This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR).

Written by:                  Thomas Heiligenmann <thomas@heiligenmann.de>
                             Andreas Schultz <aschultz@warp10.net>

Project's homepage:          http://www.heiligenmann.de/vdr/

Latest version available at: http://www.heiligenmann.de/vdr/download/

See the file ''gpl-2.0.txt'' for license information.


Description:                 This plugin enables VideoCD playback for VDR

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This plugin adds the functionality to replay VideoCDs (and Super VideoCDs)
from within VDR (by Klaus Schmidinger).
 
No additional software packages are required. You'll need at least one
physical CD-ROM drive however ;-) (Since data is read by making ioctl calls
to /dev/cdrom it should be possible to emulate the physical drive by
redirecting this calls to an image on harddisk. It is however out of the
scope of the VCD plugin to implement this 'pseudo driver' functionality.)
 
The plugin will add a new entry "VideoCD" into the main menu, if you have
installed a CD-ROM drive and created a symbolic link /dev/cdrom . It should
also work alongside other plugins using the CD-ROM/DVD drive.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Installation:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
You should have received the file vcd-#.#.tar.gz or vcd-#.#.tar.bz2  where
the #s are replaced by the version numbers, eg. vcd-0.7.tar.gz

This plugin version was upgraded to to work with VDR Version 1.4.7 and later.
 
Extract the file in VDRs plugins source directory and create a symlink:
 
    cd /path/to/vdr-#.#/PLUGINS/src
    tar xzf vdr-vcd-#.#.tgz
    ln -s vcd-#.# vcd
 
Cd into VDRs source directory and type 'make plugins' to compile your plugin(s).
To load the plugin add the parameter '-Pvcd' when starting VDR. See VDRs plugin
documentation for more information.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invocation:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simply call

    /path/to/vdr -P"vcd" [...]

to load the plugin.

A command line option ''-v/--vcd'' has been introduced to select another drive
than the default ''/dev/cdrom'' for VideoCD replay; e.g. to select your DVD
device ''/dev/dvd'' call

    /path/to/vdr -P"vcd -v /dev/dvd" [...]      or
    /path/to/vdr -P"vcd --vcd=/dev/dvd" [...]

Hence the drive will be displayed in VDR's main menu accordingly, e.g.:

    4 Recordings
    5 VideoCD (/dev/dvd)
    6 Setup

It's also possible to invoke the plugin more than once with diferent drives:

    /path/to/vdr -P"vcd" -P"vcd --vcd=/dev/dvd"

This will create a second replay device and main menu entry:

    4 Recordings
    5 VideoCD
    6 VideoCD (/dev/dvd)
    7 Setup


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About VideoCDs and Super VideoCDs:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
VideoCDs/VCDs (White Book) and Super VideoCDs/SVCDs (SVCD Spec.) are build
on Green Book CD-ROMs containing at least two tracks:
 
    Track 1 is an ISO9660 data track which contains navigation information and
    may hold addtional data files or MPEG still images etc. 
    Album description is read for display and entry points for navigation.
    A submenu has been introduced to allow display/replay of segment play
    items.
    Version 0.0.6 of the plugin implements processing of the "Play Sequence
    Descriptor" to automate replay of (S)VCDs.
 
    Track 2 up to track 99 are CD-ROM XA mode 2 tracks and hold the MPEG data,
    which is read by the VideoCD plugin.
 
Playing time = track size is only true for VCDs, which are encoded using
constant bit rate (CBR). SVCDs are encoded at a higher quality using variable
bit rate (VBR) thus track size won't reflect true playing time. A correct
display of true playing time will be implemented in a future release of the
VideoCD plugin.
 
There's a couple of web pages, where you'll find more information about VCDs
and SVCDs. A good starting point may be http://www.vcdhelper.com
For creation of your own (S)VCDs and further information and downloads you
should also take a look at http://www.vcdimager.org


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Navigation:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    [ the following information only applies when running the plugin
      in the "classic" replay mode (see below) ] 

Invoke the "VideoCD" entry in the main menu to get a list of all MPEG tracks
displayed as "Track 1" etc. plus track position and track lenght in units of
CD-ROM MSF (minutes/seconds/frames). The starting position of Track 1 (= CD
track 2 !) is defined as 00:00.00 .
 
Select a track using the 'Up' and 'Down' keys and start replay with 'Red' or
'Ok'. 'Blue' will stop replay.

You can control replay with the following keys:

    Down:     Pause
    Left:     Fast backward when in 'Play' mode (ISO62107 SVCDs only)
              Slow motion undefined yet (should fall back into slow fwd)
    Right:    Slow motion when in 'Pause' mode
              Fast forward when in 'Play' mode
    1:        Skip to previous VCD entry
    3:        Skip to next VCD entry
    4:        Skip to previous VCD track
    5:        Skip to beginning of current track
    6:        Skip to next VCD track
    Ok:       Turn progress bar on/off
    Red:      Time search in units of CD-ROM MSF (see above)
    Green:    Skip -60s
    Yellow:   Skip +60s
 
SVCDs may contain MPEG data with two audio channels. If a second audio channel
is available, VDR's toggle mechanism for audio channels will be enabled.
 
The 'Yellow' key in the VideoCD menu will eject the disc loaded in
''/dev/cdrom''.

The ''Blue'' key in the VideoCD menu will be enabled if the (S)VCD contains
also ''segment play items''. These can be up to 1980 still images or
audio/video clips placed in the (S)VCD's data track.

The viewer can be controlled with the following keys:

    4:        Skip to previous item.
              Skip to first segment of multisegment items.
    5:        Toggle between low and high resolution of still images.
    6:        Skip to next item.


Version 0.0.6 of the plugin introduces PSD controlled replay mode. This can be
enabled in the setup and defines yet the following keys for replay control as
required by the PSD menus:

    1..9:     Goto NUMERIC selection.
    Ok:       Goto DEFAULT selection.
    Left:     Goto PREVIOUS selection.
    Right:    Goto NEXT selection.
    Back:     Goto RETURN selection.
    Blue:     Stop (S)VCD replay.
    Down:     Pause
    Green:    Skip -60s (within current MPEG track)
    Yellow:   Skip +60s (within current MPEG track)

Further replay control as defined in "classic" control mode hasn't defined yet
under PSD controlled replay! There's also no progress bar available.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Setup menu:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Drive speed:
       Adjusts the CD-ROM drive speed in a range of 2..50.

    Broken mode:
       May allow playback of (S)VCDs, which aren't fully standard compliant.
       Enables _ANY_ track to be selected for replay, including the first
       track on the CD, which normally holds an ISO9660 file system,
       describes the (S)VCD capabilities, and can hold additional data.
       Since a validation of the (S)VCD is impossible in this mode, you'll
       use it on your own risk.

    Hide main menu entry:
       This hides - of course - the plugin's entry in VDR's main menu.

    Play tracks continuously:
       This is set by default and will continue replay of all tracks.
       Disabling will stop replay after replay has reached a track's end.

    Autostart replay:
       Setting this will start replay of the first available track
       automagically when invoking the plugin. Under PSD control replay will
       start with the first PSD entry.

    Play sequence replay:
       This will enable PSD controlled replay if "Play Sequence Descriptors"
       have been defined on the (S)VCD.

The last two setup item will give you the following combinations of replay
control:

    Autostart replay = off, Play sequence replay = off
       This gives you the "classic" replay control of the past versions of the
       plugin. Tracks or Segment Play Items can be selected individually from
       a menu.

    Autostart replay = on, Play sequence replay = off
       Menus are disabled and replay will start with the first available track
       when the plugin is invoked.
       This may be similar to the behaviour of (S)VCD replay on most standard
       DVD players.

    Autostart replay = off, Play sequence replay = on
       PSD entries are displayed in a menu and replay can be started from an
       individually selected entry. This can be useful for "debugging" your
       self created (S)VCDs.

    Autostart replay = on, Play sequence replay = on
       Menus are disabled and replay will start with the first PSD entry when
       the plugin is invoked. This may be interesting in conjunction with the
       VDRCD plugin and work similar to a deluxe standalone DVD player ;-)