NAME
dvd-slideshow - Creates a slideshow movie in DVD video format from a
list of pictures and effects.
SYNOPSIS
dvd-slideshow [-n <slideshow name>] [-o <output directory>] [-b
<background jpeg>] [-a <audiofile1> -a <audiofile2> -a <audiofileN>]
[-p] [-L] [-H] [-mp2] [-r] [-smp] [-border <bordersize>] [-theme
<themename>] [-f] <input text file>
DESCRIPTION
Creates a dvd-compatible mpeg2 video from a bunch of images. You can
add music on the command line or in the text input file. Supports
several effects like fadein, fadeout, crossfade, crop, and kenburns.
dvd-slideshow is designed to work with dvd-menu to create a dvd
navigation menu that you can then burn onto a dvd. There are also some
helper scripts to convert a directory of pictures or your favorite
online photo album to a dvd.
OPTIONS
[-n <Slideshow name>]
The program uses this string as the filename base for the output
files so you can distinguish it from other slideshows that you
can send to the same output directory. If not specified, the
default value is the name of the input file.
[-o <Output directory>]
Directory where the final .vob and dvdauthor .xml files will be
written. Defaults to the current working directory.
[-b <Background jpeg>]
Image to use for the background of the slideshow. All of the
pictures will be overlaid on top of this background image. If no
file is specified, black will be used for the slideshow and a
blue gradient for the title slide.
[-a <Audio file>]
Audio file to play in background during the slideshow. It will
be faded out at the end. Supports mp3, ogg, or wav formats at
this point. Multiple files will be joined. See also the more
flexible text file input method. To pass multiple files, use the
-a switch again.
[-p] Use PAL output video format instead of NTSC.
[-mp2] Use mp2 audio by default. AC3 audio seems to be more stable
when playing in dvd hardware players, but requires ffmpeg. This
will over-ride the AC3 default and use the mp2 audio encoder.
[-L] Render a low-quality video suitable for debugging. This sets the
resolution to 1/2 of full resolution and decreases the quality
of fades/transitions. It should speed up the encoding process
by at least a factor of 4.
[-H] (Beta) Render a higher-quality video. This uses the default dvd
resolution and keeps all other output parameters the same, but
enables some pixel-sampling methods that make the scroll effect
look better at very slow velocities. This will make
dvd-slideshow take up to 4x longer to process the scroll effect.
Only applied when needed; the output will explain if it is being
used.
[-theme <themefile>]
Use the given theme when setting variables/colors/etc. Themes
are installed in /opt/dvd-slideshow/themes or in a local
directory ~/.dvd-slideshow/themes
[-border N]
Make a border of N pixels around each image. Does not apply to
title slides.
[-sharpen]
Sharpen images.
[-r] Autocrop images near the DVD output aspect ratio to fill the
whole window.
[-w] [alpha] Render widescreen (16:9) output instead of standard
(4:3).
[-smp] Enable more processes to run at the same time for multiprocessor
machines. Basically, this just renders each frame of a
transition in the background at the same time, and then waits
for them to be finished. WARNING: If you do not have enough
memory to hold all the frames for one "crossfade" or "kenburns"
effect,then linux starts swapping to disk, and your machine may
seem to lock up for a while. I have crashed my old machine
using this. Use at your own risk!
[-mpeg2enc]
The default mpeg encoder has changed to ffmpeg, so if you are
having problems, you can force dvd-slideshow to use mpeg2enc
instead.
[-vcd] (alpha) Renders video in vcd-compatible output.
[-svcd]
(alpha) Renders video in svcd-compatible output.
[-flv] (alpha) Renders a Flash video output.
[-s WxH]
(alpha) Force output size to have width W and height H.
[-f] <Input text file>
See the INPUT FILE section.
-h Prints help file (basically this manpage).
INPUT FILE
The input file is a text file that acts like a timeline or storyboard
for your slideshow. In the most simple form, it is just a list of
images. See EXAMPLES for some simple examples of these text files. The
input file also allows for many more special effects that are not
available on the command line. Each line contains one image or effect.
It uses the : character as a separator for the fields. Here is the
syntax:
[image.jpg|keyword]:duration:subtitle:effect:effect_params
Duration can be specified in integer seconds like 5 or with up to three
decimal points of accuracy, like 5.683.
When passing a picture, you can optionally use the keyword "audio"
instead of the duration in seconds. What this does is force the
duration of that image to be the length of the previous audio track.
This is useful for making a music video dvd.
The subtitle field is optional, but if you are passing effects after
the subtitle field, be sure to include all the colons :: in order for
the parser to get the correct info. You can escape a colon in
subtitles with a backslash.
NOTE: the effect parameters are separated by a semicolon ; instead of a
colon :.
KEYWORDS:
title:duration:title text
Makes a title slide with text centered in the screen. Further
control of the font, size, and position of the title text can be
achieved by setting variables (see the VARIABLES section).
titlebar:duration:Upper title text:Lower title text
Makes a title slide using <Upper title text> as a title at the
top of the screen, and <Lower title text> as a lower title, in a
band at the bottom of the screen. Each title is optional. If
one is missing, it will not be displayed. White ands are
underlayed behind the text for better contrast. Further control
of the font, size, and position of the title text can be
achieved by setting variables (see the VARIABLES section).
musictitle:duration:subtitle:Title:Artist;Album
Makes a black frame with the song info printed in the bottom
left corner. Yes, that is a semicolon between Artist and Album.
background:duration:subtitle:image.jpg
Makes a slide with the current background image (or black if no
image is passed). If a new image name is passed, the background
will be reset to that picture. Examples:
"background:2" will display the current background for 2
seconds.
"background:2::image.jpg" will set the background to image.jpg
and also display it for 2 seconds.
"background:0::image.jpg" will set the background image to
image.jpg, but will not use it until the next picture.
"black" or "white" can be used instead of an image name to
display a black or white background.
fadein:duration:subtitle
Fades in to the next slide
fadeout:duration:subtitle
Fades out to the background
crossfade:duration:subtitle
Fades from one slide to the next.
wipe:duration:subtitle:[up|down|left|right]
Wipes from one picture to the next. The direction is optional
and will default to left.
chapter
Force manual chapter marker timing. Chapter markers will only
be created where the "chapter" keyword occurs. The default is to
add chapter markers at every slide.
include:includefile.txt
Other input files can be included in the input .txt file. The
file includefile.txt will be concatenated in the place where the
line occurs..
exit
Stops the slideshow at the current point as if the input.txt
file ended at this point. Useful for debugging
EFFECTS:
Effects are only used with images, not keywords. In the
following effects, x0,y0 represents the top left corner of a
defined box, and x1,y1 is the bottom right corner.
NOTE: the effect parameters are separated by a semicolon ;
instead of a colon :
crop
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:crop:x0,y0;x1,y1
Crops the image about the coordinates specified (in the original
image coordinate system).
Crop keyword description:
Because it is difficult to figure out the exact locations where
you want to crop, it is possible to use special keywords for the
locations where you want to crop the image. The basic format
is:
frame_size%;frame_location
where frame_size indicates the relative scale(%) in percent of
the final dvd window width/height, and frame_location refers to
the location of the center point of the picture relative to the
dvd window.
Frame_location can be any of the following keywords:
topleft top topright
left middle right
bottomleft bottom bottomright
or
x%,y%
where % is a percentage of the window width,height starting from
the top left corner of the dvd window.
or
imagewidth | imageheight
where the image width or height will be scaled to fill the full
width or height of the dvd screen.
Crop examples:
image.jpg:dur:sub:crop:651,390;1134,759
image.jpg:dur:sub:crop:30%;60%,60%
image.jpg:dur:sub:crop:50%;topleft
image.jpg:dur:sub:crop:imageheight;left
kenburns
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:kenburns:start_box;end_box
Where now we have starting (s) and ending (e) boxes, defined in
the same way as in the "crop" function, above. The kenburns
effect will crop/zoom from the start to the end for the given
duration.
Full box description:
xs0,ys0;xs1,ys1;xe0,ye0;xe1,ye1
Specifies the top-left(0) and bottom-right(1) points.
Keyword description:
start_frame_size%;start_location;end_frame_size%;end_location
Kenburns examples:
image.jpg:5::kenburns:651,390;1134,759;372,330;1365,1089
image.jpg:5:sub:kenburns:30%;60%,60%;75%;40%,50%
image.jpg:5:sub:kenburns:50%;topleft;50%;bottomright
image.jpg:5:sub:kenburns:100%;left;0,0;720,480
image.jpg:5:sub:kenburns:100%;left;imageheight;left
scroll
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:scroll:left
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:scroll:right
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:scroll:up
image.jpg:duration:subtitle:scroll:down
This is most useful for displaying panorama-style pictures that
are much wider than they are tall. For example, "scroll:right"
will automatically resize the picture so that the image height
is equal to the video display height (480) before scrolling
right.
Note that in high quality mode (-H), some calculations will be
made to see how slow the scroll is, and if it is slow enough,
sub-pixel sampling will be used to make the scroll effect look
much smoother. Sounds good, right? Well, it will take a LOT
longer to process the frames also!
AUDIO:
Audio tracks can be inter-mixed with the video. If an audio
track is placed between two different images/effects, that audio
track will begin playing at the start of the second
image/effect. When placing audio, use the syntax:
audiofile:track:effect1:effect1_params:effect2:effect2_params
The audiofile can be a .ogg, .mp3, or .wav file.
Track is the resulting dvd audio track.
Audio Effects are audio effects where you can specify things
like fadein and fadeout for the audio. Example:
audiofile:1:fadein:3:fadeout:2
(*NEW in 0.7.3) If you want to concatenate two audio files, just
place them one right after another in the .txt file.
CONFIGURATION
You can specify lots of variables and options throughout the
dvd-slideshow script. Settings can be passed on the command line, in a
default ~/.dvd-slideshow/dvd-slideshowrc file, or within the input text
file. The order in which the script reads the settings is as follows:
Default script settings --> ~/.dvd-slideshow/dvd-slideshowrc -->
command line --> input text file
so each successive setting will over-ride the previous settings if they
are already set.
~/.dvd-slideshow/dvd-slideshowrc:
With the syntax shown below, the following variables can be
specified in the ~/.dvd-slideshowrc file. All lines are
optional, and everything after the # character is not read.
debug=1 # 0 (low) to 3 (lots of info)
pal=0 # 0=ntsc 1=pal
ac3=1 # 0=mp2 1=ac3 audio
copy=0 # add copies of original images to the output
directory
autocrop=1 # autocrop images to fill full screen
border=0 # add border of N pixels between image and dvd edge
sharpen=0 # Enable image sharpening for all images
widescreen=0 # use widescreen mode (16:9) instead of 4:3
## Default font:
font=/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n019004l.pfb # Helvetical
bold URW font
## Subtitle: subtitle_type="dvd" # use "render" to force
rendering of text.
subtitle_font_size=24
subtitle_font=’/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n019004l.pfb’ #
Helvetical bold URW font
subtitle_color="white"
subtitle_outline_color="black"
subtitle_location="bottom"
## Title:
title_font_size=48
title_font_color="black" # or use hex "#RRGGBB"
title_font=’/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n019004l.pfb’ #
Helvetical bold URW font
## top title:
toptitle_font_size=48
toptitle_font_color="black" # or use hex "#RRGGBB"
toptitle_bar_height=125 # 0 for no 50% white behind text
toptitle_text_location_x=80
toptitle_text_location_y=50
# bottom title:
bottomtitle_font_size=36
bottomtitle_font_color="black" # or use hex "#RRGGBB"
bottomtitle_bar_location_y=156 # relative to bottom of image
bottomtitle_bar_height=55 # 0 for no 50% white behind text
bottomtitle_text_location_x=0
bottomtitle_text_location_y=155
# kenburns:
kenburns_acceleration=2 # seconds of slow acceleration for
kenburns
# use 0 for no acceleration, or, use a percent of the effect
time:
# kenburns_acceleration=25% # will accelerate for the first 25%
of the effect.
Input text file:
The same syntax used in ~/.dvd-slideshow/dvd-slideshowrc can be
used in the input text file. This way, you could specify
settings specifit to the slideshow you are working on without
changing your default settings.
THEMES
A theme is just a file containing a list of configuration variables,
and possibly also background images, fonts, or audio in the same
directory.
Any of the configuration variables can be placed in a dvd-slideshow
theme file to control dvd-slideshow also..br
This will be explained more later...
FILES
dvd-slideshow
dvd-menu
dir2slideshow
gallery1-to-slideshow
jigl2slideshow
EXAMPLES
There are a few heavily-commented examples available in the examples
section of the dvd-slideshow webpage, which you can find at
http://dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net
AUTHORS
Scott Dylewski <scott at dylewski dot com>
http://dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net/
SEE ALSO
dvd-menu(1)