The Kbtv menus
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The Kbtv menus


Kbtv's Channels menu

The Channel menu contains actions to tune up and down your channel list (cyclic), corresponding with the up and down buttons in the toolbar. Shortcut keys are the PgUp and PgDown keys, for your fast zapping enjoyment. The channel input box in the toolbar can also be used if you like to enter the channel number manually (hit enter afterwards). This menu also contains the Quit action, with the usual shortcut key combination of Ctrl+Q.


Kbtv's Tools menu

The Tools menu is for special dialogs you sometimes need but not often. You can launch the Channel editor dialog from it to manage your channel list, and the Hardware info dialog which is only informational. Shortcut keys are F10 and F11. If using the pwc driver, there's no Channel editor entry (it's greyed out).


Kbtv's Settings menu

The Settings menu is for things you may want to adjust more often. It contains a toggle to and from full-screen mode (or just hit F9). In full-screen mode only the toolbar is shown (it's sufficiently small to not make the slight aspect distortion noticable). The full-screen toggle is also the first item of the toolbar.

Next you can invoke the Picture settings dialog from this menu. It allows you to set brightness, contrast, color balance, and color saturation. The shortcut key is F12.


Kbtv's Driver Settings

The Driver menu item provides a means to switch between bktr, pwc, and saa drivers, and their respective viewers. This is only available if Kbtv has saa and/or pwc support. Shortcut key combinations are Alt+b, Alt+s and Alt+p respectively.


Kbtv's Webcam GUI

If you switch to pwc from bktr or saa, the Channel menu entries for Up and Down change into Up/Down and Left/Right and their actions are to pan and tilt the camera (if your hardware supports it). They also appear in the toolbar. The channel input box in the toolbar is not functional in webcam mode, the volume slider is, and it will default to the "Mic" mixer channel (microphone). In the screenshot above, a Logitech cam is used (one of those "balls" that can tilt and pan).


Kbtv's Size Settings

To change the viewer size you can use the size submenu under Settings. Shortcut keys are F6, F7, F8 respectively for small size (200x150), medium size (400x300) and large size (the actual frame size when using a TV card, 640x480 or 768x576; SDTV 720x576 gets scaled up to 4:3 aspect).

For pwc, the capture size is currently fixed at 320x240. This may not work out too great for some cameras. The main window screenshot above is a snapshot taken with a Logitech cam (one of those "balls" that can tilt and pan).


Kbtv's Mixer Settings

The mixer settings submenu allows you to set the mixer channel to be used when controlling the volume. You need to have your TV card's audio-out wired to your soundcard's audio-in (line/aux). By default 'Line' will be selected and used at first, but if it should be another (e.g. line1 if connecting TV card audio-out with sound card line-in from card to card rather than connecting them on the outside of your computer) or if you want another temporarily (for example if using a satellite receiver through composite with its sound plugged into one of your soundcard's inlets), you can change it here. The list will show (if present): line, line1 to line3, mic, and video. This submenu is a new feature as of version 1.2.2. Shortcut keys are ALT+1, ALT+2, etc (as many as you have).


Kbtv's Volume Settings

Finally, you can turn the volume up or down by five percent points using the Volume menu item. You'll probably rather use the slider in the toolbar, or the shortcut keys, - and +.


Kbtv's Help menu

You are probably already familiar with the Help menu, since you likely used it to launch the KDE Help Center with this handbook. There's not much to say about it, other than that the What's this functionalty is not implemented.

Last but not least, as of version 1.2 you can use Space to (un-)pause the video.

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