WebDVD depends on the following software:
- dvdauthor
+- expat 1.x
- Gtkmm 2.0
-- mjpegtools
+- ffmpeg or mjpegtools
- Mozilla 1.7.x (later versions may work but are untested)
- netpbm
- Xvfb (from XFree86 or X.org)
- mkisofs
-You will also need a program such as ffmpeg or mencoder for producing
-DVD-suitable MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video files.
+You will also need a program for producing DVD-suitable MPEG-1 or
+MPEG-2 video files.
Usage
-----
Design your DVD menus as a series of HTML pages linking to each other
-and to MPEG-1/2 videos that are suitable for use on a DVD. Currently
-the videos must be local files with filenames ending in ".vob", but no
-such restrictions apply to the HTML pages. You must be careful not to
-link to pages that you do not want to appear on the disc, such as
-normal web sites. Also note the limitations listed below.
-
-By default, webdvd generates PAL/SECAM video. If you wish to produce
-NTSC DVDs you can override this by adding the option "--video-std ntsc"
-to the following commands.
+and to MPEG-1/2 videos that are suitable for use on a DVD. You must
+be careful not to link to pages that you do not want to appear on the
+disc, such as normal web sites. Also note the limitations listed
+below.
+
+Linking to video
+
+You can link directly to local MPEG video files whose names end in
+".vob". If you wish to combine multiple files into a single video
+sequence ("title" in DVD terminology) or to add chapter marks to a
+video sequence, create and link to a VOB-list file (explained below)
+whose name ends in ".voblist".
+
+VOB-lists
+
+A VOB-list file is an XML file with the document element <vob-list>
+and containing <vob> elements as described in the dvdauthor manual
+page. The file names in a VOB-list file are resolved relative to the
+directory containing the list file. For example:
+
+ <vob-list>
+ <vob file="main.vob" chapters="0:00,4:55,12:13,17:45"/>
+ <vob file="credits.vob"/>
+ </vob-list>
+
+This will result in a title with the following chapters:
+
+ 1: main.vob 0:00- 4:55
+ 2: main.vob 4:55-12:13
+ 3: main.vob 12:13-17:45
+ 4: main.vob 17:45- end
+ 5: credits.vob
+
+Video standards
+
+The encoding of analogue TV and video signals varies in many different
+ways between countries. Happily there are only two parameters that
+matter for standard-definition digital video, and two different pairs
+of values. You can choose between these with the --video-std option:
+
+Analogue parameters | Region of world | --video-std | Frame
+ | | argument | size
+----------------------+------------------------------+-------------+--------
+59.94 fields/second, | Americas except Argentina, | 525 | 720x576
+interlaced; | Paraguay, Uruguay; | or 525/60 |
+525 lines/frame | Japan; Laos; Myanmar; | or NTSC |
+(commonly called | Philippines; South Korea; | or ntsc |
+ NTSC) | Taiwan; some Pacific islands | |
+----------------------+------------------------------+-------------+--------
+50 fields/second, | Rest of world | 625 | 720x480
+interlaced; | | or 625/50 |
+625 lines/frame | | or PAL |
+(commonly called PAL) | | or pal |
+
+The default is to use "PAL" parameters.
+
+Currently
+
+Preview
To get a rough preview of the menus, run "webdvd --preview menu-url"
-where menu-url is the URL of the first page to show. Currently
-videos cannot be displayed in this preview mode; if you select one it
-will cause WebDVD to exit.
-
-To create a DVD filesystem, run "webdvd menu-url output-dir" where
-menu-url is the address of the top menu page and output-dir is the
-directory in which to create the filesystem (which should be either
-nonexistent or empty). WebDVD will automatically follow links to the
-other pages and to the video files.
+where menu-url is the URL or filename of the first page to show.
+Currently videos cannot be displayed in this preview mode.
-If this is successful you can then use mkisofs to create a DVD image:
+Processing
- mkisofs -dvd-video DIR > IMAGE
- rm -rf DIR
-
-Alternately you can write the filesystem directly to a writable DVD
-with growisofs or with mkisofs piped to a suitable version of
-cdrecord.
+To create a DVD filesystem, run "webdvd menu-url output-dir" where
+menu-url is the URL or filename of the top menu page and output-dir is
+the directory in which to create the filesystem (which should be
+either nonexistent or empty). WebDVD will automatically follow links
+to the other pages and to the video files.
+
+By default, WebDVD now calls ffmpeg to generate MPEG-2 streams for
+menus. If you want it to use mjpegtools as it previously did, you
+must add the option "--encoder mjpegtools". If you use mjpegtools
+1.6.2 or earlier you must instead use "--encoder mjpegtools-old".
+This is due to an incompatible change in the syntax of the ppmtoy4m
+command between versions 1.6.2 and 1.8.
+
+If this is successful you can then use mkisofs to create a DVD image
+from the output directory. Alternately you can write this directory
+directly to a writable DVD with growisofs or with mkisofs piped to a
+suitable version of cdrecord.
+
+Example
+-------
+
+A live example set of menus can currently be found at
+<http://womble.decadent.org.uk/software/debconf5-dvd/menus/main.html>.
+Note that this has large background images that will take some time to
+load.
Limitations
-----------
Each page must fit within the frame - DVD players do not support
scrolling menus and WebDVD currently is not able to split them into
-multiple menus. Note also that the video frame is somewhat larger
-than the visible area of a normal TV. For this reason WebDVD applies
-a stylesheet to all pages that adds 50-60 pixels of padding on all
-sides of the body.
+multiple menus. The frame size is dictated by the video standard; see
+above. The exact visible area varies between TVs so the background
+should cover all or very nearly all the frame whereas the important
+content such as text must not be placed near the edge. For this
+reason WebDVD applies a stylesheet to all pages that adds 60 pixels of
+padding on all sides of the body; this doesn't apply to the
+background.
+
+Prior to Mozilla version 1.8, which I have not yet tested, Mozilla may
+signal that a page is completely loaded before any background images
+are loaded and displayed. This results in snapshots that do not
+include background images. You can work around this by using
+absolutely-positioned "inline" images, or attempt to build WebDVD
+against Mozilla 1.8.
DVD players do not have "back" buttons, so you should generally
provide links to "higher" menu pages. However, they do have a button
highlighting of buttons to using no more than 4 colours. WebDVD will
reduce link highlighting to 1 transparent and 3 opaque colours using
Floyd-Steinberg dithering, which is certainly good enough for
-anti-alised text but may not be so good for complex highlighting.
+anti-aliased text but may not be so good for complex highlighting.
+
+There is a limit of 99 "titles" on a DVD. If you need to include more
+than this number of video sequences, you could arrange them as
+chapters of a title, so long as they use the same codecs, resolution,
+aspect ratio and sample rate. However, each chapter will run into the
+next. If this is a real problem, let me know, and I may be able to
+provide a better solution in a later version of WebDVD.
Author and copyright
--------------------
-WebDVD was written by Ben Hutchings <ben@decadentplace.org.uk>.
-Copyright 2005 Ben Hutchings.
+WebDVD was written by Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>.
+Copyright 2005-2006 Ben Hutchings.
This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
Copyright 1991-1998 Thomas G. Lane. (This applies to the file jquant2.c.)