This is a suite of tools for processing teletext signals recorded on VHS, as well as tools for processing teletext packet streams. The software has only been tested with bt8x8 capture hardware, but should work with any VBI capture hardware with appropriate configuration.
This is the second rewrite of the original software. The old versions are
still available in the v1 and v2 branches of this repo, or from the
releases page.
You can see my collection of pages recovered with this software at:
https://al.zerostem.io/~al/teletext/
And more at:
http://archive.teletextarchaeologist.org
And:
http://archive.teletextart.co.uk/
In order to use CUDA decoding you need to use the Nvidia proprietary driver.
To install with optional dependencies run:
pip3 install -e .[CUDA,spellcheck,viewer]
If CUDA or pyenchant are not available for your platform simply omit them from the install command.
In order for the output to be rendered correctly you need to use a specific font and terminal:
sudo apt-get install tv-fonts rxvt-unicode
Then enable bitmap fonts in your X server:
cd /etc/fonts/conf.d
sudo rm 70-no-bitmaps.conf
sudo ln -s ../conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf .
After doing this you may need to reboot.
Finally open a terminal with the required font:
urxvt -fg white -bg black -fn teletext -fb teletext -geometry 41x25 +sb &
First capture VBI from VHS:
teletext record -d /dev/vbi0 > capture.vbi
Deconvolve the recording:
teletext deconvolve capture.vbi > stream.t42
Examine the headers to find services on the tape:
teletext filter -r 0 stream.t42
Split capture into services:
teletext filter --start <N> --stop <N> stream.t42 > stream-1.t42
Display all copies of a page in a stream:
teletext filter stream.t42 -p 100
Squash duplicate subpages, which reduces errors:
teletext squash stream.t42 > output.t42
Generate HTML pages from a stream:
teletext html output/ stream.t42
Interactively view the pages in a t42 stream:
teletext service stream.t42 | teletext interactive
In the interactive viewer you can type page numbers, or '.' for hold.
Run each command with '--help' for a complete list of options.