v4l-utils

Linux utilities and libraries to handle media devices (TV devices, capture devices, radio devices, remote controllers).

You can always find the latest development v4l-utils in the git repo: http://git.linuxtv.org/v4l-utils.git.

Those utilities follow the latest Linux Kernel media API, as documented at: http://linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis/.

Any questions/remarks/patches can be sent to the linux-media mailinglist. See https://linuxtv.org/lists.php for more information about the mailinglist.

There is also a wiki page for the v4l-utils: https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/V4l-utils.

Building

v4l-utils uses the meson build system.

A number of packages is required to fully build v4l-utils. The first step is to install those packages. The package names are different on each distro.

On Debian and derivated distributions, you need to install the following packages with apt-get or aptitude:

debhelper doxygen gcc git graphviz libasound2-dev libjpeg-dev
libqt5opengl5-dev libudev-dev libx11-dev meson pkg-config
qtbase5-dev udev libsdl2-dev libbpf-dev llvm clang

On Fedora, the package list for a minimal install with dnf or yum is:

gcc gcc-c++ gettext-devel git meson perl which

(git is only requiried if you're cloning from the main git repository at linuxtv.org).

And, to be able to compile it with all usual functionality with qt5, you'll need also:

alsa-lib-devel doxygen libjpeg-turbo-devel qt5-qtbase-devel libudev-devel
mesa-libGLU-devel

The v4l2-tracer also needs the json-c library. On Debian: libjson-c-dev' ; on Fedora: json-c-devel`.

After downloading and installing the needed packages on your distribution, you should run:

meson build/
ninja -C build/

And, to install on your system:

sudo ninja -C build/ install

Optional features

Please notice that there's an extra feature to add an extra table to decode Japanese DVB tables via iconv. This is meant to be used when the iconv itself doesn't come with the ARIB-STD-B24 and EN300-468-TAB00 tables.

gconv is an auto feature, so it will be auto-enabled in case the dependencies are satisfied. However, the gconv feature can be forced to enabled by running the following command during configuration step:

meson configure -Dgconv=enabled build/

Versioning

The v4l-utils doesn't quite follow the release versioning defined at semver.org.

Instead, since version 1.0, it uses MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. Where:

• MINOR - an odd number means a development version. When the development is closed, we release an even numbered version and start a newer odd version;

• MAJOR - It is incremented when MINOR number starts to be too big. The last change occurred from 0.9.x to 1.0.

• All numbers start with 0.

All versions have their own tags, except for the current development version (with uses the master branch at the git tree).

The PATCH meaning actually depends if the version is stable or development.

• For even MAJOR.MINOR versions (1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, ...): PATCH is incremented when just bug fixes are added;

• For odd MAJOR.MINOR versions (1.1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7, ...): PATCH is incremented for release candidate versions.

API/ABI stability:

There should not have any API/ABI changes when PATCH is incremented.

When MAJOR and/or MINOR are incremented, the API/ABI for the libraries might change, although we do all the efforts for not doing it, except when inevitable.

The TODO files should specify the events that will generate API/ABI breaks.

Media libraries

There are currently three media libraries defined at lib/ directory, meant to be used internally and by other applications.

libv4l

This library is meant to be used by applications that need to talk with V4L2 devices (webcams, analog TV, stream grabbers).

It can be found on the following directories:

lib/libv4l1/
lib/libv4l2/
lib/libv4l-mplane/
lib/libv4lconvert/

See README.libv4l for more information on libv4l.

The libv4l is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

libdvbv5

This library is meant to be used by digital TV applications that need to talk with media hardware.

Full documentation is provided via Doxygen. Building documentation is enabled by the auto feature: doxygen-doc. If enabled, it will be built within the project.

It is possible to generate documentation in html, man pages and pdf formats.

The documentation is also available via web, at: http://linuxtv.org/docs/libdvbv5/.

It can be found on the following directory lib/libdvbv5/.

The libdvbv5 is released under GPL version 2.

libv4l2rds

This library provides support for RDS radio applications.

It can be found on the following directory lib/libv4l2rds/.

The libv4l is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Utilities

The utilities are stored under utils/ directory.

The (for now for v4l-utils private use only) libv4l2util library is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License, all other code is released under the GNU General Public License, unless otherwise stated.

v4l-utils includes the following utilities:

cec-compliance

Tool to test CEC API compliance of drivers.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

cec-ctl

Tool to control CEC device from the command line.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

cec-follower

Tool to setup a CEC follower for a CEC device.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

Dual licensed as GPLv2 and BSD.

cx18-ctl

Tool to help debug video devices that use the cx18 driver.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

edid-decode

Tool to parse EDIDs into a human readable format.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

Uses the MIT license.

ir-keytable

Dump, Load or Modify ir receiver input tables. The ir tables for remotes which are known by the kernel (and loaded by default depending on dvb card type) can be found under utils/keytable/keycodes.

v4l-keytable does not get installed during the install step.

ir-ctl

A swiss-knife tool to handle raw IR and to set lirc options.

ivtv-ctl

Tool to help debug video devices that use the ivtv driver.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

media-ctl

Show and configure the topology of media devices.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

qv4l2

QT v4l2 control panel application.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

qvidcap

QT vidcap video capture application.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

rds-ctl

Handle radio RDS receivers.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

v4l2-compliance

Tool to test v4l2 API compliance of drivers.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

v4l2-ctl

Tool to control v4l2 controls from the cmdline.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

v4l2-dbg

Tool to directly get and set registers of v4l2 devices, this requires a kernel >= 2.6.29 with the ADV_DEBUG option enabled. This tool can only be used by root and is meant for development purposes only!

Installed under <prefix>/sbin.

v4l2-sysfs-path

FIXME add description.

Installed under <prefix>/bin.

v4l2-tracer

Tool to trace, record and replay userspace applications that implement the v4l2 memory-to-memory stateless video decoder interface.

Installed by make install under <prefix>/bin.

Utilities in contrib

Some utilities are stored in the contrib/ directory.

These are not installed automatically.

contrib includes the following utilities:

cobalt-ctl

Tool to help debug video devices that use the cobalt driver.

decode_tm6000

Decodes tm6000 proprietary format streams.

rds-saa6588

Poll i2c RDS receiver [Philips saa6588].

xc3028-firmware

Xceive XC2028/3028 tuner module firmware manipulation tool.

Syncing with Kernel

There are a number of files on this package that depends on the Linux Kernel.

In order to make easier to keep it in sync, there's a target on this package to do the synchronism.

For the sync to work, you need to run it on with 64 bits userspace and be sure that glibc has the development package for 32 bits.

For Fedora, this is provided via this package: glibc-devel.i686

There are some steps required:

1. At the Kernel git tree:

   We need to sanitize the headers to be installed. To do that, you should run:

   make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=usr/
   

   This will create the dir usr/ inside the Kernel tree.

2. Be sure that you have installed both glibc development packages for 32 and 64 bits, as otherwise the next step will fail.

3. At v4l-utils tree:

   ./sync-with-kernel.sh location/of/the/kernel/tree
   

   Alternatively, steps 1 to 3 can be replaced with:

   KERNEL_DIR=location/of/the/kernel/tree && (cd $KERNEL_DIR && make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH=usr/) && ./sync-with-kernel.sh $KERNEL_DIR
   

4. Remove the usr/ from the Kernel tree.