spumux - generates and multiplexes subtitles into an existing mpeg2 program stream

spumux [ -m dvd | -m cvd | -m svcd ] [ -s stream ] [ -v level ] [ -P ] file < mpeg > mpeg-with-subtitles

spumux encodes the subtitles and multiplexes it into the mpeg2 program stream.

-m mode

Sets the encoding for the subtitles. Can be dvd, cvd, or svcd. Default is dvd.

-s stream

Sets the subtitle stream id. Default is 0.

-v level

Sets the verbosity level.

-P

Enables a progress bar.

Here's a sample configuration file:

<subpictures>
   <stream>
      <spu start="start-time" [ end="end-time" ] [ image="picture.png" ]
           [ highlight="picture.png" ] [ select="picture.png" ]
           [ transparent="color-code" ] [ force="yes" ]
           [ autooutline="infer" [ outlinewidth="width" ]
             [ autoorder="rows" | autoorder="columns" ] ]
           [ xoffset="x-coord" yoffset="y-coord" ] >
         <button [ name="name" ] [ x0="x0" ] [ y0="y0" ] [ x1="x1" ]
                 [ y1="y1" ] [ up="name" ] [ down="name" ]
                 [ left="name" ] [ right="name" ] />
         <action [ name="name" ] />
      </spu>
   </stream>
</subpictures>

Each subtitle image is described by an <spu> tag. The start and optional end attributes describe when the subtitle will be displayed on the screen, in "HR:MM:SS.HU". The image attribute describes the main subtitle image, which can either be a PNG or BMP file. If your image is not a full screen image, you can use xoffset and yoffset to move the picture around. In the advent that the author is unable to use a graphics format with an alpha channel, then the transparent attribute can be used to describe which color should become fully transparent. The color is in hexadecimal as "RRGGBB". If you want to force the display of the subtitle, regardless of whether the user has enabled subtitles or not, you can use the force tag. When you are making menus, the force tag is required.

The remaining attributes and tags are related to menu creation. The highlight attribute shows what all the buttons look like when they are highlighted (i.e. when you are using the arrows in the menu), and the select attribute shows what all the buttons look like when the are selected (i.e. for the 1-2 seconds after you press enter in the menu). If either of these (or the image attribute) are omitted, then spumux creates a blank (totally transparent) image. Obviously at least one tag should be specified.

To aid in button creation, the autooutline attribute instructs spumux to infer where the buttons are located. It does this by attempting to draw rectangles around a composition of the highlight and select images which do not intersect any opaque or semi-opaque pixels. In order to support textual buttons, the attribute outlinewidth allows you to specify the width of the rectangle which is tested. Wider rectangles won't be able to squeeze between the letters. Finally, autoorder describes which way to order the automatically detected buttons, which is important for numerically selected buttons and for mapping buttons to button names or to the implied names.

The button and action tags describe the buttons (visibly selectable objects on the screen) and actions (commands that are executed as soon as the associated key is pressed on the remote). If you are using the autooutline feature, just designing buttons, are happy with the inferred button navigation, and can deal with the simplistic naming system, then you actually do not even need to specify any buttons or actions. Otherwise, read on.

The name attribute is used to give a button or action an easy to refer to name. By default they are numbered sequentially starting with "1". The (x0,y0) coordinates describe the upper left hand corner inclusively, while the (x1,y1) coordinates describe the lower right hand corner EXclusively. The up, down, left, and right names describe which button or action should be tied to the corresponding key when the current button is highlighted, though if omitted spumux will use a reasonably intelligent algorithm to determine which buttons to move to.

Spumux is also able to handle text subtitles, which will be rendered to graphics by spumux. A lot of different text (must be non-graphic) formats are supported (.sub, .srt, .ssa, .smi, .rt , .txt, .aqt, .jss, .js, ass). Spumux will try to determine the format automatically.

If processing textbased subtitles no other streams can be defined, buttons or others need to be processed in another pass with spumux, using another xml file.

Following .xml file shows the available tags and their default settings. Only the textsub tag is mandatory, defaults are used if the specific tag is not specified.

<subpictures>
   <stream>
      <textsub filename="demo1.srt" characterset="ISO8859-1" 
         fontsize="28.0" font="arial.ttf" horizontal-alignment="left" 
         vertical-alignment="bottom" left-margin="60" right-margin="60" 
         top-margin="20" bottom-margin="30" subtitle-fps="25" 
         movie-fps="25" movie-width="720" movie-height="574"
      />
   </stream>
</subpictures>

The textsub tag defines the settings for the text to graphics rendering.

The filename attribute defines the path and name of the input text subtitle file, this is the only attribute that is mandatory.

The characterset attribute defines the characterset to be used, available charactersets can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv.

The fontsize attribute defines the size of the font in font units. The font attribute defines the font used. Spumux will look into the home directory in subdirectory .spumux for fonts on linux systems and will look into the windows/fonts and subdirectory spumux of the cygwin/mingw home directory and into the exucution directory for windows based execution for the specified font. Looking for free fonts? One listing is here http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/links.asp?type=free&part=1 (this is only about fonts, not about operating systems).

The horizontal-alignment attribute defines the horizontal alignment of the subtitles. Options are: "left", "right", "center" and "default". The "default" value causes spumux to use the attribute that is in the text subtitle file if the format supports such an attribute.

The vertical-alignment attribute defines the vertical alignment. Options are: "top", "center" and "bottom".

The margin attributes define the minimum blank pixel space between the border of the image and the border of the subtitle lines.

Defining the subtitle-fps and movie-fps attributes make it possible for spumux to recalculate the subtitle timing if these are not the same.

The movie-width and movie-height attributes define the maximum size of the subtitle page, these shouldn't be larger than the fram-size of the movie frame, normally they are the same. Some DVD-players more like subtitle frames that are 2 or 4 pixels smaller in height.