sane-v4l(5) File Formats Manual sane-v4l(5)
NAME
sane-v4l - SANE interface for Video for Linux API
DESCRIPTION
The sane-v4l library implements a SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend that provides generic access to video cameras and similar equip-
ment using the V4L (Video for Linux) API.
This is ALPHA software. Really! Important features are missing and there are lots of bugs. The code is currently only tested on a Linux 2.4
system with a Hauppauge WinTV video card.
DEVICE NAMES
This backend expects device names of the form:
special
Where special is the UNIX path-name for the special device that corresponds to the v4l device. The special device name must be a v4l
device or a symlink to such a device. For example, such a device name could be /dev/video0 or /dev/bttv0.
CONFIGURATION
The contents of the v4l.conf file is a list of device names that correspond to v4l devices. Empty lines and lines starting with a hash
mark (#) are ignored. A sample configuration file is shown below:
/dev/bttv0
# this is a comment
/dev/video3
FILES
/etc/sane.d/v4l.conf
The backend configuration file (see also description of SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).
/usr/lib/sane/libsane-v4l.a
The static library implementing this backend.
/usr/lib/sane/libsane-v4l.so
The shared library implementing this backend (present on systems that support dynamic loading).
ENVIRONMENT
SANE_CONFIG_DIR
This environment variable specifies the list of directories that may contain the configuration file. Under UNIX, the directories
are separated by a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated by a semi-colon (`;'). If this variable is not set, the configura-
tion file is searched in two default directories: first, the current working directory (".") and then in /etc/sane.d. If the value
of the environment variable ends with the directory separator character, then the default directories are searched after the explic-
itly specified directories. For example, setting SANE_CONFIG_DIR to "/tmp/config:" would result in directories "tmp/config", ".",
and "/etc/sane.d" being searched (in this order).
SANE_DEBUG_V4L
If the library was compiled with debug support enabled, this environment variable controls the debug level for this backend. E.g.,
a value of 128 requests all debug output to be printed. Smaller levels reduce verbosity.
AUTHOR
Juergen G. Schimmer, Henning Meier-Geinitz
BUGS
:
If more than one video card is present, a crash may occur. Frequency and geometry selection is missing.
Send bug reports to the SANE mailing list: sane-devel@mostang.com. You must be subscribed to the list to send mail. See
http://www.mostang.com/sane/mail.html for details.
SEE ALSO
sane(7), xcam(1).
28 Aug 2002 sane-v4l(5)