[Kwintv] FreeBSD port...

[David E. West]

> Hello,
> 
> I'm glad to hear you are interested in improving on kdetv.
> 
> > 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.
> You can post me your patches, I'll have a look at them and apply them if they 
> are OK.

I'll put them together and send them to you.

> > 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
> That would indeed be interesting (a xine plugin would be cool, too). I'm not 
> sure whether kdetv is a good frontend, it's UI and architecture are quite TV 
> specific. But having xine work would maybe enable DVB playback...

I'd limit the scope to just tv related playback in mplayer.  The mplayer man
page seems to suggest that it supports DVB playback.  I took a quick look at
Xine's man page and didn't see a way to tell it to target an arbitrary X11
window ID.  I might have an older version of Xine.  I don't use Xine that much.

> > 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.
> The video plugins are the hardest from the technical knowledge point. Maybe an 
> mplayer/xine plugin are a good start, since they do the technical things for 
> you. Hopefully it's as easy as "display your video in this widget" and a few 
> calls to set source/encoding/muting/frequency.

I'll give that a try first and see how it goes.

> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >---- [ ] 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
> Yes it is. The KdetvSourcePlugins reside in plugins/video/<subdir>.
> 
> > 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?
> The kvideoio stuff was done do encapsulate all low-level stuff into a 
> higher-level Qt/KDE API that does not export any of the driver and OS 
> specific things into other parts of the code. The v4l, v4l2 and XVIDEO plugin 
> use these basic wrapper routines to build the video plugin on top of them. 
> It's not technically necessary, but it's desirable from a software design 
> point of view to do this.

OK, I see.  I can follow the same convention then for the bktr plugin.  I want
to stay in line with the existing architecture as much as possible.

> > [ ] What is an "audioMode" as referred to in KdetvSourcePlugin?  What are
> > some examples?  What is the difference between
> > KdetvSourcePlugin::audioModes and KdetvSourcePlugin::broadcastedAudioModes?
> Mono/Stereo/Languange1/Language2.
> audioModes: All possible audiomodes the plugin supports. 
> broadcastedAudioModes: The modes broadcasted by the current station (usually 
> here in Germany: {Stereo, Mono} or {Lang1, Lang2}. 
> 
> > [ ] What is a "source" as referred to in KdetvSourcePlugin?  What are some
> >     examples? (KdetvSourcePlugin::setSource)
> The video source (or input) of the current device, e.g. "television", 
> "composite", "s-video".
> 
> > [ ] 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?
> Not 100% sure, but it's quite sure a relic.
> 
> > 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.
> I'm also not too familiar with these and I don't *want* to be familiar with 
> the autoconf crap. Luckily, most of the things have been written by others 
> before I took over the project. I can't help you much there. But parsing 
> "uname" for Linux/FreeBSD and probing for bktr or xine should be simple.
> 
> > 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.
> No one as far as I know. Two people volunteered to work on it long in the 
> past, but noone ever posted ANY code.
> 
> > Hopefully I'll be able to get this done.  I can't wait until the day KdeTV
> > is running on FreeBSD.
> At least the XVIDEO plugin should work out-of the box if there is a bktr X.org 
> module like the X.org v4l module for Linux. Then it's just a matter of 
> compiling the right plugins for each system.

AFAIK, there isn't an XVIDEO plugin for FreeBSD that provides access to TV 
tuner cards.

> Don't hesitate to contact me if you need any help or explanation.
> Dirk
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David E. West