Ook de pagina met Vaak voorkomende problemen van TVTIME is een nuttige informatiebron.

kdetv is unable to tune a station / does not find any device / can't select norm and other "fatal" errors.

Try starting another TV program before reporting a bug to the kdetv bugtracker or mailinglist. Many problems are the result of TV card driver or X server installations problems and are NOT kdetv's fault. Other TV programs worth trying are: xawtv, Zapping and TVTIME.

Teletext does not work (I have nxtvepg or other programs capturing VBI data running in the background).

Only ONE application can open the /dev/vbiX device that supplies VBI data (EPG, Teletext and others). The application that tries first "wins". There is no workaround to this problem at moment except for stopping the other application before running kdetv.

I configured the Video4Linux plugin to use OpenGL as display mode and now it always crashes at startup.

OpenGL unfortunately is unstable, sorry for that. To fix the above issue, delete your `~/.kde/share/config/kdetv-plugin-v4l` file or change the "`GD Method`" entry in it to "`GD Method=4`".

The "Select Source" dialog does not show any devices to choose from.

This is an installation problem. Most likely you installed kdetv in /usr once and another version in /usr/local. KDE picks up files in /usr first so kdetv might get confused and as a consequence it confuses you. Make sure you installed kdetv in your current $KDEDIR. Also, what might help is setting an environment variable named $KDEDIRS (notice the "S"!) to something like: `KDEDIRS=/usr:/usr/local`. Also check the Mailinglist Archives for previous mails on this issue and the following three items on this page.

First requirement to run kdetv: Enable a video plug-in.

Since kdetv is based on plug-ins you have the ability to choose a video plug-in, right now "Video4Linux" or "XVideo". At least one of those plug-ins has to be enabled (see the kdetv Configuration Dialog, section Video). At least some people experience problems with the "Video4Linux" plug-in right now so using the XVideo plug-in is recommended (see 3rd requirement below).

Second requirement to run kdetv: access to /dev/video*.

Make sure the bttv module is loaded so you can access the /dev/video* devices: do a `modprobe bttv` (as root) and check that the module is correctly loaded (`lsmod | grep bttv`). Also check the permissions on the device files `/dev/video*`.

Optional requirement to run kdetv (XVideo plug-in): Xvideo/v4l module loaded in XFree86.

Check the Module section of your XFree86 configuration (/etc/X11/XF86Config). You should have a load statement for the "v4l" module in there. Something like this:

    Section "Module"
      Load  "v4l"
      [...]
    EndSection

Once you started your X server with this module enabled you can use `xvinfo` to make sure your hardware is correctly initialized and the Xvideo source is usable. The `xvinfo` output should mention the "video4linux" adaptor.

You do not get any TV sound although everything looks good.

The reason for this problem is most likely that you are using one of those modern sound cards/chipsets that allow you to use the line-in connector also as line-out for surround sound output. Therefore, check your sound system configuration (ALSA) if that line-in connector is configured as line-out (surround sound output) and change that setting using kmix, kamix, or similar tools depending on your Linux installation. Also see the mailing list for details: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kwintv&m=108610642226602&w=2

You have problems with TV volume control (using /dev/mixer).

Some users of OSS/BT848/BT878 cards reported problems controlling the volume settings of their TV cards because kdetv only lists /dev/mixer as an audio control device. To work around this issue you should enable the kernel module "TV card (bt848) mixer support" (CONFIG_SOUND_TVMIXER) which allows you to activate support for the audio mixer facilities on the BT848 TV frame-grabber cards.

In case you are using Linux Kernel 2.6.X:

There seems to be a problem related to the loading of the bttv module since Kernel 2.6.0-test10 in combination with XFree86 4.3.0.x: the modules are not loaded automatically anymore so you may run into the empty "Select Source" dialog problem above. As a work-around for this problem do the following: stop your X server, do a `modprobe bttv` (as root), and start your X server again. Now you should also see the "video4linux" adaptor again when you do a `xvinfo` and kdetv should work without problems.

kdetv crashes when opening settings dialog.

This is a setup problem, you likely have another directory around somewhere where kdetv (and KDE itself) searches for shared libraries (kdetv's plugins). If you have installed in `/opt/kde3/` look for e.g. `/usr/lib/kde3` and vice versa. Look at kdetv's commandline output to find out where it searches for plugins (implemented in versions that are more recent than 0.8.3). If you use a NVidia graphics card, you should also read this posting to the kdetv mailing list.

I compiled kdetv from the sources but there is no teletext or ALSA support.

Teletext: You need to have libzvbi and libzvbi-devel packages installed. ALSA: You need to have alsa-devel packages installed. Don't forget to rerun ./configure after you installed them.

I compiled kdetv from the sources on a different architecture than x86 and I have problems / there are plugins missing.

Many video filter plugins depend on the x86 architecture since they are written in assembly language. If you have compile or runtime problems on other architectures, I'll happily accept a fix for them. Unfortunately, I only have access to a x86 system (not even x86-64!).

Does kdetv support DVB?

No. Will it ever support it? Depends - if someone sponsors me a DVB-c card, I'll have a look at it ;-)

Does kdetv support deinterlacing?

Yes. Configure it in the "Filters" page in the "Configure kdetv" dialog.

Does kdetv support recording?

No. Will it ever? Likely not. kdetv's goal is not to write another VDR (or MythTV, or whatever) system, but a small and usable TV viewer. Once recording is implemented, people start wanting time shifting and other goodies, which is beyond the scope (and architecture!) of this program. There are other applications that do this quite well, so use them instead.