stampTV's Notice

What is stampTV?

Version 3 introduces plugins support. For more details, please see the general documentation and the developer's documentation. New!!! v3.0

Requirements

Who are the authors?

A number of other developers/users have contributed to stampTV. In (apparent) chronological order:

Frank Olivier, Christopher Lenz, Eugenia Loli, Stephan Assmus, Sylvain Tertois, Alexander Wilkens, Georges-Edouard Berenger, Attila Lendvai and possibly others: let me know if you feel you should be in that list!

Others contributors should be thanked for their help. They have provided answers and/or sample code:

John Wiggins, Toshihiro Kisaka, Shigeru Kobayashi, Carlos Hasan, Sean Long, and possibly others! Let me know if you feel you should be in that list!

How does it work?

• Left-click inside the window and drag around
  To move the window around.
• Double left-click inside the window
  To switch to/from full screen mode (or press the Tab key).
• Middle-click inside the window and drag in a Tracker's window or on the Desktop
  To capture a frame and save it as a file. Press the Control key while doing that, and you'll be able to select which image format will be used.
• Right-click inside the window
  To access the popup menu. See below for a detailed description of this popup menu.

• Resize the window as you wish
  You can freely resize the window to your favorite size, provided the TV card can support this resolution.
• Zoom the window
  This will ask stampTV to find the closest ideal window size the TV card can support. If the current size is already among the natural sizes supported, then it will select the next one.
• Press the left & right arrow keys
  To view the next or the previous channel.
• Press the up & down arrows, or Alt-M.
  To control the volume: increase, decrease or mute.
• Press the 'return' key
  To create or edit the current preset. You'll be able to choose a name and a keyboard shortcut for that preset.
• Press the 'Delete' key
  To delete the current preset.
• Press the '+' and '-' keys
  To select the next or the previous preset.

• Channel
  Will allow you to select which channel you want to watch, identified by channel codes.
  Next Channel and Next Channel will do what you expect.
  Subdivide Menu will split the channel menu in several submenus somewhat improving the channel navigation.
  

• Presets
  Gives quick access to the named channel presets, as well as the creation and edition of those presets. Those functions are accessible with simple keystrokes without using any modifier such as Alt, Option or Control.
  Next Preset and Next Preset will do what you expect.
  

• Back to the Last Channel
  Brings you back to the last channel you were viewing before you last changed to an other one.
  Very handy to switch between two programs.
• Video Preferences
  To change your TV card's settings using BeOS's video preferences panel.
  Please refer to BeOS's documentation for more details.
• Video Size New!!! v3.0
  To select the size of the video among the tuner's best supported resolutions.
  

  The Locked (Scale) option gives you the possibility to choose among two different behaviors when you resize stampTV's window.
  If the option is active (the menu item is checked), then stampTV will use a video stream of a constant size what ever the size of the window is, and will scale the frames in real-time to fit the window. The result is that the image quality is decreased, and the processor has much more work to do if it doesn't use an overlay. On the other hand, resizing is faster, and you can resize the window as you wish to almost any size.

  Attention! If an overlay is used, then your video card will do the scaling of the image. The processor won't have any work to do, and the image quality will be somewhat better, but some video cards refuse to shrink an image while others won't grow one... Resize the video to an acceptable size, or don't use the Locked (Scale) option.

  If the option is not active, when you resize the window, stampTV will ask for a new video stream with the size of the window. This prevents your processor from doing unnecessary scaling and provides the best possible image quality, but resizing won't be smooth. This is how stampTV used to always function before the Locked (Scale) option was introduced.

  The rest of the menu will allow you to select directly the size of the video you wish among the best ones your tuner can provide. If the Locked (Scale) option is not active, then the window & the video always have the same size: if you resize one, the other is also resized.

  Use the Locked (Scale) option when you want to use a plugin that requires more processing power than your computer has. For instance, select a video size of "320x240" and resize the window as you wish.

• Window Size New!!! v3.0
  When the Locked (Scale) option is active, then you can resize the window & the video size independently, and this menu will appear. This menu will allow you to resize the window as you wish.
  

• Full Screen Mode
  To select which resolution & refresh rate should be used in full screen mode. The video size will be automatically selected to be as big as possible in the selected mode.
  By using the Video Size menu while in full screen size, you can override this automatic choice.
  If you select a resolution that matches your current desktop resolutio, pick the refresh rate marked as "Current" and have the Video Size marked as "Locked (Scale)", stampTV will just resize the window so it fills the entire desktop. This makes switching to/from fulls screen faster and avoids some locking issues when switching resolutions. New!!! v3.1
  

• Image Tuning
  To control the image quality. Provides direct access to the brightness, contrast and color saturation settings.
  

• Audio
  To control the TV's volume. First, make sure that you have selected the right audio control. Use the Source sub-menu to tell stampTV what controls the TV's audio. It is likely to be the "Line" or "Line out" item. That depends on your system.
  The Mute item allows you to mute the selected source, while Volume gives fine control on the volume. You can directly interact with the slider while the popup menu is shown: just go over the slider and press the mouse button!
  The Volume Up and Volume Down item allow you to do the same with the keyboard as well: use the up & the down arrows.
  The code to detect and control the audio input has been improved in the latest version. Please report any problems you find. Improved!!! v3.1
  

• In the Plugins submenu, you will find: Improved!!! v3.0
  
  • Mosaic and Quarks
    The top part of the submenu shows which plugin(s) is(are) active. In the shown case, the "Mosaic" and the "Quarks" plugins are active.
  • Configure
    If the plugin has a configuration panel, then this item will be present in the plugin's submenu. Select this item to access the plugins configuration window. It will also be shown is you simply select the plugin's menu item itself.
  • Remove
    Allows you to deactivate the designated plugin.
  • About
    Gives you some information about the plugin & its author.
  • Add
    This submenu shows which plugins are available. Select the plugin you wish to activate, and it will be added after the last currently active plugin. There is currently no way to reorder plugins, apart from removing them and re-adding them in the wished order. (Only a few of these plugins are included in stampTV's default package. You'll find the others at the BeBits web size.)

    Attention! All combinations of plugins are not acceptable. For instance, if the first plugin only produces 16 bits images and the second can only accept 32 bits images, then they can't be put one after the other. If adding a plugin produces a chain which can't work, stampTV will automatically remove the last plugin of the chain, canceling your add-operation. It won't even complain and will just remove it!

  

• The Preferences submenu allows you to control which options are activated:
  
  • No Tab
    To choose whether stampTV's window should have a title tab.
  • On Top
    Will force or not stampTV's window to remain above all others.
  • Window can't be Moved Offscreen
    Will force stampTV's window to always remain entirely in the monitor's frame.
  • Full Screen
    To use the entire monitor's surface to watch TV. Press Tab or Escape to return to the normal window mode.
  • Occupy All Workspaces New!!! v3.0
    Let's you choose whether stampTV should be present in every workspace, or only on the current one. When the fullscreen mode is active, this option is automatically turned off.
  • Disable Screen Saver New!!! v3.0
    This options will prevent BeOS's screen saver to be activated while stampTV is running. Note that BeOS's ScreenSaver settings are not changed: stampTV simply simulates some user activity every once in a while to prevent the activation of the screen saver module.
• The User Services submenu offers direct access to different Internet pages:
  
  • Read stampTV's Notice
    To (re)read this documentation.
  • Visit stampTV's Web Site at BeBits
    Opens your default web browser to stampTV's page at BeBits.
    You must be connected to the Internet for this to work.
  • Search for Plugins in BeBits
    Opens your default web browser, and queries BeBits for stampTV's plugins.
    You must be connected to the Internet for this to work.
  • Rate stampTV at BeBits
    BeBits allows users to rate the applications listed it offers. You are invited to express your opinion about stampTV there!
    You must be connected to the Internet to do so.
  • Write a Bug Report
    Creates a template email containing information describing your system and stampTV's versions. You can edit this email as you wish to report problems you are experiencing with this program.
• Quit
  Have a guess!...
• That's it!

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is stampTV working in overlay mode?
  It is very easy to tell if stampTV successfully managed to use an overlay: Change the channel and see how the channel's name is displayed. If the name appears inside a solid rectangular black frame, then overlay is not active. If the green letters appear directly over the TV image with no black background, then an overlay is being used.
• Can you implement Teletext?
  Teletext support requires some driver level support, which is not implemented in Be current Bt848 driver as far as I know. Even if it was, that would most probably be a good topic for an other application!
• What about remote controllers?
  Support for infra red (IR) controllers is provided through BeInControl. For detailed support, please refer to the BeInControl's documentation.
  Support for remote controllers such as the one your video card has is unlikely to ever happen. This requires quite a lot of detailed information on the card itself, and support would be limited to a subset of the TV cards...
• Can't you make of stampTV a replicant?
  Interesting request. Versions 2.1 & 2.2 bring essential code changes which should make this easy now: everything is now handled by the view itself, leaving next to nothing into the BApplication class, and only what is strictly necessary inside the BWindow class. Preferences should work as well. Want to finish replicant support? If so, get in touch with me as soon as possible to be sure to synchronize your efforts!

StampTV's License

1. You comply with the Be Sample Code License (included below) if you use any of the files mentioning a copyright from Be Incorporated.
2. Redistribution of source code must retain the following copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.
3. Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the following copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
4. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

© 2003-2004, Bruno G. Albuquerque, All Rights Reserved.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

I will be glad to hear about your bug reports, problems, comments, flames, suggestions...
You can mail me directly : Bruno G. Albuquerque.

stampTV is provided with source code for anyone to play with. If you want to contribute with any improvement or bug fix, please let us know! We will see if it makes sense for the official distribution.

Please, before you do any major work on stampTV's source code, why don't you drop us a note to be sure efforts are not duplicate? That will prevent frustration for everyone! Everyone hates it when one discovers that what he has just written is already in the works...

Be Sample Code License

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistribution of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

Known bugs & problems

• When switching between workspaces with different color depth when overlay is in use, you may get "dirt" on the screen which you can wipe out by moving a window around.
• Resizing the window (or zooming it) will cause a short audio interruption. This is normal: the connection with the media node is cut and re-established with buffers of the adequate new size. This guarantees that the image quality is always as good as possible because the driver always provides an image of the right side (no scaling is ever done by the app server, unlike with TV).

To do (help & suggestions are welcomed!)

• Replicant support.
• Support for more remote controllers.
• A remote controller plugin.
• A mosaic plugin to "watch" different channels at once.
• More plugins.

History

v3.3 (February 19th, 2004)

• Should now detect all cards that support audio inputs. If you still have problems, please report.
• Now the makefile detects Zeta/R5. Source almost ready to be released.
• "make package" now uses "mkdir -p", so it won't fail if the target directory exists.

v3.2 (February 12th, 2004)

• Switching to full screen mode in a resolution different from the Desktop resolution works.
• Changing the video size now works.
• Converted build system from BeIDE projects to makefiles.
• Corrected the bug report email address.
• Now correctly opens BeMail no matter where it is located (fixes bug reporting in Zeta).
• Correctly detect and use the audio controls in the following cards:
• Aureal SQ2500 sound card (Vortex2 Chipset) - Standard R5 driver/media addon.
• Yamaha WaveForce 192xg - Standard YMF724 R5 driver/media addon.
• Probably other cards. Please report.

v3.1 (February 8th, 2004)

• Added current refresh to Full Screen Mode list. It will appears in the entry for the current desktop resolution and it makes switching from/to full screen mode faster and less prone to errors.
• Improved the audio input detection code. Please report any problems.

v3.0 (October 7th, 2001)

• Introduction of plugins! See separate documentation for details!
• A "Video Plugins" folder is created if it doesn't exist in the "/boot/home/config/add-ons" folder. This is were your plugins should be stored. stampTV will also scan a folder called "Plugins" if it exists in stampTV's folder.
• Changed frame grabbing to be thread safe & to capture the image as it is after plugin processing.
• Presets now include more parameters: the channel number, the video & audio input selected, the video format and the tuner locale. You really shouldn't need to know more than that, but if you want more details (or if things don't work the way you expect), then read further...

  When stampTV is started, if it can't find presets in the new format, it will convert the presets saved in the older format by setting the missing values (video & audio input, video format & tuner local) to the current value.
  This should be fine in most cases. However, if the taken values are not correct for most of your presets, you may want to set the settings to the better "default" state and force a new conversion.
  To do that, set the settings as you wish, quit stampTV, open a Terminal and type:

  rmattr FullPresets /boot/home/config/settings/stampTV.preferences

  This will delete the presets saved in the new format only. Then launch stampTV again: it will re-import the "old" pre-version 3.0b7 presets.

  This new preset format will be completely transparent for most users simply updating to a newer version of stampTV. However, if you switch between an older version of stampTV and a newer, you will see that presets are kept separated: preset changes made with an older stampTV version won't be visible by the newer stampTV, and vice versa.

• Added the "Locked (Scale)" option to force the video size to be fixed. Very handy when a plugin is very CPU intensive and won't work well at a big size. Look above for more details.
• Added the window size menu when the "Locked (Scale)" option is active.
• Added handling of (some) overlay limitations. Overlay will be disabled as required, if it can't be scaled to the desired size.
• Added the "Occupy All Workspaces" option, which in facts, now allows you to have stampTV present in one workspace only, since it previously always was present in all workspaces!
• Much more intelligent "Back to the Last Channel" option. It will bounce back to the last channel you were really looking at, not the last channel you just browsed through. This makes the "Back" option much more useful!
• The stay-on-screen option can temporally be disabled with the option key. Very handy when stampTV hides some object which lies on your desktop!
• Built the "User Services" menu, with more links to different web pages, and built-in an email bug-report feature.
• Fixed the license: includes the Be Sample Code License (as it should have since the beginning), adds the stampTV License and the stampTV Video Plugin License (in the plugin's notice).
• Added Sean Long's option to disable screen savers while stampTV is running.
• Added half-max size for PAL format to get max quality for that format (no interlacing issue).

v2.3.1 (March 22nd, 2001)

• Fixed the PAL-M workaround.

v2.3 (March 20th, 2001)

• Added the "Image Tuning" menu (Contrast/Saturation/Brightness).
• Added BeInControl support for IR control. You'll find a BeInControl configuration file. For information about BeInControl, please see its own documentation.
• Improved click handling for dragging & fullscreen switching.
• Fixed a bug when switching workspaces.
• Prepared support for plugins (see upcoming stampTV v3.0).
• Improved/fixed frame grabbing to support 16 bits color modes.
• Fixed many memory leaks.
• Limit video size for NTSC. Added fallback to lower video sizes when connection fails.
• Added channel, volume & mute displays.
• Added menu items which will remind users of keyboard shortcuts to change channels, presets & volume.
• Added audio control: Alt-M for mute, Up & Down arrows to raise or lower the volume.
• Use the popup menu to select which audio output your card uses (probably "Line" or "Line out"). You can also use the volume slider which is shown inside the popup menu! For that, right click and release the mouse to let the menu open, then go over the slider, left click on it and drag!
• Now identifies the parameters by the Kind, and no more by their UI name.
• Made slight changes to overlay support.
• Added a bug-report-generating script to help feedback.
• Added Bruno G. Albuquerque's work around a bt848 driver bug in PAL-M mode. Made some parts of code more generic to make implementation cleaner.
• Added the "Back to the Last Channel" option.
• Improved smoothness when moving the window by dragging its content.
• Fixed a full screen bug when not in the first workspace.
• Changed wheel action: It will go to the next or previous preset (not channel), unless you press the shift key, or have caps lock activated.
• Implemented overlay support. This reduces CPU usage dramatically, while providing better performance. The motion is extremely smooth. Note that your video card's driver might not support hardware overlay (yet). In that case, you should be able to use stampTV nevertheless, just as with previous versions, possibly taking benefit from the next improvement!
• stampTV now tries several color depths, in particular, the current one to improve efficiency. This makes a big difference when overlay is not in use.
• Improved smoothness when moving the window by dragging its content.
• Fixed a full screen bug when not in the first workspace.
• Changed wheel action: It will go to the next or previous preset (not channel), unless you press the shift key, or have caps lock activated.

v2.2 (December 3rd, 2000)

• Fixed hangs & crashes when using the video preferences window.
• Improved the way stampTV quits, and hopefully solved some rare crashes. Strangely enough, this is a very tricky problem! Be very careful if you want to change this part of the code!
• stampTV is no more a BDirectWindow which should make it compatible with more video cards. Moreover, it allows you to create & edit presets as well as use the popup menu even while in full screen mode. This also provides a better independence on the window type: an other step for the replicant support! (Note: the important BDirectWindow methods where never used...)
• You can now choose the full screen resolution. stampTV will automatically use the best TV resolution, but you can choose an other one if you wish.
• Fixed a number of full screen related issues.
• Full screen state is now saved & restored.
• A double click in the window will switch the full screen mode.
• Continued the clean up a little bit.

v2.1 (November 22nd, 2000)

• Added detection of your TV card & your video card abilities. The window size is now limited by the TV card abilities. The full screen size is now determined dynamically: it is the biggest size supported by both the TV card & the video card. That resolution should provide the best full screen results.
• Implemented intelligent zooming: you'll switch between the different ideal window sizes, that is, the window sizes which are best supported by your TV card. You can also access each of those sizes directly.
• Added quick access to this documentation and to stampTV's web site.
• Cleaned up/rearranged the source code. Removed many bugs & improved many internals. Main classes are now split to improve readability. Simplified many things. This work prepares replicant support a huge deal!
• Frames are now named after the channel they come from.

v2.0 (November 13th, 2000)

• Maintenance now officially done by Geb.
• Cleaned up the source code a little bit. Removed a few bugs.
• Improve presets edition.
• Removed the "Avoid Focus" option, because it conflicted with keyboard shortcuts and had other unpleasant side effects.
• Wrote this documentation.

v1.9 Geb improved the presets:

• Presets can be assigned to functions keys and to letters.
• It is easier to select a shortcut for a channel.
• Because letters can now be assigned to presets as shortcuts, you now must use the tab key to toggle the full screen mode. A reminder will help users when they try to use the old method.

v1.8 Attila Lendvai added the following improvements:

• You can move the window by pressing the left mouse button inside the TV image and moving the mouse around.
• You can change the channel your mouse's wheel.
• You can save a frame by dragging the image from the TV screen to any folder (or to the desktop) with the middle mouse button. (If you drag the image with the left control key held down, you can choose the image file format. The default is TGA.).
• Avoid focus: It's very annoying that at a workspace switch stampTV becomes the active window, even if it was not the active window before the switch. The Avoid Focus option on the menu disables the stampTV window from ever grabbing the focus.

v1.7 Geb added preset channels.

• You can now create & modify named presets which you can recall with the popup menu or using the function keys.

v1.6.2 by Alexander Wilkens.

• New preference class. All preferences are now saved.

v1.6.1

• Full screen will now only be full screen in one workspace... Handy if your boss walks past.
• Some other bug fixes.

v1.6 by Sylvain Tertois

• Implemented a working full screen mode.

v1.5

• A keep-the-window-on-top-of-other-windows option has been added.
• All settings are now saved.

v1.4 by Stephan Assmus

• Made bug fixes.

v1.3

• Added a 'Window can't be moved offscreen option'.
• Made bug fixes.

v1.2

• Window position and size are now saved when stampTV exits. (in ~/config/settings/stampTV.preferences)
• You can no longer move stampTV offscreen...Useful, probably.
• Eugenia Loli suggested a Quit option on the popup menu.

v1.1

• Christopher Lenz, media kit expert, was kind enough to add channel selection code. Right-click on the TV image to select a channel from the popup menu
• Those up and down arrow keys do something now.
• stampTV's window can now be tab-less.

v1.0

• Original release by Frank Olivier.