TV Server console configuration settings

Introduction

There are a number of TV Server and HD Encoder core settings that are not acessible via the web administration interface.

This is an advanced topic! It is intended for system administrators only.

"General" Section Settings

  • calcLowErrorsDelay How long (seconds) to let card settle after tuning before starting to monitor errors
  • calcLowErrorsInterval How often to evaluate error rates (seconds interval).
  • calcLowErrorsPeriod How long to average error rates over (seconds).
  • calcLowErrorsThreshold Maximum averaged errors-per-minute to tolerate.
  • demoSnapshotDate use the specified Unix timestamp in place of the real time for displaying EPG.
  • dvbCheckBer Whether to send an ioctl to get the bit-error-rate when checking card stats. Can adversely affect system performance.
  • dvbCheckLockMs How often to check whether a card has lock.
  • dvbCheckStatsMs How often to query cards for their stats.
  • dvbRecoveryRebootMs How long to allow bad input behaviour before rebooting (0 disables).
  • dvbtTransponderBandwidth Transponder bandwidth for the national network (8000000in UK, 7000000 in AUS).
  • enableSAP Announce multicast channels via SDP/SAP.
  • guideKeepDays How long to retain old EPG info.
  • heartbeatIntervalSecs How often to write a heartbeat line.
  • jpegQualityPct Slide compression quality (0-100). Also applies to PNGs.
  • location Location string to append to backups, logs and dumps.
  • lowErrorsMaxRetunes Maximum number of retunes due to errors before rebooting.
  • maxClientMbps Ratelimit traffic to a particular IP address.
  • maxLogFileSize Stop writing to a log file when it reaches this size. Start again after rotation.
  • maxTotalMbps Ratelimit overall traffic (includes rtp/rtsp/udp only).
  • memLimitMegs Cap the memory allocated for bufs, and hard-limit all allocations to twice this value.
  • minTransponderBitsPerSec Smallest bitrate for a transponder before it considered an error.
  • minUptimeSecs Wait until the system has been up a for certain time before starting operations.
  • noSDT Strip SDT from all streams (for buggy playback devices).
  • noSmoothing Bypass all smoothing logic.
  • offAirRunningStatusMask Bitmask. Set bits to treat a running_status matching that bit position as off-air.
  • radioSendAllES Send all elementary streams for radio channels.
  • reconnectLinkedInputs Reconnect all inputs on a card when reconnecting one.
  • recordingLengthIncludePadding Include padding in the length of recordings as declared in their xml metadata.
  • rewriteAudioPid Globally rewrite all audio pids to this value (0-8191).
  • rewriteVideoPid Globally rewrite all video pids to this value (0-8191).
  • sendHDSubtitles Set to false to strip HD subtitles.
  • sendSubtitles Set to false to strip SD subtitles.
  • slideIntervalMs Minimum time between captured slides (intervals will be long if slides haven't changed).
  • slidesUsePNG Output slides as PNG images not JPEGS. Good for desktop capture.
  • tuneRateLimitIntervalMs Wait at least this long between one card and the next.
  • tuneWaitMs How long to wait for a lock before retuning.
  • unrestrictedForwardingClients Allow multiple unicast streams to different ports on the same IP.
  • videoExtension Recordings will be created with the extension.

"Viewer" Section Settings

  • playerType Determine whether playback is via VLC or Flash (HLS streaming).

Updating your server configuration

To use the above settings, you will need to make changes to your etvd.conf.

  1. Connect to the server's console interface.
  2. Select Maintenance (5), then Advanced (4), then Launch Command Shell (3)
  3. Edit the TV Server configuration file directly with the following command:
  4. pico /etc/etvd.conf
    	
  5. Assuming there isn't an existing line defining the setting you are about to create, add the following to the bottom of the file where Section relates to the settings section described above, and Setting is the configuration option you wish to change to Value:
  6. [Section]
    Setting = Value
    	
  7. Press CTRL+X to exit. When prompted to save, press Y. When prompted for the filename, press Enter to use the existing one.

To apply the change you've made

  • either connect to the console and choose Control (4), TV Server Control (1), then Restart (3)
  • or visit the Status page on the web interface and click Restart

Examples

To view web playback as an HLS streams:

[Viewer]
playerType = flash

To enable HD subtitles on third party (e.g. VLC media player) playback devices:

[General]
sendHDSubtitles = true