"Dvbsnoop analyzes DVB/MPEG streams and is open source." (10 words)
Dvbsnoop is a versatile program that can analyze offline MPEG streams stored on DVDs or MPEG2 movie files. It is an incredibly useful tool for those interested in the technical side of digital television, especially developers of DVB related software. If you need to sniff data streams sent over cable or satellite, dvbsnoop offers useful features and protocol decoding.
The program was originally developed to understand the DVB protocol structures and streams sent via satellites. While it may not be highly performance optimized, it still does a great job. Features offered include protocol decoding, hex, octal or decimal version, and more.
Dvbsnoop is still under development and will be enhanced in the future. Suggestions, bug reports, and enhancements are welcome. It is currently part of the tuxbox project and is designed to run on Unix based set top boxes.
To use dvbsnoop, you need to have the DVB driver installed. It is a command-line tool and works on any Unix-based system with shell access and DVB support installed. Dvbsnoop tries to decode every data it gets, but if you try to decode a video or audio stream in section mode, it may assume a section table and will decode the wrong data. In such instances, the decoding will be garbage. Using the '-crc' option should prevent this.
Additionally, the '-sync' option is very helpful when using '-s pes' or '-s ts'. The '-sync' option tries to find TS or PES packet start sync bytes before decoding. Dvbsnoop does not do DVB stream validation but assumes correct DVB streams. Getting garbage, corrupted streams or streams with wrong semantics will result in incorrect decoding output. It is highly recommended to use the '-crc' and '-sync' options to prevent wrong decoding.
If you experience odd output, please report it as wrong decoding can be mostly avoided by using the '-crc' and '-sync' options. Overall, dvbsnoop is a must-have tool for those interested in the technical side of digital television and for developers of DVB related software.
Version 1.4.50: N/A