You can see here some properties about the video device currently in use.
Capabilities shows what can the video device do, as reported by
V4L.
Device name refers to the name the video driver gives to this video
device, whilst Current controller shows which API is using
Zapping to communicate with the device, in this case it has detected a
V4L2 device, and it is using its native calls.
Device file lets you choose the video device file Zapping will
open to communicate with the V4L driver.
Minimum capture size and Maximum capture size refer to
which are the maximum and minimum capabilities of the device, you
won't be able to get any image with dimensions out of this bounds.
Thanks God, not eveybody thinks alike. Thus, not everybody likes the same things. This label lets you choose how will those little things work.
Avoid noise while changing channels will mute the device while
changing channels. This results in a smoother behaviour, without
clicks, but changing the channel will take a little (~200ms) longer.
Save window geometry makes Zapping save its screen location and
size when closing, and restore them the next time you start it. Note
that this only refers to the window geometry, and not docks
layout. That should be saved automagically regardless of this option,
but it is broken now. This isn't a recommended practice, but I like
it, so it's configurable.
Resize using fixed increments makes the main window resize in
64x48 increments, keeping a good width/height ratio. This is the way
Xawtv resizes, and some people (/me) are used to and like it.
Start Zapping muted switchs off the sound when starting the
program.
Avoid some flicker in preview mode is only applicable to
windowed preview mode. Instead of refreshing the whole screen when it
gets corrupted, it only refreshes the corrupted area. The drawback is
that the correupted are sometimes isn't correctly calculated, and some
windows (usually just the main window) get corrupted.
Ratio mode will set some hints on the main window so a fixed
width/height ratio is always kept. If the WM doesn't support this,
this option will have no effect. Most Window Managers support it,
though.
Verbosity value given to zapping_setup_fb. zapping_setup_fb is
an auxiliary suid program used to startup the framebuffer. If this
value is greater than 0, the program will print some debugging info
useful when something doesn't work properly. This is equivalent to the
--verbose command line option.