescaling
routine.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>An application frequently dumps core.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Documentation is not installed with the port and can be
found either on the web or under the port's <filename
class='directory'>work</filename>
directory.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>Many of these applications may also exhibit
<quote>Linux-isms</quote>. That is, there may be issues
resulting from the way some standard libraries are
implemented in the Linux distributions, or some features of
the Linux kernel which have been assumed by the authors of the
applications. These issues are not always noticed and worked
around by the port maintainers, which can lead to problems like
these:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The use of <filename>/proc/cpuinfo</filename> to detect
processor characteristics.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>A misuse of threads which causes a program to hang upon
completion instead of truly terminating.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Software not yet in the FreeBSD Ports Collection
which is commonly used in conjunction with the
application.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>So far, these application developers have been cooperative
with port maintainers to minimize the work-arounds needed for
port-ing.</para>
<sect3 id="video-mplayer">
<title>MPlayer</title>
<para><application>MPlayer</application> is a recently developed
and rapidly developing video player. The goals of the
<application>MPlayer</application> team are speed and
flexibility on Linux and other Unices. The project was
started when the team founder got fed up with bad playback
performance on then available players. Some would say that
the graphical interface has been sacrificed for a streamlined
design. However, once you get used to the command line
options and the key-stroke controls, it works very
well.</para>
<sect4 id="video-mplayer-building">
<title>Building MPlayer</title>
<indexterm><primary>MPlayer</primary>
<secondary>making</secondary></indexterm>
<para><application>MPlayer</application> resides in <filename
role="package">multimedia/mplayer</filename>.
<application>MPlayer</application> performs a variety of
hardware checks during the build process, resulting in a
binary which will not be portable from one system to
another. Therefore, it is important to build it from
ports and not to use a binary package. Additionally, a
number of options can be specified in the
<command>make</command> command line, as described in the
<filename>Makefile</filename> and at the start of the
build:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make</userinput>
N - O - T - E
Take a careful look into the Makefile in order
to learn how to tune mplayer towards you personal preferences!
For example,
make WITH_GTK1
builds MPlayer with GTK1-GUI support.
If you want to use the GUI, you can either install
/usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer-skins
or download official skin collections from
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html</screen>
<para>The default port options should be sufficient for most
users. However, if you need the XviD codec, you have to
specify the <makevar>WITH_XVID</makevar> option in the
command line. The default DVD device can also be defined
with the <makevar>WITH_DVD_DEVICE</makevar> option, by
default <filename>/dev/acd0</filename> will be used.</para>
<para>As of this writing, the
<application>MPlayer</application> port will build its HTML
documentation and two executables,
<command>mplayer</command>, and <command>mencoder</command>,
which is a tool for re-encoding video.</para>
<para>The HTML documentation for
<application>MPlayer</application> is very informative.
If the reader finds the information on video hardware and
interfaces in this chapter lacking, the
<application>MPlayer</application> documentation is a very
thorough supplement. You should definitely take the time
to read the <application>MPlayer</application> documentation
if you are looking for information about video support in
&unix;.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4 id="video-mplayer-using">
<title>Using MPlayer</title>
<indexterm><primary>MPlayer</primary>
<secondary>use</secondary></indexterm>
<para>Any user of <application>MPlayer</application> must set
up a <filename>.mplayer</filename> subdirectory of her
home directory. To create this necessary subdirectory,
you can type the following:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>make install-user</userinput></screen>
<para>The command options for <command>mplayer</command> are
listed in the manual page. For even more detail there is
HTML documentation. In this section, we will describe only
a few common uses.</para>
<para>To play a file, such as
<filename><replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></filename>,
through one of the various video interfaces set the
<option>-vo</option> option:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>mplayer -vo xv <replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>mplayer -vo sdl <replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>mplayer -vo x11 <replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mplayer -vo dga <replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mplayer -vo 'sdl:dga' <replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>It is worth trying all of these options, as their
relative performance depends on many factors and will vary
significantly with hardware.</para>
<para>To play from a DVD, replace the
<filename><replaceable>testfile.avi</replaceable></filename>
with <option>dvd://<replaceable>N</replaceable> -dvd-device
<replaceable>DEVICE</replaceable></option> where
<replaceable>N</replaceable> is the title number to play
and <filename><replaceable>DEVICE</replaceable></filename>
is the device node for the DVD-ROM. For example, to play
title 3 from <filename>/dev/dvd</filename>:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mplayer -vo xv dvd://3 -dvd-device /dev/dvd</userinput></screen>
<note>
<para>The default DVD device can be defined during the build
of the <application>MPlayer</application> port via the
<makevar>WITH_DVD_DEVICE</makevar> option. By default,
this device is <filename>/dev/acd0</filename>. More
details can be found in the port
<filename>Makefile</filename>.</para>
</note>
<para>To stop, pause, advance and so on, consult the
keybindings, which are output by running <command>mplayer
-h</command> or read the manual page.</para>
<para>Additional important options for playback are:
<option>-fs -zoom</option> which engages the fullscreen mode
and <option>-framedrop</option> which helps
performance.</para>
<para>In order for the mplayer command line to not become too
large, the user can create a file
<filename>.mplayer/config</filename> and set default options
there:</para>
<programlisting>vo=xv
fs=yes
zoom=yes</programlisting>
<para>Finally, <command>mplayer</command> can be used to rip a
DVD title into a <filename>.vob</filename> file. To dump
out the second title from a DVD, type this:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile out.vob dvd://2 -dvd-device /dev/dvd</userinput></screen>
<para>The output file, <filename>out.vob</filename>, will be
MPEG and can be manipulated by the other packages described
in this section.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4 id="video-mencoder">
<title>mencoder</title>
<indexterm>
<primary>mencoder</primary>
</indexterm>
<para>Before using <command>mencoder</command> it is a good
idea to familiarize yourself with the options from the HTML
documentation. There is a manual page, but it is not very
useful without the HTML documentation. There are
innumerable ways to improve quality, lower bitrate, and
change formats, and some of these tricks may make the
difference between good or bad performance. Here are a
couple of examples to get you going. First a simple
copy:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>mencoder <replaceable>input.avi</replaceable> -oac copy -ovc copy -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>Improper combinations of command line options can yield
output files that are unplayable even by
<command>mplayer</command>. Thus, if you just want to rip
to a file, stick to the <option>-dumpfile</option> in
<command>mplayer</command>.</para>
<para>To convert
<filename><replaceable>input.avi</replaceable></filename>
to the MPEG4 codec with MPEG3 audio encoding (<filename
role="package">audio/lame</filename> is required):</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>mencoder <replaceable>input.avi</replaceable> -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=192 \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq -o <replaceable>output.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>This has produced output playable by
<command>mplayer</command> and
<command>xine</command>.</para>
<para><filename><replaceable>input.avi</replaceable></filename>
can be replaced with <option>dvd://1 -dvd-device
/dev/dvd</option> and run as <username>root</username>
to re-encode a DVD title directly. Since you are likely
to be dissatisfied with your results the first time around,
it is recommended you dump the title to a file and work on
the file.</para>
</sect4>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="video-xine">
<title>The xine Video Player</title>
<para>The <application>xine</application> video player is a
project of wide scope aiming not only at being an all in one
video solution, but also in producing a reusable base library
and a modular executable which can be extended with plugins.
It comes both as a package and as a port, <filename
role="package">multimedia/xine</filename>.</para>
<para>The <application>xine</application> player
is still very rough around the edges, but it is clearly off
to a good start. In practice, <application>xine</application>
requires either a fast CPU with a fast video card, or support
for the XVideo extension. The GUI is usable, but a bit
clumsy.</para>
<para>As of this writing, there is no input module shipped with
<application>xine</application> which will play CSS encoded
DVDs. There are third party builds which do have modules for
this built in them, but none of these are in the FreeBSD Ports
Collection.</para>
<para>Compared to <application>MPlayer</application>,
<application>xine</application> does more for the user, but
at the same time, takes some of the more fine-grained control
away from the user. The <application>xine</application> video
player performs best on XVideo interfaces.</para>
<para>By default, <application>xine</application> player will
start up in a graphical user interface. The menus can then
be used to open a specific file:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>xine</userinput></screen>
<para>Alternatively, it may be invoked to play a file
immediately without the GUI with the command:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>xine -g -p <replaceable>mymovie.avi</replaceable></userinput></screen>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="video-ports-transcode">
<title>The transcode Utilities</title>
<para>The software <application>transcode</application> is not a
player, but a suite of tools for re-encoding video and audio
files. With <application>transcode</application>, one has the
ability to merge video files, repair broken files, using
command line tools with <filename>stdin/stdout</filename>
stream interfaces.</para>
<para>A great number of options can be specified during the
build from the <filename
role="package">multimedia/transcode</filename> port, we
recommend the following command line to build
<application>transcode</application>:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make WITH_OPTIMIZED_CFLAGS=yes WITH_LIBA52=yes WITH_LAME=yes WITH_OGG=yes \
WITH_MJPEG=yes -DWITH_XVID=yes</userinput></screen>
<para>The proposed settings should be sufficient for most
users.</para>
<para>To illustrate <command>transcode</command> capacities, one
example to show how to convert a DivX file into a PAL MPEG-1
file (PAL VCD):</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>transcode -i
<replaceable>input.avi</replaceable> -V --export_prof vcd-pal -o output_vcd</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>mplex -f 1 -o <replaceable>output_vcd.mpg output_vcd.m1v output_vcd.mpa</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>The resulting MPEG file,
<filename><replaceable>output_vcd.mpg</replaceable></filename>,
is ready to be played with <application>MPlayer</application>.
You could even burn the file on a CD-R media to create a Video
CD, in this case you will need to install and use both <filename
role="package">multimedia/vcdimager</filename> and <filename
role="package">sysutils/cdrdao</filename> programs.</para>
<para>There is a manual page for <command>transcode</command>, but
you should also consult the <ulink
url="http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode">transcode
wiki</ulink> for further information and examples.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="video-further-reading">
<title>Further Reading</title>
<para>The various video software packages for FreeBSD are
developing rapidly. It is quite possible that in the near
future many of the problems discussed here will have been
resolved. In the mean time, those who want to get the very
most out of FreeBSD's A/V capabilities will have to cobble
together knowledge from several FAQs and tutorials and use a
few different applications. This section exists to give the
reader pointers to such additional information.</para>
<para>The <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/">MPlayer
documentation</ulink> is very technically informative.
These documents should probably be consulted by anyone wishing
to obtain a high level of expertise with &unix; video. The
<application>MPlayer</application> mailing list is hostile to
anyone who has not bothered to read the documentation, so if
you plan on making bug reports to them, RTFM.</para>
<para>The <ulink
url="http://dvd.sourceforge.net/xine-howto/en_GB/html/howto.html">
xine HOWTO</ulink> contains a chapter on performance improvement
which is general to all players.</para>
<para>Finally, there are some other promising applications which
the reader may try:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><ulink
url="http://avifile.sourceforge.net/">Avifile</ulink>
which is also a port <filename
role='package'>multimedia/avifile</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><ulink
url="http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/">Ogle</ulink>
which is also a port <filename
role='package'>multimedia/ogle</filename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><ulink
url="http://xtheater.sourceforge.net/">Xtheater</ulink></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename
role="package">multimedia/dvdauthor</filename>, an open
source package for authoring DVD content.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="tvcard">
<sect1info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Josef</firstname>
<surname>El-Rayes</surname>
<contrib>Original contribution by </contrib>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Marc</firstname>
<surname>Fonvieille</surname>
<contrib>Enhanced and adapted by </contrib>
<!-- 02 January 2004 -->
</author>
</authorgroup>
</sect1info>
<title>Setting Up TV Cards</title>
<indexterm>
<primary>TV cards</primary>
</indexterm>
<sect2>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>TV cards allow you to watch broadcast or cable TV on your
computer. Most of them accept composite video via an RCA or
S-video input and some of these cards come with a FM radio
tuner.</para>
<para>&os; provides support for PCI-based TV cards using a
Brooktree Bt848/849/878/879 or a Conexant CN-878/Fusion 878a
Video Capture Chip with the &man.bktr.4; driver. You must
also ensure the board comes with a supported tuner, consult
the &man.bktr.4; manual page for a list of supported
tuners.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Adding the Driver</title>
<para>To use your card, you will need to load the &man.bktr.4;
driver, this can be done by adding the following line to the
<filename>/boot/loader.conf</filename> file like this:</para>
<programlisting>bktr_load="YES"</programlisting>
<para>Alternatively, you may statically compile the support for
the TV card in your kernel, in that case add the following
lines to your kernel configuration:</para>
<programlisting>device bktr
device iicbus
device iicbb
device smbus</programlisting>
<para>These additional device drivers are necessary because
of the card components being interconnected via an I2C bus.
Then build and install a new kernel.</para>
<para>Once the support was added to your system, you have to
reboot your machine. During the boot process, your TV card
should show up, like this:</para>
<programlisting>bktr0: <BrookTree 848A> mem 0xd7000000-0xd7000fff irq 10 at device 10.0 on pci0
iicbb0: <I2C bit-banging driver> on bti2c0
iicbus0: <Philips I2C bus> on iicbb0 master-only
iicbus1: <Philips I2C bus> on iicbb0 master-only
smbus0: <System Management Bus> on bti2c0
bktr0: Pinnacle/Miro TV, Philips SECAM tuner.</programlisting>
<para>Of course these messages can differ according to your
hardware. However you should check if the tuner is correctly
detected; it is still possible to override some of the
detected parameters with &man.sysctl.8; MIBs and kernel
configuration file options. For example, if you want to force
the tuner to a Philips SECAM tuner, you should add the
following line to your kernel configuration file:</para>
<programlisting>options OVERRIDE_TUNER=6</programlisting>
<para>or you can directly use &man.sysctl.8;:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl hw.bt848.tuner=6</userinput></screen>
<para>See the &man.bktr.4; manual page and the
<filename>/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES</filename> file for more
details on the available options.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Useful Applications</title>
<para>To use your TV card you need to install one of the
following applications:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><filename role="package">multimedia/fxtv</filename>
provides TV-in-a-window and image/audio/video capture
capabilities.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename role="package">multimedia/xawtv</filename>
is also a TV application, with the same features as
<application>fxtv</application>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename role="package">misc/alevt</filename> decodes
and displays Videotext/Teletext.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename role="package">audio/xmradio</filename>, an
application to use the FM radio tuner coming with some
TV cards.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename role="package">audio/wmtune</filename>, a
handy desktop application for radio tuners.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>More applications are available in the &os; Ports
Collection.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Troubleshooting</title>
<para>If you encounter any problem with your TV card, you should
check at first if the video capture chip and the tuner are
really supported by the &man.bktr.4; driver and if you used
the right configuration options. For more support and various
questions about your TV card you may want to contact and use
the archives of the &a.multimedia.name; mailing list.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="mythtv">
<title>MythTV</title>
<para>MythTV is an open source <acronym
role="Personal Video Recorder">PVR</acronym> software
project.</para>
<para>It is well-known in the &linux; world as a complex
application with many dependencies, and therefore difficult to
install. The &os; ports system simplifies much of the process,
but some components must be set up manually. This section is
intended to help and guide in setting up MythTV.</para>
<sect2>
<title>Hardware</title>
<para>MythTV is designed to utilise <acronym
role="Video for Linux">V4L</acronym> to access video input
devices such as encoders and tuners. At this time, MythTV
works best with <acronym role="Universal Serial
Bus">USB</acronym> DVB-S/C/T cards supported by <filename
role="package">multimedia/webcamd</filename> because
<application>webcamd</application> provides a <acronym
role="Video for Linux">V4L</acronym> userland application.
Any <acronym role="Digital Video Broadcasting">DVB</acronym>
card supported by <application>webcamd</application> should
work with MythTV, but a list of known working cards can be
found <ulink
url="http://wiki.freebsd.org/WebcamCompat">here</ulink>.
There are also drivers available for Hauppauge cards in the
following packages: <filename
role="package">multimedia/pvr250</filename> and <filename
role="package">multimedia/pvrxxx</filename>, but they
provide a non-standard driver interface that does not work
with versions of MythTV greater than 0.23.</para>
<para><ulink url="http://wiki.freebsd.org/HTPC">HTPC</ulink>
contains a list of all available <acronym
role="Digital Video Broadcasting">DVB</acronym>
drivers.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Dependencies</title>
<para>Being flexible and modular, MythTV allows the user to
have the frontend and backend on different machines.</para>
<para>For the frontend, <filename
role="package">multimedia/mythtv-frontend</filename> is
required, as well as an X server, which can be found in
<filename role="package">x11/xorg</filename>. Ideally, the
frontend computer also has a video card that supports <acronym
role="X-Video Motion Compensation">XvMC</acronym> and,
optionally, a <acronym
role="Linux Infrared Remote
Control">LIRC</acronym>-compatible
remote.</para>
<para>For the backend, <filename
role="package">multimedia/mythtv</filename> is required,
as well as a &mysql; database, and optionally a tuner and
storage for recordings. The &mysql; package should be
automatically installed as a dependency when installing
<filename role="package">multimedia/mythtv</filename>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Setting up MythTV</title>
<para>To install MythTV, use the following steps. First,
install MythTV from the &os; Ports collection:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/multimedia/mythtv</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput></screen>
<para>Set up the MythTV database:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mysql -uroot -p < /usr/local/share/mythtv/database/mc.sql</userinput></screen>
<para>Configure the backend:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mythtv-setup</userinput></screen>
<para>Start the backend:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>echo 'mythbackend_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>service mythbackend start</userinput></screen>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="scanners">
<sect1info>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Marc</firstname>
<surname>Fonvieille</surname>
<contrib>Written by </contrib>
<!-- 04 August 2004 -->
</author>
</authorgroup>
</sect1info>
<title>Image Scanners</title>
<indexterm>
<primary>image scanners</primary>
</indexterm>
<sect2>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>In &os;, access to image scanners is provided
by the <application>SANE</application> (Scanner Access Now
Easy) <acronym role="Application Programming
Interface">API</acronym> available through the &os; Ports
Collection. <application>SANE</application> will also use
some &os; device drivers to access to the scanner
hardware.</para>
<para>&os; supports both SCSI and USB scanners. Be sure your
scanner is supported by <application>SANE</application> prior
to performing any configuration.
<application>SANE</application> has a <ulink
url="http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html">supported
devices</ulink> list that can provide you with information
about the support for a scanner and its status. On systems
prior to &os; 8.X the
&man.uscanner.4; manual page also provides a list of supported
USB scanners.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Kernel Configuration</title>
<para>As mentioned above both SCSI and USB interfaces are
supported. According to your scanner interface, different
device drivers are required.</para>
<sect3 id="scanners-kernel-usb">
<title>USB Interface</title>
<para>The <filename>GENERIC</filename> kernel by default
includes the device drivers needed to support USB scanners.
Should you decide to use a custom kernel, be sure that the
following lines are present in your kernel configuration
file:</para>
<programlisting>device usb
device uhci
device ohci
device ehci</programlisting>
<para>On systems prior to &os; 8.X, the following line is
also needed:</para>
<programlisting>device uscanner</programlisting>
<para>On these versions of &os;, the &man.uscanner.4; device
driver provides support for the USB scanners. Since
&os; 8.0, this support is directly provided by
the &man.libusb.3; library.</para>
<para>After rebooting with the correct kernel,
plug in your USB scanner. A
line showing the detection of your
scanner should appear in the system message buffer
(&man.dmesg.8;):</para>
<screen>ugen0.2: <EPSON> at usbus0</screen>
<para>or on a &os; 7.X system:</para>
<screen>uscanner0: EPSON EPSON Scanner, rev 1.10/3.02, addr 2</screen>
<para>These messages show that our scanner is using
either <filename>/dev/ugen0.2</filename> or
<filename>/dev/uscanner0</filename> as device node according
to the &os; version we run. For this example, a
&epson.perfection; 1650 USB scanner was used.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>SCSI Interface</title>
<para>If your scanner comes with a SCSI interface, it is
important to know which SCSI controller board you will use.
According to the SCSI chipset used, you will have to tune
your kernel configuration file. The
<filename>GENERIC</filename> kernel supports the most common
SCSI controllers. Be sure to read the
<filename>NOTES</filename> file
and add the correct line to your kernel
configuration file. In addition to the SCSI adapter driver,
you need to have the following lines in your kernel
configuration file:</para>
<programlisting>device scbus
device pass</programlisting>
<para>Once your kernel has been properly compiled and
installed, you should be able to see the devices in the
system message buffer, when booting:</para>
<screen>pass2 at aic0 bus 0 target 2 lun 0
pass2: <AGFA SNAPSCAN 600 1.10> Fixed Scanner SCSI-2 device
pass2: 3.300MB/s transfers</screen>
<para>If your scanner was not powered-on at system boot, it
is still possible to manually force the detection by
performing a SCSI bus scan with the &man.camcontrol.8;
command:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>camcontrol rescan all</userinput>
Re-scan of bus 0 was successful
Re-scan of bus 1 was successful
Re-scan of bus 2 was successful
Re-scan of bus 3 was successful</screen>
<para>Then the scanner will appear in the SCSI devices
list:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>camcontrol devlist</userinput>
<IBM DDRS-34560 S97B> at scbus0 target 5 lun 0 (pass0,da0)
<IBM DDRS-34560 S97B> at scbus0 target 6 lun 0 (pass1,da1)
<AGFA SNAPSCAN 600 1.10> at scbus1 target 2 lun 0 (pass3)
<PHILIPS CDD3610 CD-R/RW 1.00> at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass2,cd0)</screen>
<para>More details about SCSI devices are available in the
&man.scsi.4; and &man.camcontrol.8; manual pages.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>SANE Configuration</title>
<para>The <application>SANE</application> system is
split in two parts: the backends (<filename
role="package">graphics/sane-backends</filename>) and the
frontends (<filename
role="package">graphics/sane-frontends</filename>). The
backends part provides access to the scanner itself. The
<application>SANE</application>'s <ulink
url="http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html">supported
devices</ulink> list specifies which backend will support your
image scanner. It is mandatory to determine the correct
backend for your scanner if you want to be able to use your
device. The frontends part provides the graphical scanning
interface (<application>xscanimage</application>).</para>
<para>The first step is to install the <filename
role="package">graphics/sane-backends</filename> port or
package. Then, use the <command>sane-find-scanner</command>
command to check the scanner detection by the
<application>SANE</application> system:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sane-find-scanner -q</userinput>
found SCSI scanner "AGFA SNAPSCAN 600 1.10" at /dev/pass3</screen>
<para>The output will show the interface type of the scanner and
the device node used to attach the scanner to the system. The
vendor and the product model may not appear, it is not
important.</para>
<note>
<para>Some USB scanners require you to load a firmware, this
is explained in the backend manual page. You should also
read &man.sane-find-scanner.1; and &man.sane.7; manual
pages.</para>
</note>
<para>Now we have to check if the scanner will be identified
by a scanning frontend. By default, the
<application>SANE</application> backends comes with a command
line tool called &man.scanimage.1;. This command allows you
to list the devices and to perform an image acquisition from
the command line. The <option>-L</option> option is used to
list the scanner devices:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>scanimage -L</userinput>
device `snapscan:/dev/pass3' is a AGFA SNAPSCAN 600 flatbed scanner</screen>
<para>Or, for example with the USB scanner used in the <xref
linkend="scanners-kernel-usb"/>:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>scanimage -L</userinput>
device 'epson2:libusb:/dev/usb:/dev/ugen0.2' is a Epson GT-8200 flatbed scanner</screen>
<para>This output comes from a &os; 8.X system, the
<literal>'epson2:libusb:/dev/usb:/dev/ugen0.2'</literal> item
gives us the backend name (<literal>epson2</literal>) and the
device node (<literal>/dev/ugen0.2</literal>) used by our
scanner.</para>
<note>
<para>No output or a message saying that no scanners were
identified indicates that &man.scanimage.1; is unable to
identify the scanner. If this happens, you will need to
edit the backend configuration file and define the scanner
device used. The <filename
class="directory">/usr/local/etc/sane.d/</filename>
directory contains all backend configuration files. This
identification problem does appear with certain USB
scanners.</para>
<para>For example, with the USB scanner used in the <xref
linkend="scanners-kernel-usb"/>, under &os; 8.X the
scanner is perfectly detected and working but under prior
versions of &os; (where &man.uscanner.4; driver is used)
<command>sane-find-scanner</command> gives us the following
information:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sane-find-scanner -q</userinput>
found USB scanner (UNKNOWN vendor and product) at device /dev/uscanner0</screen>
<para>The scanner is correctly detected, it uses the USB
interface and is attached to the
<filename>/dev/uscanner0</filename> device node. We can
now check if the scanner is correctly identified:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>scanimage -L</userinput>
No scanners were identified. If you were expecting something different,
check that the scanner is plugged in, turned on and detected by the
sane-find-scanner tool (if appropriate). Please read the documentation
which came with this software (README, FAQ, manpages).</screen>
<para>Since the scanner is not identified, we will need to edit
the <filename>/usr/local/etc/sane.d/epson2.conf</filename>
file. The scanner model used was the
&epson.perfection; 1650, so we know the scanner will use
the <literal>epson2</literal> backend. Be sure to read the
help comments in the backends configuration files. Line
changes are quite simple: comment out all lines that have the
wrong interface for your scanner (in our case, we will comment
out all lines starting with the word <literal>scsi</literal>
as our scanner uses the USB interface), then add at the end
of the file a line specifying the interface and the device
node used. In this case, we add the following line:</para>
<programlisting>usb /dev/uscanner0</programlisting>
<para>Please be sure to read the comments provided in the
backend configuration file as well as the backend manual page
for more details and correct syntax to use. We can now verify
if the scanner is identified:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>scanimage -L</userinput>
device `epson:/dev/uscanner0' is a Epson GT-8200 flatbed scanner</screen>
<para>Our USB scanner has been identified. It is not important
if the brand and the model do not match the scanner. The
key item to be concerned with is the
<literal>`epson:/dev/uscanner0'</literal> field, which give
us the right backend name and the right device node.</para>
</note>
<para>Once the <command>scanimage -L</command> command is able
to see the scanner, the configuration is complete. The device
is now ready to scan.</para>
<para>While &man.scanimage.1; does allow us to perform an
image acquisition from the command line, it is preferable to
use a graphical user interface to perform image scanning.
<application>SANE</application> offers a simple but efficient
graphical interface: <application>xscanimage</application>
(<filename
role="package">graphics/sane-frontends</filename>).</para>
<para><application>Xsane</application> (<filename
role="package">graphics/xsane</filename>) is another popular
graphical scanning frontend. This frontend offers advanced
features such as various scanning mode (photocopy, fax, etc.),
color correction, batch scans, etc. Both of these applications
are usable as a <application>GIMP</application> plugin.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Giving Other Users Access to the Scanner</title>
<para>All previous operations have been done with
<username>root</username> privileges. You may however, need
other users to have access to the scanner. The user will need
read and write permissions to the device node used by the
scanner. As an example, our USB scanner uses the device node
<filename>/dev/ugen0.2</filename> which is in fact just a
symlink to the real device node called
<filename>/dev/usb/0.2.0</filename> (a quick look at the
contents of the <filename class="directory">/dev</filename>
directory will confirm it). Both, the symlink and the
device node, are owned respectively by the
<groupname>wheel</groupname> and the
<groupname>operator</groupname> groups. Adding the user
<username><replaceable>joe</replaceable></username> to these
groups will allow him to use the scanner but, for obvious
security reasons, you should think twice before adding a user
to any group, especially the <groupname>wheel</groupname> group.
A better solution would be creating a specific group for using
the USB devices and make the scanner device accessible to
members of this group.</para>
<para>So we will use, for example, a group called
<groupname><replaceable>usb</replaceable></groupname>. The
first step is the creation of this group with the help of the
&man.pw.8; command:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>pw groupadd usb</userinput></screen>
<para>Then we have to make the <filename>/dev/ugen0.2</filename>
symlink and the <filename>/dev/usb/0.2.0</filename> device
node accessible to the <groupname>usb</groupname> group
with the correct write permissions (<literal>0660</literal> or
<literal>0664</literal>), because by default only the owner of
these files (<username>root</username>) can write to them.
All of this is done by adding the following
lines to the <filename>/etc/devfs.rules</filename>
file:</para>
<programlisting>[system=5]
add path ugen0.2 mode 0660 group usb
add path usb/0.2.0 mode 0666 group usb</programlisting>
<para>&os; 7.X users will probably need the following
lines with the correct device node
<filename>/dev/uscanner0</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>[system=5]
add path uscanner0 mode 660 group usb</programlisting>
<para>Then add the following to
<filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename> and reboot the
machine:</para>
<programlisting>devfs_system_ruleset="system"</programlisting>
<para>More information regarding these lines can be found in the
&man.devfs.8; manual page.</para>
<para>Now, one will just have to add users to the
<groupname><replaceable>usb</replaceable></groupname> group to
allow the access to the scanner:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>pw groupmod usb -m <replaceable>joe</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>For more details read the &man.pw.8; manual page.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>