From this page you can download source and binary packages (tgz, rpm or deb).

For your information: The software and Web-Site are intended for testing! There is no kind of warranty that something works. The sources and documentation are mostly under GNU license, some code may have a BSD license.

Read the News Page to see what is going on: Click here for Status Information.

The software is known to work on SuSE (9.x) and Debian based systems (Etch, Sarge, Ubuntu and Knoppix). It depends only on a very few packages (no X11, KDE, Gnome nor any library dependency other than C/C++). For this reason you can easily build it from source. Together with KDE you can configure a Multi-Media-Center (set-top box mode). As a workstation Desktop you can use KDE or Gnome (KDE libs required). But ZapDvb does not depend on KDE or X11: zapmcc (including the MPEG editor) can be used from a console even in text mode.

Please help improving ZapDvb by sending Bug reports Comments or Patches!

This software is designed for robustnes and should be rock solid. Configured as a Multi-Media-Center it is stable enough to replace the traditional TV/VTR. LIRC (remote control) works really great and LIRC support is now a key feature of ZapDvb. On a Desktop system the use of shortcut keys will give you immedeate access to radio or tv channels. The LinuxTV DVB drivers are stable enough to allow a server side DVB card installation (ZapDvb clients can transparently access DVB functions across the network).

Known Bugs and Problems

- The software is currently built with gcc 4.1 (since Version 0.49-2). You will need to recompile the source for SuSE 9.x or Ubuntu. See the README file in the source archive for instructions.

- Version 0.49 does not fully support GNOME (on Ubuntu for example). If you don't want to play with text mode (try zapmcc --cmd) please install at least kdebase-bin (to get kdialog).

- Try to get kjscmd installed, which will provide a nicer user interface. On Knoppix/Ubuntu for example you would have to install libkjsembed1 and kjscmd (on Ubuntu it's in the universe repository). Also try to install wmcntl.

- MPlayer 1.0pre7 is still recommended. The newer version has quirks concerning video aspect handling (zapdvb will learn to handle them). But since version 1.0pre8 MPlayer works nice in frame-buffer mode. From a real console you can now watch TV and even edit videos without X11.

- Version 0.43 works nice with lirc and presents a TV-like menuing system. In "desktop" menu-mode this looks different: zapmcc shows as few dialogs as possible (you can change this behaviour in the config file, see waitmode).

- The versions 0.41 and 0.42 have a problem in server mode: a background job would not interrupt a running foreground job. If you don't use the server mode you don't need to care, in all other aspects 0.42 and 0.43 are rock solid.

- On a 64-bit system unfortunately some DVB drivers don't work with the 32-bit version of ZapDvb, please recompile the software in 64-bit mode.

- Some features do not work on KDE 3.3 (kjscmd is incomplete) and others (see quickopen) require recent versions of the GNU tools (find got smarter). Anyhow: the software still works on SuSE 9.1.

- If you are going to use a 7.x version of LIRC (with ZapDvb version 0.43 and later) you may need a patched version of irxevent. Here is a 32 bit version (SuSE and Debian) and here are the sources.

Current: Release 0.49-3 (August 2006)

Release 0.49-3 replaces 0.49-2 and is recommended for everybody. Please upgrade from all older versions. This release is a big step forward to 0.50 - only a few things are left to be done. Lots of bugs were fixed and the new JavaScript based GUI (via kjscmd) is very stable, much more performant than the old kdialog GUI and looks much better. The Server Mode problems with sudo (security fixes in most distros) are gone. The Settop-Box mode is better than ever, improved KDE pre-configuration and support for switching back and forward between Settop-Box, Full KDE session and Multi User mode. Important to know:

• The setup program now handles Server, Settop-Box and Desktop installation including a mechanism to update your KDE settings. Even without kjscmd you now get a nice desktop.
• The setup program helps to build MPlayer from source. This is important for distros with broken Xine (Ubuntu or SuSE).
• LIRC support got dramatically better, but you will have to update your zapdvb.conf file to make it work.
• Irtrans hardware is now supported (see www.irtrans.de), nice for Bang&Olufsen IR controls.
• Changes in /etc/init.d: zapdvbload was renamed to zapdvb_drv and the Settop-Box mode can be started via System V init (linked to zapdvb_box). System V init is now the default (0.49-3). Installing Settop-Box mode has become very easy now, if you use the VESA X11 driver it is completely automatic.
• Unfortunately the documentation is not yet up to date, see the comments and READMEs.

History: Release 0.49 (November 2005)

In this release the long promised javascript GUI gets introduced, but it is not yet enabled by default. You might want to edit your zapdvb.conf (insert guikde=kjscmd in section [zapmcc]) to enable it. Compared to the traditional kdialog based GUI the new one works much faster and is easier to use (single mouse click). A few new GUI features were added (see Video/DVD playback and the wizzard mode used to enter recording jobs). Also the new mode coexists nicely with GNOME. Another feature is the console (e.g. text mode) - ZapDvb now works even in framebuffer mode without X11.

This is the precursor of the 0.50 version, see the news page. The main difference to 0.50 is that you cannot easily configure the tools that get started by zapmcc (juk, kscd, gwenview are preconfigured). The amount of documentation grew again, so the documentation was moved into a separate package. Rpm and SuSE users: rpm -U does not work with these rpms, please uninstall an older version manually.

History: Release 0.43 (September 2005)

Here you get more LIRC - especialy in Set-Top Box mode this is a huge step foreward. The source version can be compiled for 64-bit now. Other improvements include an updated (german) channel list (new radio stations) and support for a still image viewer. See the news page for more details.

Rpm and SuSE users: rpm -U does not work with these rpms, please uninstall an older version manually.

 # build for your architecture (32 or 64 bit) ...
 cd /usr/src
 tar -xzf zapdvb-src.tgz
 cd zapdvb
 sudo ./setup install -    # the minus sign is the important thing!

History: Release 0.42 (August 2005)

This release (2005-08-14) replaces version 0.41 (2005-07-22), see the news page for details. The documentation does still not cover all of the new features but has been improved another time. Please check again from time-to-time for a newer release version. This version works fine on SuSE 9.3 and KDE 3.4 (even in Set-top Box Mode). As you should know SuSE 9.3 needs an update to play audio/video files.

This version supports video aspects also for life TV and DVD (only with MPlayer) and remote mode to make ZapDvb network transparent. You can now use your server DVB card(s) from DVB-less workstation clients and from set-top boxes (disk- and DVB-less bare-bone PC?) in your network! There is also some initial support for LIRC (e.g. using an IR remote control).

Since version 0.42 is it recommended to store local configuration files in /usr/local/share/zapdvb/config - the installation does not modify your local settings in this folder. Move an existing zapdvb.conf to this location, the installation will create a symbolic link to ../zapdvb.conf and the default configuration will be installed as zapdvb.conf.dist. Since version 0.42 your can use /usr/local/share/zapdvb/setup scan to create your own channel lists (and store them in the config folder).

By default some ZapDvb features are disabled. To enable more features you will also have to run /usr/local/share/zapdvb/setup config. This script also tries the detect configuration problems and to give you some hints.

Building from the source is easy, ZapDvb has very few dependencies. Just unpack the archive and run:

 # unpack the archive ...
 cd /usr/src
 tar -xzf zapdvb-src.tgz
 # change to the archive base folder ...
 cd zapdvb
 # there is no ./configure - see the Makefile ...
 make
 # A link to ./setup documentation is in html/README.html
 sudo ./setup install

History: Release 0.30 (May 2005)

This release (2005-05-17) should be working, but the documentation does not yet cover the new features.

Starting with this release you can use Knoppix 3.8 for your 1st steps and to play with the set-top box mode configuration. Just download and install the DEB archive.

This version supports video aspects and monitor aspects (only with MPlayer). This allows you to make best use of 16:9 TV-Displays or other non-4:3 Monitors. Videos get cropped and zoomed as needed. The video editor supports a new "tag" feature to store the required meta-information in the video file (or a separate tag file). The zapdvb.conf file contains some information on this. The set-top box mode has been improved (should be much easier to configure now).

By default most features are disabled - you should make your own /usr/local/share/zapdvb/zapdvb.conf file and copy it to zapdvb.conf.local . If you have done this before updating to a new version the default configuration will be installed as zapdvb.conf.dist .

Building from the sources is easy, ZapDvb has very few dependencies. Just unpack the archive and run:

 # change to the archive base folder ...
 cd zapdvb
 # there is no ./configure - see the Makefile ...
 make
 # A link to ./setup documentation is in html/README.html
 sudo ./setup install

History: Release 0.29 (Summer 2004)

This version supports DVB-C, DVB-T and DVB-S! Other new features are life capturing and automatic clean-ups of video data that was created by cron jobs. The new ZapDvb Control-Center for KDE can manage atd and cron background recording. The ZapTvOut Set-top Box mode has been integrated. Xine and Kaffeine are supported. Please refer to the news page for more details about Kernel 2.6 drivers.

The content of the zapdvb.conf file (in /usr/local/bin) has changed since version 0.20 - save your current channel list before installing! You can then merge your current channel list back to zapdvb.conf (now in folder /usr/local/share/zapdvb) - the new version can handle multiple channel lists.

Building from the sources is easy, ZapDvb has very few dependencies. Just unpack the archive and run:

 # change to the archive base folder ...
 cd zapdvb
 # there is no ./configure - see the Makefile ...
 make
 # A link to ./setup documentation is in html/README.html
 sudo ./setup install

History: Release from September 2003

A patch for kernels >= 2.4.21 (using i2c version 2.8) is included with the 1.1.7 driver sources but not yet applied. See DVB/i2c_2_8.README .

History: Release from June 2003 (SuSE 8.x)