tvsim - TV application interaction simulator
tvsim [ options ]
tvsim is a demo application that shows in which ways nxtvepg can cooperate with TV applications on the Micro$oft Windows operating system. It's also a reference implementation of the communication protocol and offers most of the source code (under the GPL license) that would be required to add EPG support to a TV application.
Summary of command line options (it's a sub-set of the options supported by nxtvepg):
tvsim uses the nxtvepg INI file, i.e. by default it searches for a file named nxtvepg.ini in the current working directory. If this file is located elsewhere, you need to specify the -rcfile option. Please refer to GETTING STARTED below for configuration information.
tvsim can demonstrate all TV application interaction features which currently are supported by nxtvepg:
The software is called a ``simulator'' because it doesn't display a TV image. But still it does read in a channel table and tune in the respective TV channels when they are selected in the channel table; this is required to demonstrate forwarding of VPS/PDC and EPG packets.
tvsim does not have its own INI file, instead it uses the nxtvepg INI file. Hence you should configure nxtvepg first before using tvsim. Please refer to the nxtvepg manual, section ``GETTING STARTED'' for detailed documentation of the initial configuration process. tvsim only uses the configuration settings of the TV card input and TV app. interaction dialogs, with the exception of the card index.
If your TV application's channel table format is not supported by nxtvepg and you don't have any of the supported freeware TV applications, you can set up a minimal channel table manually. The simplest format is that of the DScaler channel table; so create a file named program.txt somewhere with the following format:
Name: First Channel Freq2: 2020 Name: Second Channel Freq2: 2132
where you replace ``First Channel'' etc. with the actual channel names and the numbers with the respective TV tuner frequencies in MHz times 16 (i.e. 2020 means tuner frequency 126.25 MHz). Then open the TV app. interaction dialog in nxtvepg, choose TV app. name DScaler and specify the path to the channel table you've just creatd. Then quit the dialog with Ok and start tvsim (you don't need to quit nxtvepg). Your channels should appear in the tvsim channel table.
Please refer to the manual of nxtvepg for information on TV card and TV application interaction configuration. See also the manuals for vbirec and vbiplay for further debugging possibilities.
Th. ``Tom'' Zoerner, Erlangen, Germany.
Email: tomzo (at) users (dot) sourceforge (dot) net
Thanks to e-nek for reviewing the design of the communication protocol, alpha testing and most importantly for being the first to implement interaction with nxtvepg in a TV application.
Copyright (C) 2002 by Th. Zoerner. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation, e.g. at http://www.fsf.org/
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the file COPYRIGHT for more details.