alevt - X11 Teletext browser

alevt [options]

alevt is an X11 program for browsing and searching Teletext pages received by a compatible decoder (at the moment, bttv).

A summary of command line options is included below. The X11 user interface is described in the built-in manual.

-display display

Where to display the windows. Default: $DISPLAY.

-geometry geometry

Specifies the size and position of the windows. Default: 40x25.

-vbi device

Use the given device name. Default: /dev/vbi.

-finetune -4..4|auto

Try some fine tuning if you have a lot of decoding errors (these lightning symbols). This allows fine tuning of the decoder circuit. The pre finetune behaviour was -finetune 0. Default: 1.

[-parent] ppp[.ss]

Open a new window with the page number given by ppp and an optional subpage index given by ss.

The -parent keyword is just for completeness and not normally used. The pagenumber alone is sufficient. Default: 900.

-child ppp[.ss]

Open a new child window with the page number given by ppp and an optional subpage index given by ss. About the concept of parent and child windows see the built-in manual.

-erc/-noerc Enables/disables the error reduction code which substitutes errors on a page by data from a previously received one. Enabled by default.

-bell/-nobell

Enables/disables the error bell. Normally enabled.

-charset latin-1|latin-2|koi8-r

Selects the character set to use. Characters not present in the selected set are replaced by similar looking symbols. (default: latin-1)

--help

Show summary of options.

--version

Show version of program.

The order of options is important! Each page number opens a new window with the previously given geometry, device, and display. For example, to open two windows on the local display and one on display foo:0 you would start it with:

alevt 100 300 -display foo:0 100

Or, one window from /dev/vbi0 and one from /dev/vbi1 (untested *g*):

alevt -vbi /dev/vbi0 100 -vbi /dev/vbi1 100

The -child options requires a parent window. So, it must be preceeded by a parent or another child window.

When saving pages alevt asks for a format string. Look at alevt-cap(1). The chapter Format Specifiers gives an explanation.

alevt has no support to set or change the TV channel. This should be done with another (not supplied) program like xawtv or set-tv from the xawtv package. Maybe in the future there will be a more sophisticated method in bttv to switch channels etc with a dedicated tuner application. But, at the moment, you have to live with it...

/dev/vbi*

alevt-date(1), alevt-cap(1), X(3x), xawtv(1x), and the built-in manual.

There are no known bugs. If you find one, please report it to <froese@gmx.de>.

It seems, the video capture drivers for linux become more stable. But be very careful when using this program. Bugs in these kind of drivers have the tendency to result in really bad system failures.