[Kwintv] Snapshots (no, not those kind...)

[George Staikos]

On Tuesday 09 March 2004 18:19, Andras Mantia wrote:
> George Staikos wrote:
> > stability.  The big question is, does everyone agree that we should
> > change the executable name and strings in CVS to KWinTV now?
>
> Depending who counts from the "everyone". :-)

  You're welcome to provide feedback of course.  Everyone is.

> > I don't think the
> > old
> > code is worth anything anymore in comparison.  The only feature we lack
> > is recording, and the old recording code wasn't all that special anyway.
> > The second question is, does anyone volunteer to do it? :)
>
> I've just updated from the CVS and it improves well (compared to last week
> or so), I like especially the fact that the image is not frozen while you
> fine-tune the channel with v4l/XVideo overlay. Still, before it's renamed
> to kwintv (and thus conflict with the old kwintv, so parallel installation
> of both is harder to achieve), I think some issues must be solved:

  Keep in mind that we're making snapshots toward hopefully our first "beta" 
release soon.

> 1. When using v4l plugin with overlay, the maximum size of the picture is
> fixed (according to Dirk, it depends on the chipset you have), and there is
> no option to change the resolution when going fullscreen. This means that
> on a 1024x768 desktop I get a quite small image. Due to the extreme CPU
> usage and frame skipping when not running in overlay mode and the bad
> picture quality with my card (which may be common - Geforce2MX400) in
> XVideo mode, this would be the best solution to watch TV fullscreen.
> [KWinTV 0.8.x had this feature]

   Overlay is hardly a critical feature anymore.  CPUs are powerful and the 
ideal output moe will become grab+display with deinterlacing in the future 
anyway.  It sucks for people who don't have the hardware for it, but 
eventually they will and it's more important to be prepared for that case 
first IMHO.

> 2. Picture settings per channel. Very nice thing, and the only application
> so far I seen that it had was KWinTV 0.8.x. Many channels require different
> contrast/brightness settings, some even different color settings.

  I agree, great feature, but it's possible that it will be delayed past 
version 1.0 even.  I'm starting to get concerned about making a functional 
1.0 release and getting the old kwintv replaced in distros.

> 3. Direct access to the channel properties from the RMB menu of the main
> window or RMB of the channel list. Now you must do: RMB->Configure
> qtvision->Channels->select the channel->Edit.
>
> 4. Easier reordering of channels in the channel list (not in Configure
> qtvision). Possible by D&D.

  Please add these to the TODO file (or send patches :)).

> And last, some bugs (but not showstoppers, just simple bugs):
>
> 5. transparent teletext is not working with v4l / overlay mode.

   Correct, it cannot work.

> 6. I have a device for /dev/video and /dev/video0. The first is a symlink
> to the later. I think symlinks should be resolved prior to detecting the
> devices, as they point to the same device.

   Very true, TODO file again.

> 7. one should be able to disable devices. Now I have an NVIDIA Video
> Interface Port - XVideo port 111 device and if I switch to it by mistake, I
> get a blue screen, but all my further display is broken (the colors in the
> TV are changed, I believe the RGB order becomes BGR os something similar)

   I'm not sure I agree with this.  For one, there is a bug elsewhere that you 
want to mask. For two, this is extra code and UI for little gain.

> 8. This may be a showstopper. While writing this message, QtVision was
> running in the background (v4l/overlay mode, configure qtvision dialog
> visible). It's the second time that I see my system slowing down and X uses
> 87% of CPU, the rest is used by qtvision. If I kill qtvision, everything
> goes back to normal.

   We need to run xrestop on it to see what's happening.

> 9. Might be a KWin bug from KDE 3.2+: switch to TV mode, make it Always On
> Top, switch to Full Screen and back to TV mode. The Always On Top setting
> is lost.

  Probably kwin.  Try the same with konqueror and see if that shows the same 
behaviour.

-- 
George Staikos
KDE Developer				http://www.kde.org/
Staikos Computing Services Inc.		http://www.staikos.net/