todisc manual(1)

  Name

todisc: Create a DVD with animated menus

  Description

todisc is a command-line script for creating a DVD file-system with animated thumbnail menus, from a list of multimedia video files and their titles. It supports sub-menus for chapter breaks, configurable menu style, animated backgrounds and transparency effects. It can automatically convert non-compliant input files to the target format.

  Usage
   todisc [OPTIONS] \
      -files <file list> -titles <title list>
      -out OUT_PREFIX

For example:
   $ todisc -files File1.mpg File2.mpg File3.mpg \
        -titles "Episode 1" "Episode 2" "Episode 3" \
        -out Season_one

The number of -files and -titles must be equal. If the input files are not mpeg, you will have the option to auto-encode them with tovid.

At present there are 2 display arrangements or "templates":

A. (Default)
    Thumbs will be centred, and as large as space restraints allow.

B. -showcase IMAGE|VIDEO
    Produces an arrangement with small buttons on the side and the showcase image/video in the centre. If no IMAGE or VIDEO argument is supplied, the central thumb will be omitted. Note: -textmenu, -quick-menu and -switched-menus are all types of showcase style menus. See their descriptions under Menu style section.

The -titles arguments should be double or single quoted, or have the spaces backslash-escaped. Special characters (like ", !, *, &, ?) may need to be backslash-escaped. To include a quoted string within a title, backslash-escape the quotes. These titles are used for labelling thumbnails on the main menu, and for the submenu title for that video. ( see also -submenu-titles )

The -showcase styles can use longer titles than the default arrangement. With a showcase style, use: -showcase-titles-align west to give more space for the title, or use -showcase-titles-align east to allow titles of more than one line.

The default style can only show about 16 characters (depending on the number of thumbs, and what -thumb-font and -thumb-fontsize is being used). If your titles are too long to fit in the label area, you may try using sub-menus, which can display longer titles, for example:
   $ todisc -submenus \
            -files file1.mpg file2.mpg ... \
            -titles "Short 1" "Short 2" \
            -submenu-titles "Long Title One" "Long Title Two" \
            -out foo

The -align argument will position both titles and thumbs either south, north east, west, southwest, northwest, southeast, northeast, subject to certain constraints of each arrangement.

TITLESETS

A word should be mentioned here about titlesets. You need to use titlesets, for example, if you have videos of different resolutions. If you want to have titlesets you need to put all the options for each titleset menu you would like to have between -titleset and -end-titleset options.

Additionally, for the main menu (the opening menu that will let you jump to each titleset), you need to put options between -vmgm and -end-vmgm. You do not use -files for the opening menu options (-vmgm), but you will need as many TITLES after -titles as you have menus.

Any options outside the -titleset -end-titleset and -vmgm -end-vmgm areas will be general options applying to every titleset. If an general option is duplicated inside a -titleset or -vmgm area, the general option will be overridden.

Example of using todisc with titlesets:
   $ todisc -static -out MY_DVD \
      \
     -titleset -files 1.mpg 2.mpg 3.mpg \
     -titles "Title One" "Title Two" "Title Three" \
     -end-titleset \
     \
     -titleset -files 4.mpg 5.mpg \
     -titles "Title Four" "Title Five" \
      -background foo.jpg \
      -showcase bar.png \
      -end-titleset \
      \
      -vmgm \
      -titles "Season One" "Season Two" \
      -background bg.jpg \
      -bgaudio foo.mp3 \
      -thumb-fontsize 20 \
      -end-vmgm

See also -titleset and -vmgm

  Options

-keepfiles
    Keep all intermediate/temporary files (helps with debugging)

-dvd
    DVD-compatible output (default)

-svcd
    Super Video-CD-compatible output: *this is currently disabled for -showcase-* styles

-ntsc
    720x480 output, compatible with NTSC standard (default)

-pal
    720x576 output, compatible with PAL standard

-submenus
    Create a sub-menu with chapters for each video (default: no sub-menus)

-ani-submenus
    Create an animated sub-menu with chapters for each video (default: not animated)

  Menu style

-showcase IMAGE|VIDEO (without an argument, use showcase style with no central thumb)
    A different arrangement of images for the menu: small thumbnails go at left (and right) side of screen, with a larger image in the centre. Maximum of 10 videos If the provided argument is a video file, the central thumb will be animated. Pick a file of correct aspect ratio: i.e. it should still look good when resized to 720x480 (PAL 720x576), then resized to proper aspect ratio.

-textmenu, -text-menu NUM ( without an argument, create a textmenu out of the supplied titles
    The optional argument specifies how many titles are in the 1st column, i.e. giving 4 titles and using "-textmenu 2" would make 2 columns of 2 titles. The default is to put all titles up to 13 in the first column before starting a second title. Maximum, 2 columns and 26 titles. If no video files for either -background or -showcase are supplied, the menu will be static.

-quick-menu
    This will make a very quick '-showcase IMAGE|VIDEO' style menu by using ffmpeg instead of imagemagick. There are no fancy effects like -wave or -rotate available for it, but it is extremely fast. It will be a text-menu style of menu, with no video thumbs, and a central showcase IMAGE(static)|VIDEO(animated). ( see -pad-color if you are not using a -background and want to change the default black ) Specifying the IMAGE|VIDEO argument to -showcase is mandatory for this style of menu, unless used in conjunction with -switched-menus in which case the videos passed with -files automatically become the showcase videos. If this is used in combination with -switched-menus it can really speed up an otherwise time comsuming process. On my athlon 2900+ system it makes a 4 video switched menu of 30 seconds length (each) in about 4 minutes ( !! ). Example:
          -quick-menu -showcase /home/robert/showcase.mpg
    See -switched-menus for example of making switched menus with -quick-menu

-pad-color | -pad-colour
    The color to use as background for a -quick-menu menu. (default: ntsc-safe black)

-use-makemenu
    This will call the other tovid menu script, "makemenu" on the titles supplied.

-static
    Main menu will just be static thumbs (not animated) (default: animated)

-background IMAGE|VIDEO
    Menu background. This can be a image file or an video file. If it is a video file the background will be animated. Pick a file of correct aspect ratio: i.e. it should still look good when resized to 720x480 (PAL 720x576)

-menu-title
    Title for the root menu - may be longer than thumbnail labels Also if you use \n in the title, you can use multi line titles, but you would need to adjust -menu-fontsize to something smaller than default for example:
          $ todisc ... -menu-title "A\nMultilined\nTitle" -menu-fontsize 24

-menu-font FONT
    Font to use for titles, either by ImageMagick font name (ex., "Arial") or explicit pathname (ex., "/full/path/to/arial.ttf"). To see a complete list of acceptable ImageMagick font names, run convert -list type, and refer to the leftmost column

-menu-fontsize
    Font size for main menu - best to -preview if you use this

-menu-fade
    Fade the menu in and out The background will fade in first, then title (and mist if called for), then the menu thumbs. The fadeout is in reverse order

-bgaudio
    An audio file for the main menu background

-submenu-audio FILE(S)
    List of files for sub-menu backgrounds. If one file is given, then it will be used for all sub-menus. Else the number given must equal the number of submenus, though the keyword "none" in this list may be used for silence.

-titleset . . . -end-titleset
    If you have more than one titleset, put the options for each titleset between -titleset and -end-titleset. A separate menu will be created that can be accessed from the main menu (VMGM). You can create this main menu using the -vmgm -end-vmgm options. See -vmgm below and TITLESET paragraph opening Usage section.

-vmgm . . . -end-vmgm
    The VMGM menu is the root menu when you use titlesets. Put your VMGM menu options between -vmgm and -end-vmgm. You only need -titles "Titleset One title" "Titleset Two title" . . . , and not -files. Any other options can be used, but the menu will be a textmenu style by default. Hint: use -showcase IMAGE/VIDEO to create a fancier VMGM menu.

-switched-menus
    This will make a "switched menu": there will be a central image where the showcase image would go, and text menu titles along the menu edge where textmenu titles go. As you select a video title with the down or up arrow on your DVD remote, the image in the centre will change to the image or video made from that selected video. Do not use -showcase IMAGE/VIDEO with this option. This can be a time consuming process for making animated menus as you need to make a separate menu for each video provided with -files. The process can be greatly sped up by using -quick-menu in conjunction with this, though you will lose fancy options like -rotate and -wave. Example for using with -quick-menu:
          -switched-menus -quick-menu

  Thumbnail style

-thumb-shape [normal|oval|plectrum|egg]
    Apply a shaped transparency mask to thumbnail videos The default is to have a rectangular semi-transparent misted background for each thumb - to disable this mist use -thumb-mist-color none.

-3dthumbs
    This will give an illusion of 3D to the thumbnails: dynamic lighting on rounded thumbs, and a raised effect on rectangular thumbs. Try it !

-thumb-font FONT
    Display thumbnail titles in the given font

-thumb-fontsize POINTS
    Font size to use for thumbnail titles

ADVANCED USAGE

  Options

-menu-length
    The desired animated main menu length in seconds

-submenu-stroke-color, -submenu-stroke-colour COLOR
    The color for the sub-menu font outline (stroke)

-submenu-title-color, -submenu-title-colour
    The fill color used for sub-menu title fonts

-submenu-titles
    You can supple a list of titles here for sub-menus without the length restrictions found in thumb titles. Must equal number of videos

-chapters [ NUM | CHAPTER POINTS in HH:MM:SS ]
    The number of chapters for each video (default: 6) OR the actual chapter points in HH:MM:SS format. Chapter points will be used for generating the submenu thumbs, and for seeking with your DVD player. You can pass in just one value that will be used for all videos, or supply a list of values (number of chapters) or timecode strings. If you just pass an integer for 'number of chapters', then todisc will make the chapter points for you by dividing the video length by the number you supply. If passing HH:MM:SS format you need to pass the group of chapter points for each video and each group should have comma separated values. Additionally, the first chapter should always start at 00:00:00 as dvdauthor will add that if it is not there already. To get your timecodes, you can play your videos in mplayer and press 'o' to see them onscreen. I have found these to be very accurate in my short tests. For absolute frame accuracy you could load the file in avidemux and find the time codes for the frames you want. If passing grouped chapters you need to join the chapters from all the videos in a group with a '+' seperator. If you want to skip a video in the group use '0' for its chapters. Example for passing just number of chapters ( 4 videos ):
          -chapters 5 2 4 8
    Example of passing chapter points ( 4 videos ):
          -chapters 00:00:00,00:05:34.41,00:12:54,00:20:45 00:00:00,00:04:25.623,00:09:12,00:15:51 \
          00:00:00,00:05:10,00:13:41,00:18:13.033 00:00:00,00:15:23.342,00:26:42.523
    Example of passing grouped chapters using the '+' seperator:
          -chapters 00:00:00,00:05:34.41,00:12:54,00:20:45+00:04:23,00:09:35 00:00:00...etc

-seek NUM | "NUM1 NUM2 NUM3 . . ."
    Seek to NUM seconds before generating thumbnails (default: 2.0 seconds) If a quoted string of values matching the number of videos is used, then each video can use a different seek value If using switched menus, the -seek value(s) will be used to generate the showcase image that displays on switching to another video choice with the up/down arrow keys.

-showcase-seek NUM
    Seek to NUM seconds before generating thumbnails for showcase video (default: 2.0 seconds)

-bgvideo-seek NUM
    Seek to NUM seconds before generating images for background video (default: 2.0 seconds)

-bgaudio-seek NUM
    Seek to NUM seconds before generating audio for bgaudio (default: 2.0 seconds)

-group N VIDEO1 VIDEO2 . . .
    Allow grouping videos in dvdauthor.xml, so they will play sequentially as a group. The videos passed in after the 'N' will be grouped with the 'Nth' video. Example:
       -group 2 2.mpg 3.mpg 4.mpg
    will group these 3 videos with the 2nd video given with -files, so that they will play sequentially as one title. Only one thumbnail and/or title will appear on the menu for the group: it will be made from the 1st video in the group. In the above example if you passed:
       -files foo.mpg bar.mpg baz.mpg -group 2 2.mpg 3.mpg 4.mpg
    then the group will consist of bar.mpg 2.mpg, 3.mpg and 4.mpg, and only the title and/or thumbnail for bar.mpg will appear in the menu. You can use -group more than once if you have more than one group you are making. Be sure to quote video filenames if they contain spaces.

-noask, -no-ask
    Skip all interactive questions. No preview, automatic re-encoding with tovid if needed, no interactive option to use background video for bgaudio.

-nowarn, -no-warn
    Don't pause after outputing warning messages

-tovidopts "OPTIONS"
    Pass the given string of options to 'tovid', if it is called upon to re-encode your non-compliant videos. Be sure to include the double-quotes around your list of options!

  Menu Style

-menu-title-geo north|south|east|west|center [south]
    The position of the menu title.

-menu-title-offset OFFSET (+X+Y)
    Move menu title by this offset from its N|S|E|W|Center position.

-button-style rect|text|line|text-rect
    The style of button that you will see when you play the DVD. "rect" draws a rectangle around the thumb when you select it in the DVD player. "text" highlights the thumb title text, "line" underlines the title, and "text-rect" draws a rectangle around the title text. If you have multiline titles, use "text-rect" or "line".

-title-color, -title-colour COLOR
    Color to use for the main menu title. For list of supported colors do: convert -list color. HTML notation may be used: "#ff0000". See: http://www.imagemagick.org/script/color.php

-stroke-color, -stroke-colour COLOR
    Outline color for the main menu font. Use "none" for transparent outline (see title-color)

-highlight-color, -highlight-colour
    Color to use for the menu buttons that your dvd remote uses to navigate

-select-color, -select-colour
    Color to use for the menu buttons that your dvd remote uses to select

-text-mist
    Put a semi-transparent misted background behind the title text, just slightly larger than the text area

-text-mist-color, -text-mist-colour COLOR
    Color of the mist behind the menu text (see title-color)

-text-mist-opacity
    Opacity of the mist behind the menu text - see -opacity

-submenu-audio-length
    The length of the background audio for a static submenu. The default is to use the full length of the supplied audio ( -bgaudio ).

-menu-audio-fade
    Number of sec to fade given menu audio in and out (default: 1.0 seconds) If you use -menu-audio-fade 0 then the audio will not be faded.

-submenu-audio-fade
    Number of sec to fade given sub-menu audio in and out (default: 1.0 seconds) See -menu-audio-fade

-intro VIDEO
    Use a introductory video that will play before the main menu. At present this must be a DVD compatible video at the correct resolution etc. Only 4:3 aspect is supported: 16:9 will give unexpected results.

  Menu Style options specific to showcase and textmenu arrangements

-text-start N
    This option is for -textmenu menus. The titles will start at the Nth pixel from the top of the menu ( Y axis ).

-title-gap N
    This option is for -textmenu menus. The gap is the space between titles vertically ( Y axis ).

-rotate DEGREES
    Rotate the showcase image|video clockwise by DEGREES. (default: if used without options, the rotate will be 5 degrees)

-showcase-geo GEOMETRY
    The position of the showcase image. ( XxY position )

-wave default|GEOMETRY
    Wave effect for showcase image|video. Alters thumbs along a sine wave using GEOMETRY. (default: no wave) "default" will produce a wave arg of -20x556, which produces a gentle wave with a small amount of distortion. See: http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~anthony/graphics/imagick6/distorts/#wave if you want to try other values

-showcase-framestyle  none|glass
    For -showcase-* style template only "none" will use the default frame method, using "convert -frame . . ." "glass" will use mplayer to make frames, which gives an interesting animated effect to the frames, and can be much faster ( especially if you don't use -rotate or -wave as thumbs will not need to be processed again after mplayer spits them out Note: you need to be using either -showcase IMAGE or -showcase VIDEO for this "frame style" to work.

  Thumbnail Style

-opacity [0-100] (default 100)
    Opacity of thumbnail videos as a percentage (no percent sign) Anything less than 100(%) is semi-transparent. Not recommended with dark backgrounds

-blur NUM
    The amount of feather blur to apply to the thumb-shape. Default is 4.0 which will more or less keep the shape and produce transparency at the edges Choose float or integer values between 0.1 and 5.0 Higher values are possible, but you may not like the result, particularly when using "-thumb-mist-colour none" 3D thumbs are automatically set to a negligible blur, so this option has no effect

-align north|south
    This will align thumbs/titles north or south. (if -align south then menu title will align north)

-thumb-mist-color, -thumb-mist-colour
    Color of mist behind thumbnails

-thumb-text-color, -thumb-text-colour COLOR
    Color to use for the thumb titles (see -title-color)

-showcase-titles-align west|east (default: center [centre])
    The default is to center the text above the thumbnails. This option will align the titles either to the left (west) or right (east). Aligning west gives more space to the titles. Aligning east also does so, and as well will let you use \n in your titles to achieve multi line titles.

-tile-3x1, -tile3x1
    Use a montage tile of 3x1 instead of the usual 2x2 for 3 videos ie. [movie1] [movie2] [movie3] instead of [movie1] [movie2] [movie3] This option only comes into play if the number of videos supplied equals 3 Otherwise it will be silently ignored. Not used for -showcase-* style.

-tile-4x1, -tile4x1
    Same as -tile-3x1 above, except use tile of 4x1. (one row of 4 videos)

-rotate-thumbs DEGREE LIST ( list of degrees, one for each thumb )
    Rotate thumbs the given amount in degrees - can be positive or negative. There must be one value for each file given with -files. If the values are not the same distance from zero, the thumbs will be of different sizes as images are necessarily resized *after* rotating. With the default montage template - this will also resize the titles; with the showcase template the titles will remain the same size. Example:
      -rotate-thumbs -10 10 -10 10 -10  (for 5 files)
    **Note: this option does not work currently with shaped or 3d thumbs (-thumb-shape SHAPE' or -3dthumbs ) unless using showcase style.

  Dvdauthor options

-loop
    Pause in seconds at end of menu. Use "inf" if you wish indefinite pause. (Note: you can not use inf with -menu-fade as you will get a black screen at the end) (default: "inf" for static menu, 10.0 seconds for animated)

-playall
    This option will create a button on the main menu that will allow going right to the 1st title and playing all videos in succession before returning to the main menu

-chain-videos NUM | N1-NN
    Without options this will chain all videos together so they play sequentially without returning to the main menu, except for the last, which will return. You can also specify which videos you want to behave this way by number or by a range. ( ie. -chain-videos 1 2 4-6 )

-subtitles "lang1 lang2 . . ."
    This allows selectable subtitles in the DVD, assuming you have optional subtitles muxed into your videos

-audio-lang "Video1_channel Video2_channel Video3_channel . . ."
    "VideoN_channel" is the track number to use in a multitrack (multi-language) mpeg Usually something like -audio-lang "1 0 1" ( 1st track is 0, 2nd is 1 . . . etc ) If the tracks are 0. English 1.French, then the above would make French the audio language on Video1 and Video3, and English the audio language on Video2. You can check the mpeg with "mplayer -v . . ."

-aspect 4:3|16:9
    This will output a <video aspect WIDTH:HEIGHT /> tag for the dvdauthor xml file. It will affect all videos in the titleset. Example:
          -aspect 16:9

-widescreen nopanscan|noletterbox [nopanscan]
    This will output a <video widescreen=nopanscan /> tag (for example) for the dvdauthor xml file. It will affect all videos in the titleset. Use in conjunction with -aspect if your dvd player is cropping your videos. Example:
          -aspect 16:9 -widescreen

-quick-nav
    This option will allow navigation of a menu with more than one titleset by using the left and right arrow keys of your DVD remote. When you press this key the highlight will go the next or previous title. If you are at the end of a titleset the right key will go to the next titleset. If you are at the beginning of a titleset, the left key will go to the previous titleset. If no next or previous titleset it will cycle to the end or beginning of the titlesets.

-outlinewidth, -outline-width WIDTH
    For spumux outlinewidth variable. If there is a large gap between words in a text button, this option may help.

  See also

idvid(1), makedvd(1), makemenu(1), makeslides(1), makevcd(1), makexml(1), postproc(1), tovid(1), todisc(1)

  Contact

For further assistance, contact information, forum and IRC links, please refer to the tovid homepage (http://tovid.org/).