dvbt-scan - Initialise DVBT channels
dvbt-scan [options] [ <frequency file | country code> ]
Options:
-debug level set debug level -verbose level set verbosity level -help brief help message -man full documentation -clean perform a clean scan -a|dvb adap use adapter number -countries list country codes
Print a brief help message and exits.
Prints the manual page and exits.
Set verbosity level. Higher values show more information.
Set debug level. Higher levels show more debugging information (only really of any interest to developers!)
Start a clean scan (i.e. don not merge this scan with previous results). Normally you'll want to merge (the default) so that you scan in the morning and evening to pick up all the channels (since some are only broadcast morning or evening). However, after a frequency change it is best to start from scratch again by using this option.
Use if you wish to specify which one of multiple DVB adapters to use (useful if you are recording on the default adapter).
Does not run a scan, instead it lists all the supported country codes (i.e. those country codes that have information for used DVB-T frequencies).
Script that uses the perl Linux::DVB::DVBT package to provide DVB-T adapter functions.
Runs the frequency scanning function to search for Freeview channels. Stores the channel information into configuration files.
If this program is run as root then the configuration files are stored under /etc/dvb and are available for any user. Otherwise they are stored in $HOME/.tv for just the user.
The command line argument specified must be either a frequency file or a country code. Alternatively, iff a scan has been performed before, then specifying no argument causes the scan to reuse the previously saved frequencies. Note that this only works for scans performed by version 2.11 (and upwards) of the Linux::DVB::DVBT module.
The frequency file is usually something like: /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/uk-Oxford
The file contents should be something like:
# Oxford # T freq bw fec_hi fec_lo mod transmission-mode guard-interval hierarchy T 578000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
Frequency files are provided by the 'dvb' rpm package available for most distros. Alternatively, if you have kaffeine installed, look in $HOME/.kde/share/apps/kaffeine/dvb-t. If all else fails you can always get them from my CPAN web space:
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/S/SD/SDPRICE/Files/dvb-t.tar.gz
To determine which file to use, check http://www.ukfree.tv/transmitters.php and enter your postcode.
Alternatively a country code (compliant with ISO 3166-1) can be specified and a (longer!) scan of all valid frequencies for that country will be performed. For example, to scan in the UK use:
$ dvbt-scan GB
For reference, a scan of 6 frequencies stored in a frequency file takes approximately 4 minutes. A scan based on the UK country code (which consists of 57 frequencies) takes approximately 24 minutes.
For full details of the DVBT functions, please see:
perldoc Linux::DVB::DVBT
To install Linux::DVB::DVBT, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Linux::DVB::DVBT
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Linux::DVB::DVBT
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.