[Kwintv] FreeBSD port...

[David E. West]

Hello,

I'm interested in a FreeBSD port of KdeTV.  I've been following its development
for at least a year and a half hoping someone would port it over.  I've envied 
the user interface that KdeTV appears to offer.  The current TV viewers for 
FreeBSD lack a rich user interface.  Of course some people consider that a 
positive.  Normally I would.  Personally I use mplayer as my main tv viewer.  
It has a plethoria of filters.  But something like KdeTV would be easier for 
regular users.  (For example my wife)  Anyway, so far I've been able to get 
KdeTV to compile and run on "FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE-p5".  I had to modify a few 
source files and one Makefile to get it to compile.  I'll have to get up with 
someone about the details of this for a more elegant solution.

Also, I have an idea about creating a "KdetvSourcePlugin" based upon mplayer,
a la "mplayer-plug-in" used for showing videos in webpages.  This would make
use of mplayer's "-wid" and "-slave" options to target a particular window.  I
am curious as to what people would think of such a plugin.  I think it has the
potential to be pretty cool.  I also feel like such a project would be a good
first step to help me get an understanding of the KdeTV video plugin 
architecture.  But if no one thinks its a good idea, I'll probably just go
straight to a bktr based plugin.

I've been studying "libkdetv/kdetvsrcplugin.h" and the implementation of it 
found in "v4l/kdetv_v4l.h" and "v4l/kdetv_v4l.cpp".  I have a few questions:

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[ ] An email on the mailing list dated "2004-01-05 19:51:39" and titled 
    "Subject: Re: [Kwintv] FreeBSD port..." stated that all one needed to do 
    was implement the "QVSrcPlugin" (I assume this is now called 
    "KdetvSourcePlugin").  Is this still true?  I noticed that the v4l plugin 
    appears to make use of a lot of other source files and has its own sub-
    architecture that spans at least two directories.  ("plugins/video/v4l" and
    "kvideoio").  Is it fine/desirable if I keep all the bktr and/or mplayer
    code confined to their own plugin directory?  Or does this sub-architecture
    need to be mimicked?

[ ] What is an "audioMode" as referred to in KdetvSourcePlugin?  What are some
    examples?  What is the difference between KdetvSourcePlugin::audioModes and
    KdetvSourcePlugin::broadcastedAudioModes?

[ ] What is a "source" as referred to in KdetvSourcePlugin?  What are some
    examples? (KdetvSourcePlugin::setSource)

[ ] The KdetvSourcePlugin::setWidget method appears to not be used by KdetvV4L.
    Rather it appears that it gets its widget from the <parent> variable of the
    constructor.  Is my understanding here correct?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I have no experience with the whole configure framework, so I may need 
some help there.  Can anyone suggest a good primer on how configure scripts
work?  I'm not sure how to structure a good google query for this.  I've 
looked though the various "Makefile.[in|am]"'s and "configure.in.in"'s and 
think I kind of get it, but I'm still trying to figure out the big picture.

Another reason I wanted to go ahead and send out this message was to see if
anyone else is already working on a FreeBSD port of KdeTV.  I searched through
the mailing list archives and only saw one reference to such a project back in
early January 2004.  I'm assuming that project never got off the ground.

Hopefully I'll be able to get this done.  I can't wait until the day KdeTV is
running on FreeBSD.

David E. West