dvd-slideshow - Creates a mpeg slideshow movie from a list of pictures and effects.

dvd-slideshow -o <output directory> [-b <background jpeg>] [-n <slideshow name>] [-a <audiofile1> -a <audiofile2> -a <audiofileN>] -f <input text file> [-p] [-L] [-mp2]

Creates a dvd-compatible mpeg2 file from a bunch of jpegs. You can add music on the command line or in the text input file. Supports several effects like fadein/fadeout/crossfade/crop/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.

-o <Output directory>

Directory where the final mpeg and dvdauthor files will be written.

[-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.

[-n <Slideshow name>]

This will be printed at the top of the slideshow title slide, if it exists. The program also 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.

[-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.

[-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.

[-p]

Use PAL output video format instead of NTSC.

[-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 about 4. Because this copies some frames, the audio and/or chapter markers may be off a little.

[-r]

Autocrop images near the DVD output aspect ratio to fill the whole window.

-f <Input text file>

See the INPUT FILE section.

-h

Prints help file (basically this manpage).

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 two decimal points of accuracy, like 5.68.

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: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. 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.

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.

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) If you want to concatenate two audio files, just place them one right after another in the .txt file.

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-slideshowrc file, or within the input text file. The order in which the script reads the settings is as follows:

Default script settings --> ~/dvd-slideshowrc --> command line --> input text file

so each successive setting will over-ride the previous settings if they are already set.

~/.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

font_dir="/usr/share/fonts"

font1="n019004l.pfb" # helvetica bold URW fonts

font2="helb____.ttf" # helvetica bold truetype

## font sizes:

subtitle_font_size=24

title1_font_size=48

title2_font_size=36

## top title:

title1_bar_height=125 # 0 for no 50% white behind text

title1_text_location_x=80

title1_text_location_y=50

# bottom title:

title2_bar_location_y=324 # relative to top of image

title2_bar_height=55 # 0 for no 50% white behind text

title2_text_location_x=0

title2_text_location_y=325

Input text file:

The same syntax used in ~/.dvd-slideshowrc can be used in the input text file. This way, you could specify settings specifit to the slideshow you're working on without changing your default settings.

dvd-slideshow

dvd-menu

dvd-iso Depreciated. Use dvd-menu -iso instead

dir2slideshow

gallery2slideshow

jigl2slideshow

man/dvd-slideshow.1

man/dvd-menu.1

man/dir2slideshow.1

doc/dvd-slideshow.html

doc/dvd-menu.html

doc/changelog.html

doc/dvd-encode.html

doc/gallery2slideshow.html

doc/jigl2slideshow.html

doc/README.html

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

Scott Dylewski <scott at dylewski dot com>

http://dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net/

dvd-menu(1)