Ubuntu Manpage: vdr - the Video Disk Recorder

NAME

       vdr - the Video Disk Recorder

SYNOPSIS

       vdr [options]

DESCRIPTION

       vdr  implements  a  complete  digital  Set-Top  Box  and Video Recorder.  It can work with
       signals received from satellites (DVB-S) as well as cable (DVB-C) and terrestrial  (DVB-T)
       signals.

       At  least  one  DVB  card  is  required  to  run  vdr. With it you can watch live TV while
       recording one or more other broadcasts from the same transponder.  It is also possible  to
       start  watching  a recorded programme before the live broadcast has ended (time shifting).
       In order to record from different transponders simultaneously two or more  DVB  cards  are
       necessary.   By  default vdr can support up to eight DVB cards.  The primary DVB card (the
       one your TV set is connected to) can either be a "full  featured"  card,  which  means  it
       contains  an MPEG decoder and provides audio and video signal outputs, or you can use some
       third party plugin that implements software decoding of the MPEG data and displays it  via
       the system's graphics adapter.

       vdr  uses an On Screen Display (OSD) to display its menus.  It can be controlled by the PC
       keyboard, the "Linux Infrared Remote  Control"  (LIRC),  or  any  other  means  of  remote
       control, implemented by a third party plugin.

       Remote access is possible via the "Simple Video Disk Recorder Protocol" (SVDRP), which can
       be accessed on port 6419, for instance by telnet.

OPTIONS

-a cmd, --audio=cmd
Send Dolby Digital audio to stdin of command cmd.

--cachedir=dir
Save cache files in dir (default is to save them in the video directory).

--chartab=character_table
Set the character table to use for strings in the DVB data stream that don't begin
with a character table indicator, but don't use the standard default character
table (for instance ISO-8859-9).

-c dir, --config=dir
Read config files from directory dir (default is to read them from the video
directory).

-d, --daemon
Run in daemon mode (implies --no-kbd).

-D num, --device=num
Use only the given DVB device (num = 0, 1, 2...). There may be several -D options
(by default all DVB devices will be used). If -D- is given, no DVB devices will be
used at all, independent of any other -D options.

--dirnames=path[,name[,enc]]
Set the maximum directory path length to path (default is the maximum value allowed
on the system). If name is also given, it defines the maximum directory name length
(default is the maximum value allowed on the system). The optional enc can be 0 or
1, and controls whether special characters in directory names are encoded as hex
values (default: 0). If path or name are left empty (as in ",,1" to only set enc),
the defaults apply. The length of the video directory name and that of the actual
recording directory is subtracted from path, to make sure the directory path will
never become too long.

--edit=rec
Edit the given recording. rec must be the full path name of an existing recording.
The program will return immediately after editing the recording.

-E file, --epgfile=file
Write the EPG data into the given file (default is epg.data in the cache
directory). Use -E- to disable this. If file is a directory, the file epg.data
will be created in that directory.

--filesize=size
Limit video files to size bytes (default is 2000M). This option is only useful in
conjunction with --edit, and must precede that option to have an effect. size is
an integer number and may be followed by one of the letters K, M, G or T to
abbreviate Kilo-, Mega-, Giga- or Terabyte, respectively. The given value is
silently limited to the program's internal minimum and maximum values.

--genindex=rec
Generate the index file for the given recording. rec must be the full path name of
an existing recording. The recording must be in TS format. If the recording
already has an index file, it will be deleted before creating the new one. The
program will return immediately after generating the index. Note that using this
option while another instance of VDR is currently replaying the given recording, or
if the recording has not been finished yet, may lead to unexpected results.

-g, --grab=dir
Write images from the SVDRP command GRAB into the given directory dir. dir must be
the full path name of an existing directory, without any "..", double '/' or
symlinks. By default, or if -g- is given, grabbing images to disk is disabled.

-h, --help
Print a help message and exit.

-i instance, --instance=instance
Use instance as the id of this VDR instance (default is 0). In an environment
where several instances of VDR use the same video directory, this parameter can be
set to a positive integer value that's unique for each instance, so that they won't
interfere with each other in case they record exactly the same broadcast. The
number given here will be part of the directory name in which the recordings will
be stored.

-l level, --log=level
Set logging to level. 0 = no logging, 1 = errors only, 2 = errors and info,
3 = errors, info and debug. The default logging level is 3. If logging should be
done to LOG_LOCALn instead of LOG_USER, add '.n' to LEVEL, as in 3.7 (n=0..7).

-L dir, --lib=dir
Search for plugins in directory dir (default is ./PLUGINS/lib). There can be
several -L options with different dir values. Each of them will apply to the -P
options following it.

--lirc[=path]
Use a LIRC remote control device. If path is omitted, vdr uses
/var/run/lirc/lircd.

--localedir=dir
Search for locale files in dir (default is ./locale).

-m, --mute
Mute audio of the primary DVB device at startup.

--no-kbd
Don't use the keyboard as an input device.

-p port, --port=port
Use port for SVDRP. A value of 0 turns off SVDRP. The default SVDRP port is 6419.
You need to edit the file svdrphosts.conf in order to enable access to the SVDRP
port from hosts other than the localhosts. Note that this option only changes the
TCP port used for SVDRP commands. The UDP port for discovering peer VDRs in the
same network is always set to 6419 and can't be changed.

-P options, --plugin=options
Load a plugin, defined by the given options. The first word in options must be the
name of an existing vdr plugin, optionally followed by a blank separated list of
command line options for that plugin. If options contains any blanks, you need to
enclose it in quotes, like for example

vdr -P "abc -a -b xyz"

which would load a plugin named abc, giving it the command line options -a -b xyz.
If you want to load all available plugins (without any particular options) you can
use

vdr -P "*"

(note the quotes around the asterisk to prevent wildcard expansion).

-r cmd, --record=cmd
Call cmd before and after a recording. See the file INSTALL for more information.

--resdir=dir
Read resource files from dir (default is to read them from the config directory).

--showargs[=dir]
Read command line arguments from dir (default is /etc/vdr/conf.d), display them to
the console and exit.

-s cmd, --shutdown=cmd
Call cmd to shutdown the computer. See the file INSTALL for more information.

--split
Split edited files at the editing marks. This option is only useful in conjunction
with --edit, and must precede that option to have an effect.

-t tty, --terminal=tty
Set the controlling terminal.

-u user, --user=user
Run as user user in case vdr was started as user 'root'. Starting vdr as 'root' is
necessary if the system time shall be set from the transponder data, but for
security reasons vdr can switch to a lesser privileged user id during normal
operation. user can be a user name or a numerical id.

--updindex=rec
Update the index file for the given recording. rec must be the full path name of
an existing recording. The recording must be in TS format. If the recording
already has an index file, it will be checked whether it is complete, and will be
updated if it isn't. If there is no index file yet, a new one will be generated.
The program will return immediately after updating the index. Note that using this
option while another instance of VDR is currently replaying the given recording, or
if the recording has not been finished yet, may lead to unexpected results.

--userdump
Allow coredumps if -u is given (only for debugging).

--vfat For backwards compatibility (same as --dirnames= 250,40,1).

-v dir, --video=dir
Use dir as video directory. The default is /video.

-V, --version
Print version information and exit.

-w sec, --watchdog=sec
Activate the watchdog timer with a timeout of sec seconds. A value of 0 (default)
disables the watchdog.

If started without any options, vdr tries to read command line options from files named
'*.conf' in the directory /etc/vdr/conf.d. Files are read in alphabetical order. See
vdr(5) for details.

SIGNALS

       SIGINT, SIGTERM
              Program exits with status 0.

       SIGHUP Program  exits with status 1. This can be used to force a reload, for example if an
              update has been installed.

EXIT STATUS

       0      Successful program execution.

       1      An error has been detected which requires the DVB driver and vdr to be reloaded.

       2      An non-recoverable error has been detected, vdr has given up.

FILES

channels.conf
Channel configuration.

timers.conf
Timer configuration.

setup.conf
User definable setup.

commands.conf
User definable commands (executed from the Commands menu).

svdrphosts.conf
SVDRP host configuration, defining which hosts or networks are given access to the
SVDRP port.

marks Contains the editing marks defined for a recording.

info Contains a description of the recording.

resume Contains the index into the recording where the last replay session left off.

index Contains the file number, offset and type of each frame of the recording.

remote.conf
Contains the key assignments for the remote control.

keymacros.conf
Contains user defined remote control key macros.

00001.ts ... 65535.ts
The actual data files of a recording.

epg.data
Contains all current EPG data. Can be used for external processing and will also be
read at program startup to have the full EPG data available immediately.

donerecs.data
Contains the names of recordings that have been done by pattern timers with '@' as
the first character of the pattern. File names are appended to this file after a
recording has finished, and the entire file is read upon startup of VDR.

.update
If this file is present in the video directory, its last modification time will be
used to trigger an update of the list of recordings in the "Recordings" menu.

AUTHOR

       Written  by  Klaus  Schmidinger,  with  contributions  from  many  others.   See  the file
       CONTRIBUTORS in the vdr source distribution.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <vdr-bugs@tvdr.de>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2021 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.