EXAMPLES

DVDA-AUTHOR  MENU EXAMPLE

Prerequisites
-------------

To test the new menu capability, create a directory test/ under your personal home directory 
(on Unix-type platforms) or under a directory named ~ (Windows).
Name three WAV audio files file1.wav, file2.wav, file3.wav under ~/test.
Check your internet connection is functional.
Open a command line window and type in:

./configure --enable-core-build && make && make install

If all runs well, you have a minimal version of dvda-author with which you can 
create DVD-Audio discs for .wav files.

If you'd like to extend the list of audio files that are preprocessed prior to disc creation,
condfigure the build as follows:

./configure --enable-minimal-build --enable--minimal-deps.

Take care to have a functional internet connection. 
This configuration will make it possible to create discs with the FLAC and OggFlac audio formats
and more generally,all audio formats compatible with SoX.

For a full build with menu creation enabled, you should use:

./configure 
 
but this will only work if your platform is Unix-like and if you have a reasonably extended list of
system-installed developer tools. See file INSTALL for details.

Linux and Windows32 builds of these tools are made available in all recent packages (as of 2013) 
under directory build/.

IN particular, you will need a patched version of mkisofs and dvdauthor and the Schilling version
of cdrecord installed on your platform (it is recommended to uninstall prior versions 
of these tools before this step).

Should you need to author top menu soundtracks, or create slideshows for top menus, you'll
also need lplex, which may be downloaded from the lplex forum page (see links 
here: http://audioplex.sourceforge.net), preferably, or if this fails by using :

--enable-lplex-download --enable-lplex-build

at configure stage.


Example 1
---------


Author three png images in maximum PAL size (720x576 pixels) with GIMP or other tool.
The images should not have more than 4 colors, a transparent background counting as a color.
One of the three images will be the background image (which remains fixed) ; name it

     menu1-0.mpg_buttons.png

The second image should resemble the background except for highlighting patterns, which
should be of a different color than the text and the background, and should not intersect the
text in the background picture. Name it:

     menu1-0.mpg_highlight.png

A third image should be like the latter, with a change in color for the track text. This change
will briefly show up (about 1 second) on selecting the track and pressing on the enter button
of the remote control. Name it:

    menu1-0.mpg_select.png

Place the three pictures in directory test/

Author a PAL mpg with optional soundtrack, which should be 16bit/48kHz wav file, 
due to DVD-Audio norm limitations.
Should you have installed lplex, you may author it easily using:

lplex --create=mpeg jpg (path to a any 720x576 jpg file) ~/audio/sountrack.wav --workPath=test

In this example, the mpg. file will be generated under test/audio_DVD 

(Re-)Name it:

    menu1-0.mpg_bg.mpg

and place it in directory test/

Launch:

dvda-author -a -g test/file1.wav test/file2.wav -g test/file3.wav  -o output  
--highlight=test/menu1-0.mpg_highlight.png --select=test/menu1-0.mpg_select.png 
--image=test/menu1-0.mpg_buttons.png    --mkisofs --background-mpg=test/menu1-0.mpg_bg.mpg  
--workdir=/path/to/package  --bindir=/path/to/auxiliary/toos/directory  -W -P0

Take care that the argument to --workdir actually is a directory containing the menu/ directory of 
the source code package. You can copy this menu subdirectory within any workdir you like, so 
using the source package as workdir is not necessary. Do not forget to manually copy the menu/
subdir as a whole, however, if you change the working directory.

The argument to --bindir should contain all auxciliaryu executables: mplex, mkisofs, etc.
If you configured as above, just use:

      --workdir=/path/to/package/local/build/.../bin


To burn the iso file generated under ~/output, you may use:

(sudo) cdrecord  ~/output/dvd.iso

Once x is known, this step can be integrated to the prior one, 
by adding --cdrecord x,0,0 to the command line.

with x determined by (sudo) cdrecord -scanbus.

If you are using just one burner, you may omit (dev=)x,0,0 and 
just add --cdrecord on command line, as the application will guess the right bus code.
Adding --cdrecord to the command-line makes it useless to add --mkisofs.

Use your remote control's "top menu" button to access the generated top menu, 
and arrow buttons to navigate between titles.



Example 2 : Several menus
-------------------------

Use command-line:

-i ~/audio -o dir --topmenu   --nmenus 3 --cdrecord -W -P0 --workdir (as above)  --bindir (as above)

will output three menus, each with automatic menu images. 
If you want to set the number of columns rather than the number of menus, use --ncolumns N  instead of an --nmenus n  option.
If the --nmenus option is omitted, dvda-author will optimize menu generation, using as few menus as possible.



Example 3 : Authoring top menu soundtracks
------------------------------------------

Install lplex (see above). Add the following options to the command line in example 2:

--workdir (directory having audio/ and pic/ as subdirectories)
--soundtracks audio/soundtrack1.wav:audio/soundtrack2.wav:audio/soundtrack3.wav 
--topmenu-slides pic/A.jpg:pic/B.jpg:pic/C.jpg --workdir (as above)  --bindir (as above)

Each of the three menus will have A, B, and C respectively as background pictures, 
and the corresponding audio track will be, respectively, soundtrack1.wav, soundtrack2.wav and soundtrack3.wav
Each of the wav files should be 16bit-48kHz.




DVDA-AUTHOR  STILLS EXAMPLE

Collect jpg pictures and author them. 
Add them to a directory dir with names pic_000.jpg,...pic_010.jpg,...pic_999.jpg (max).
Use:

--stillpics dir/
Alternatively, you may list pictures:
--stillpics (path0),(path1),...,(pathn)
and add options:
--stilloptions rank=0,starteffect=fade,rank=1,starteffect=dissolve,...

Use exactly as many pictures as there are tracks if using pictures 
(repeat self-same pics; laxer syntax to be developed).


DVDA-AUTHOR  CONFIGURATION FILE EXAMPLE

Check the howto HOWTO.conf and the configuration file example dvda-author.conf.example 
in your package or under your documentation installation folder.

Using the GNU build system, this folder /usr/share/doc/dvda-author/ by default,
or $prefix/share/doc/dvda-author if you set --prefix=$prefix at configure stage.

Configuration files are very useful to write complex authoring projects, 
when command lines get bigger. 
Using the GNU autotools build system, dvda-author.conf is installed 
under /usr/share/applications/dvda-author.conf or, more generally, 
under $prefix/share/applications/dvda-author.conf

You may also specify the installation folder for dvda-author.conf
using --with-config=/path/to/folder at configure time (see file INSTALL). 

dvda-author project files follow the same syntax as configuration files.

Below is a simple example for a hand-made dvda-author.dap, equivalent to the following command-line:

-g a.wav b.wav c.wav -g a.aiff b.aiff --sox -o outputdir --topmenu --nmenus 2 -d

#project file

[g]  
  a.wav
  b.wav
  c.wav

[g]
  a.aiff
  b.aiff

[sox]

[output]
  outputdir

[topmenu]

[nmenus]
  2

[debug]

[workdir]
 /path/to/drectory/containing/menu/subdirectory

[bindir]
 /path/to/auxiliary/binaries

#end of project file


Example 4 : project file
------------------------

Copy the above text between #project file and #end of project file to dvda-author.dap in current directory.

Launch:

dvda-author --project

This will be tantamount to launching the command line mentioned above.