vdr/vdr.5

'\" t
.\" ** The above line should force tbl to be a preprocessor **
.\" Man page for vdr file formats
.\"
.\" Copyright (C) 2003 Klaus Schmidinger
.\"
.\" You may distribute under the terms of the GNU General Public
.\" License as specified in the file COPYING that comes with the
.\" vdr distribution.
.\"
.\" $Id: vdr.5 1.21 2004/01/02 15:24:21 kls Exp $
.\"
.TH vdr 5 "1 Jun 2003" "1.2.0" "Video Disk Recorder Files"
.SH NAME
vdr file formats - the Video Disk Recorder Files
.SH DESCRIPTION
This page describes the formats of the various files \fBvdr\fR uses to
store configuration data and recordings.
.SH SYNTAX
.SS CHANNELS
The file \fIchannels.conf\fR contains the channel configuration.
Each line defines either a \fBgroup delimiter\fR or a \fBchannel\fR.

A \fBgroup delimiter\fR is a line starting with a ':' as the very first
character, followed by arbitrary text. Example:

\fB:First group\fR

Group delimiters may also be used to specify the number of the next channel.
To do this, the character '@' and a number must immediately follow the ':',
as in

\fB:@201 First group\fR

The given number must be larger than the number of any previous channel
(otherwise it is silently ignored).

A group delimiter can also be used to just set the next channel's number,
without an explicit delimiter text, as in

\fB:@201\fR

Such a delimiter will not appear in the Channels menu.

A \fBchannel definition\fR is a line with channel data, where the fields
are separated by ':' characters. Example:

\fBRTL,RTL Television:12188:h:S19.2E:27500:163:104:105:0:12003:1:1089:0\fR

The line number of a channel definition (not counting group separators,
and based on a possible previous '@...' parameter)
defines the channel's number in OSD menus and the \fItimers.conf\fR file.

The fields in a channel definition have the following meaning (from left
to right):
.TP
.B Name
The channel's name (if the name originally contains a ':' character
it has to be replaced by '|').
Some tv stations provide a way of deriving a "short name" from the
channel name, which can be used in situations where there is not
much space for displaying a long name. If a short name is available
for this channel, it preceeds the full name and is delimited by a comma,
as in

\fBRTL,RTL Television:...\fR
.TP
.B Frequency
The transponder frequency (as an integer). For DVB-S this value is in MHz. For DVB-C
and DVB-T it can be given either in MHz, kHz or Hz (the actual value given will be
multiplied by 1000 until it is larger than 1000000).
.TP
.B Parameters
Various parameters, depending on whether this is a DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T channel.
Each parameter consist of a key character, followed by an integer number that
represents the actual setting of that parameter. The valid key characters, their
meaning (and allowed values) are
.TS
tab (@);
l l.
\fBB\fR@Bandwidth (6, 7, 8)
\fBC\fR@Code rate high priority (0, 12, 23, 34, 45, 56, 67, 78, 89)
\fBD\fR@Code rate low priority (0, 12, 23, 34, 45, 56, 67, 78, 89)
\fBG\fR@Guard interval (4, 8, 16, 32)
\fBH\fR@Horizontal polarization
\fBI\fR@Inversion (0, 1)
\fBM\fR@Modulation (0, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256)
\fBT\fR@Transmission mode (2, 8)
\fBV\fR@Vertical polarization
\fBY\fR@Hierarchy (0, 1, 2, 4)
.TE
The polarization parameters have no integer numbers following them. This is for
compatibility with files from older versions and also to keep the DVB-S entries
as simple as possible.

The special value \fB999\fR is used for "automatic", which means the driver
will automatically determine the proper value (if possible).

An example of a parameter field for a DVB-T channel might look like this:

\fBB8C23D12M64T2G32Y0\fR
.TP
.B Source
The signal source of this channel, as defined in the file \fIsources.conf\fR.
For compatibility with files from older versions numeric values will be accepted
and also written back correctly, but they will have no meaning for the \fBDiSEqC\fR
settings. You should replace the numerical values with the proper source identifiers
defined in \fIsources.conf\fR.
.TP
.B Srate
The symbol rate of this channel (DVB-S and DVB-C only).
.TP
.B VPID
The video PID (set to '0' for radio channels, '1' for encrypted radio channels).
If this channel uses a separate PCR PID, it follows the VPID, separated by a
plus sign, as in
.B ...:164+17:...
.TP
.B APID
The audio PID (either one number, or two, separated by a comma).
If this channel also carries Dolby Digital sound, the Dolby PIDs follow
the audio PIDs, separated by a semicolon, as in
.B ...:101,102;103,104:...
.TP
.B TPID
The teletext PID.
.TP
.B Conditional access
A hexadecimal integer defining how this channel can be accessed:
.TS
tab (@);
l l.
\fB0000\fR@Free To Air
\fB0001...000F\fR@explicitly requires the device with the given number
\fB0010...00FF\fR@reserved for user defined assignments defined in \fIca.conf\fR
\fB0100...FFFF\fR@specific decryption methods as broadcast in the data stream\fR
.TE
Values in the range 0001...00FF will not be overwritten, all other values
will be automatically replaced by the actual CA system identifiers received
from the data stream. If there is more than one CA system id broadcast, they
will be separated by commas, as in

.B ...:1702,1722,1801:...

The values are in hex because that's the way they are defined in the "ETR 162"
document. Leading zeros may be omitted.
.TP
.B SID
The Service ID of this channel.
.TP
.B NID
The Network ID of this channel.
.TP
.B TID
The Transport stream ID of this channel.
.TP
.B RID
The Radio ID of this channel (typically 0, may be used to distinguish channels where
NID, TID and SID are all equal).
.PP
A particular channel can be uniquely identified by its \fBchannel\ ID\fR,
which is a string that looks like this:

\fBS19.2E-1-1089-12003-0\fR

The components of this string are the \fBSource\fR (S19.2E), \fBNID\fR
(1), \fBTID\fR (1089), \fBSID\fR (12003) and \fBRID\fR (0) as defined above.
The last part can be omitted if it is \fB0\fR,
so the above example could also be written as S19.2E-1-1089-12003).
.br
The \fBchannel\ ID\fR is used in the \fItimers.conf\fR and \fIepg.data\fR
files to properly identify the channels.
.SS TIMERS
The file \fItimers.conf\fR contains the timer setup.
Each line contains one timer definition, with individual fields
separated by ':' characters. Example:

\fB1:10:-T-----:2058:2150:50:5:Quarks & Co:\fR

The fields in a timer definition have the following meaning (from left
to right):
.TP
.B Status
Defines whether this timer is \fBinactive\fR (0) or \fBactive\fR (1).
The value 3 is used for instant recordings.
Values other than these can be used by external programs to mark active timers
and recognize if the user has modified them. When a user modifes an active
timer the \fBstatus\fR field will be explicitly set to '1' (or '0', respectively,
if the user deactivates the timer).

Note: in order to allow future extensibility, external programs using the
\fBstatus\fR parameter should only use the upper 16 bit of this 32 bit parameter
and leave the lower 16 bit untouched.
.TP
.B Channel
The channel to record from. This is either the channel number as shown in the
on-screen menus, or a complete channel ID. When reading \fItimers.conf\fR 
any channel numbers will be mapped to the respective channel ids and when
the file is written again, there will only be channel ids. Channel numbers
are accepted as input in order to allow easier creation of timers when
manually editing \fItimers.conf\fR. Also, when timers are listed via SVDRP
commands, the channels are given as numbers.
.TP
.B Day
The day when this timer shall record.

If this is a `single-shot' timer, this is the day of month on which this
timer shall record. This must be in the range \fB1...31\fR.

In case of a `repeating' timer this is a string consisting of exactly seven
characters, where each character position corresponds to one day of the week
(with Monday being the first day). The character '-' at a certain position
means that the timer shall not record on that day. Any other character will
cause the timer to record on that day. Example:

.B MTWTF--

will define a timer that records on Monday thru Friday and does not record
on weekends. The same result could be achieved with \fBABCDE--\fR (this is
used to allow setting the days with language specific characters).

The day definition of a `repeating' timer may be followed by the date when that
timer shall hit for the first time. The format for this is \fB@YYYY-MM-DD\fR,
so a complete definition could look like this:

\fBMTWTF--@2002-02-18\fR

which would implement a timer that records Moday thru Friday, and will hit
for the first time on or after February 18, 2002.
This \fBfirst day\fR feature can be used to disable a repeating timer for a couple
of days, or for instance to define a new Mon...Fri timer on wednesday, which
actually starts "monday next week". The \fBfirst day\fR date given need not be
that of a day when the timer would actually hit.
.TP
.B Start
A four digit integer defining when this timer shall \fBstart\fR recording.
The format is \fBhhmm\fR, so \fB1430\fR would mean "half past two" in the
afternoon.
.TP
.B Stop
A four digit integer defining when this timer shall \fBstop\fR recording.
The format is the same as for the \fBstart\fR time.
.TP
.B Priority
An integer in the range \fB0...99\fR, defining the \fBpriority\fR
of this timer and of recordings created by this timer.
\fB0\fR represents the lowest value, \fB99\fR the highest.
The priority is used to decide which timer shall be
started in case there are two or more timers with the exact same
\fBstart\fR time. The first timer in the list with the highest priority
will be used.

This value is also stored with the recording and is
later used to decide which recording to remove from disk in order
to free space for a new recording. If the disk runs full and a new
recording needs more space, an existing recording with the lowest
priority (and which has exceeded its guaranteed \fBlifetime\fR) will be
removed.

If all available DVB cards are currently occupied, a
timer with a higher priority will interrupt the timer with the
lowest priority in order to start recording.
.TP
.B Lifetime
The \fBguaranteed lifetime\fR (in days) of a recording created by this timer.
\fB0\fR means that this recording may be automatically deleted at any time
by a new recording with higher priority. \fB99\fR means that this recording
will never be automatically deleted. Any number in the range \fB1...98\fR
means that this recording may not be automatically deleted in favour of a
new recording, until the given number of days since the \fBstart\fR time of
the recording has passed by.
.TP
.B File
The \fBfile name\fR this timer will give to a recording.
If the name contains any ':' characters, these have to be replaced by '|'.
If the name shall contain subdirectories, these have to be delimited by '~'
(since the '/' character may be part of a regular programme name).

The special keywords \fBTITLE\fR and \fBEPISODE\fR, if present, will be replaced
by the title and episode information from the EPG data at the time of
recording (if that data is available). If at the time of recording either
of these cannot be determined, \fBTITLE\fR will default to the channel name, and
\fBEPISODE\fR will default to a blank.
.TP
.B Summary
Arbitrary text that describes the recording made by this timer.
Any newline characters in the summary have to be replaced by '|', and
the summary may contain ':' characters. If this field is not empty, its
contents will be written into the \fIsummary.vdr\fR file of the recording.
.SS SOURCES
The file \fIsources.conf\fR defines the codes to be used in the \fBSource\fR field
of channels in \fIchannels.conf\fR and assigns descriptive texts to them.
Example:

\fBS19.2E  Astra 1\fR

Anything after (and including) a '#' character is comment.

The first character of the \fBcode\fR must be one of
.TS
tab (@);
l l.
\fBS\fR@Satellite
\fBC\fR@Cable
\fBT\fR@Terrestrial
.TE
and is followed by further data pertaining to that particular source. In case of
\fBS\fRatellite this is the orbital position in degrees, followed by \fBE\fR for
east or \fBW\fR for west.
.SS DISEQC
The file \fIdiseqc.conf\fR defines the \fBDiSEqC\fR control sequences to be sent
to the DVB-S card in order to access a given satellite position and/or band.
Example:

\fBS19.2E  11700 V  9750  t v W15 [E0 10 38 F0] W15 A W15 t\fR

Anything after (and including) a '#' character is comment.

The first word in a parameter line must be one of the codes defined in the
file \fIsources.conf\fR and tells which satellite this line applies to.

Following is the "switch frequency" of the LNB (slof), which is the transponder
frequency up to which this entry shall be used; the first entry with an slof greater
than the actual transponder frequency will be used. Typically there is only one slof
per LNB, but the syntax allows any number of frequency ranges to be defined.
Note that there should be a last entry with the value \fB99999\fR for each satellite,
which covers the upper frequency range.

The third parameter defines the polarization to which this entry applies. It can
be either \fBH\fR for horizontal or \fBV\fR for vertical.

The fourth parameter specifies the "local oscillator frequency" (lof) of the LNB
to use for the given frequency range. This number will be subtracted from the
actual transponder frequency when tuning to the channel.

The rest of the line holds the actual sequence of DiSEqC actions to be taken.
The code letters used here are
.TS
tab (@);
l l.
\fBt\fR@22kHz tone off
\fBT\fR@22kHz tone on
\fBv\fR@voltage low (13V)
\fBV\fR@voltage high (18V)
\fBA\fR@mini A
\fBB\fR@mini B
\fBWnn\fR@wait nn milliseconds (nn may be any positive integer number)
\fB[xx ...]\fR@hex code sequence (max. 6)
.TE
There can be any number of actions in a line, including none at all - in which case
the entry would be used only to set the LOF to use for the given frequency range
and polarization.
.SS CONDITIONAL ACCESS
The file \fIca.conf\fR defines the numbers to be used in the \fBConditional access\fR
field of channels in \fIchannels.conf\fR and assigns descriptive texts to them.
Example:

\fB101    Premiere World\fR

Anything after (and including) a '#' character is comment.

Value lines consist of an integer number, followed by a text describing
this decryption method (typically the name of the pay tv service using this
decryption method).

The special value \fB0\fR means \fBFree To Air\fR, which can be used for
channels that don't require additional decryption hardware.

The values \fB1...4\fR can be used for channels that for some reason explicitly
need a given DVB card (for backward compatibility).
.SS REMOTE CONTROL KEYS
The file \fIremote.conf\fR contains the key assignments for all remote control
units. Each line consists of one key assignment in the following format:

\fBname.key  code\fR

where \fBname\fR is the name of the remote control (for instance KBD for the
PC keyboard, RCU for the home-built "Remote Control Unit", or LIRC for the
"Linux Infrared Remote Control"), \fBkey\fR is the name of the key that is
defined (like Up, Down, Menu etc.), and \fBcode\fR is a character string that
this remote control delivers when the given key is pressed.
.SS KEY MACROS
The file \fIkeymacros.conf\fR contains user defined macros that will be executed
whenever the given key is pressed. The format is

\fBmacrokey  [@plugin] key1 key2 key3...\fR

where \fBmacrokey\fR is the key that shall initiate execution of this macro
and can be one of \fIRed\fR, \fIGreen\fR, \fIYellow\fR, \fIBlue\fR or
\fIUser1\fR...\fIUser9\fR. The rest of the line consists of a set of
keys, which will be executed just as if they had been pressed in the given
sequence. The optional \fB@plugin\fR can be used to automatically select
the given plugin from the main menu (provided that plugin has a main menu
entry). \fBplugin\fR is the name of the plugin, exactly as given in the -P
option when starting VDR. There can be only one \fB@plugin\fR per key macro,
and it implicitly adds an \fIOk\fR key to the macro definition (in order to
actually select the plugins main menu entry), which counts against the total
number of keys in the macro. For instance

\fBUser1 @abc Down Down Ok\fR

would call the main menu function of the "abc" plugin and execute two "Down"
key presses, followed by "Ok".
.br
Note that the color keys will only execute their macro function
in "normal viewing" mode (i.e. when no other menu or player is active). The
\fIUser1\fR...\fIUser9\fR keys will always execute their macro function.
There may be up to 15 keys in such a key sequence.
.SS COMMANDS
The file \fIcommands.conf\fR contains the definitions of commands that can
be executed from the \fBvdr\fR main menu's "Commands" option.
Each line contains one command definition in the following format:

\fBtitle : command\fR

where \fBtitle\fR is the string that will be displayed in the "Commands" menu,
and \fBcommand\fR is the actual command string that will be executed when this
option is selected. The delimiting ':' may be surrounded by any number of
white space characters. If \fBtitle\fR ends with the character '?', there will
be a confirmation prompt before actually executing the command. This can be
used for commands that might have serious results (like deleting files etc)
to make sure they are not executed inadvertently.

Everything following (and including) a '#' character is considered to be comment.

By default the menu entries in the "Commands" menu will be numbered '1'...'9'
to make them selectable by pressing the corresponding number key. If you want
to use your own numbering scheme (maybe to skip certain numbers), just precede
the \fBtitle\fRs with the numbers of your choice. \fBvdr\fR will suppress its
automatic numbering if the first entry in \fIcommands.conf\fR starts with a
digit in the range '1'...'9', followed by a blank.

In order to avoid error messages to the console, every command should have
\fIstderr\fR redirected to \fIstdout\fR. Everything the command prints to
\fIstdout\fR will be displayed in a result window, with \fBtitle\fR as its title.

Examples:

Check for new mail?: /usr/local/bin/checkmail 2>&1
.br
CPU status: /usr/local/bin/cpustatus 2>&1
.br
Disk space: df -h | grep '/video' | awk '{ print 100 - $5 "% free"; }'
.br
Calendar: date;echo;cal

Note that the commands 'checkmail' and 'cpustatus' are only \fBexamples\fR!
Don't send emails to the author asking where to find these ;-)
.br
The '?' at the end of the "Check for new mail?" entry will prompt the user
whether this command shall really be executed.
.SS RECORDING COMMANDS
The file \fIreccmds.conf\fR can be used to define commands that can be applied
to the currently highlighted recording in the "Recordings" menu. The syntax is
exactly the same as described for the file \fIcommands.conf\fR. When executing
a command, the directory name of the recording will be appended to the command
string, separated by a blank and enclosed in single quotes.
.SS SVDRP HOSTS
The file \fIsvdrphosts.conf\fR contains the IP numbers of all hosts that are
allowed to access the SVDRP port.
Each line contains one IP number in the format

\fBIP-Address[/Netmask]\fR

where \fBIP-Address\fR is the address of a host or a network in the usual dot
separated notation (as in 192.168.100.1). If the optional \fBNetmask\fR is given
only the given number of bits of \fBIP-Address\fR are taken into account. This
allows you to grant SVDRP access to all hosts of an entire network. \fBNetmask\fR
can be any integer from 1 to 32. The special value of 0 is only accepted if
the \fBIP-Address\fR is 0.0.0.0, because this will give access to any host
(\fBUSE THIS WITH CARE!\fR).

Everything following (and including) a '#' character is considered to be comment.

Examples:

127.0.0.1        # always accept localhost
.br
192.168.100.0/24 # any host on the local net
.br
204.152.189.113  # a specific host
.br
0.0.0.0/0        # any host on any net (\fBUSE WITH CARE!\fR)
.SS SETUP
The file \fIsetup.conf\fR contains the basic configuration options for \fBvdr\fR.
Each line contains one option in the format "Name = Value".
See the MANUAL file for a description of the available options.
.SS AUDIO/VIDEO DATA
The files \fI001.vdr\fR...\fI255.vdr\fR are the actual recorded MPEG data
files. In order to keep the size of an individual file below a given limit,
a recording is split into several files. The contents of these files is
\fBPacketized Elementary Stream\fR (PES) and contains ES packets with ids
0xE0 for video, 0xC0 for audio 1 and 0xC1 for audio 2 (if available).
Dolby Digital data is stored in packets with ids 0xBD.
.SS INDEX
The file \fIindex.vdr\fR (if present in a recording directory) contains
the (binary) index data into each of the the recording files
\fI001.vdr\fR...\fI255.vdr\fR. It is used during replay to determine
the current position within the recording, and to implement skipping
and fast forward/back functions.
See the definition of the \fBcIndexFile\fR class for details about the
actual contents of this file.
.SS SUMMARY
The file \fIsummary.vdr\fR (if present in a recording directory) contains
a description of the recording, derived from the EPG data at recording time
(if such data was available) or the \fBSummary\fR field of the corresponding
timer. This is a plain ASCII file and can contain arbitrary text.
.SS RESUME
The file \fIresume.vdr\fR (if present in a recording directory) contains
the position within the recording where the last replay session left off.
The data is a four byte (binary) integer value and defines an offset into
the file \fIindex.vdr\fR.
.SS MARKS
The file \fImarks.vdr\fR (if present in a recording directory) contains
the editing marks defined for this recording.
Each line contains the definition of one mark in the following format:

\fBhh:mm:ss.ff comment\fR

where \fBhh:mm:ss.ff\fR is a frame position within the recording, given as
"hours, minutes, seconds and (optional) frame number".
\fBcomment\fR can be any string and may be used to describe this mark.
If present, \fBcomment\fR must be separated from the frame position by at
least one blank.

The lines in this file need not necessarily appear in the correct temporal
sequence, they will be automatically sorted by time index.

\fBCURRENT RESTRICTIONS:\fR

-\ the comment is currently not used by VDR
.br
-\ marks must have a frame number, and that frame MUST be an I-frame (this
means that only marks generated by VDR itself can be used, since they
will always be guaranteed to mark I-frames).
.SS EPG DATA
The file \fIepg.data\fR contains the EPG data in an easily parsable format.
The first character of each line defines what kind of data this line contains.

The following tag characters are defined:
.TS
tab (@);
l l.
\fBC\fR@<channel id> <channel name>
\fBE\fR@<event id> <start time> <duration> <table id>
\fBT\fR@<title>
\fBS\fR@<subtitle>
\fBD\fR@<description>
\fBe\fR@
\fBc\fR@
.TE

Lowercase characters mark the end of a sequence that was started by the
corresponding uppercase character. The outer frame consists of a sequence
of one or more \fBC\fR...\fBc\fR (Channel) entries. Inside these any number of
\fBE\fR...\fBe\fR (Event) entries are allowed.
The \fBT\fR, \fBS\fR and \fBD\fR entries are optional (although every event
should at least have a \fBT\fR entry).

.TS
tab (@);
l l.
<channel id>   @is the "channel ID", made up from the parameters defined in 'channels.conf'
<channel name> @is the "name" as in 'channels.conf' (for information only, may be left out)
<start time>   @is the time (as a time_t integer) in UTC when this event starts
<duration>     @is the time (in seconds) that this event will take
<table id>     @is a hex number that indicates the table this event is contained in (if this is left empty or 0 this event will not be overwritten or modified by data that comes from the DVB stream)
<title>        @is the title of the event
<subtitle>     @is the subtitle (typically the name of the episode etc.)
<description>  @is the description of the event (any '|' characters will be interpreted as newlines)
.TE

This file will be read at program startup in order to restore the results of
previous EPG scans.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR vdr (1)
.SH AUTHOR
Written by Klaus Schmidinger.
.SH REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <vdr-bugs@cadsoft.de>.
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2003 Klaus Schmidinger.

This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.