VDR Plugin 'osdimage' README
----------------------------
This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR).
Written by: Andreas Brugger
Project's homepage: http://brougs78.vdr-developer.org
Latest version available at: http://brougs78.vdr-developer.org
See the file COPYING for license information.
Short Description: Views Pictures on the OSD
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Ok, this is my first attempt of writing a plugin for the VDR (the software we
all love so much ... thank you Klaus). Actually it is also my first C++-program
so please keep that in mind, if you're planning to tear of my head for the bad
coding-style. ;-)
So what's it all about? There are several of people out there, who have an OSD,
which is capable of 256-color at fullscreen. So I thought it would be a nice
idea to use that for viewing pictures. After some promissing tests I tried to
put it all together and write a plugin ... and there it is.
I also thought that propably pictures in 16 colors wouldn't look that bad on
standard-TVs, so I added that possibility. Therefor also the unmodded DVB-cards
are capable of using this plugin (don't know about the DXR3). But if you own
a LCD-TV or Plasma-TV I don't think you want to violate your eyes with that. ;-)
You can look at the homepage
'http://brougs78.vdr-developer.org/comparison/index.htm',
which shows some examples. But like I said, on standard TV's it should look
better than on a monitor.
Requirements:
-------------
- VDR ... of course. It should compile for VDR >= v1.3.7
- ImageMagick (I guess at least v6, I use v6.1.1)
This library is used for resizing, rotating and (optionally) for quantizing the images.
- The linux-tools 'find' and 'sort'. I think every "not too old"-version should
do just fine.
- Netpbm OPTIONAL - you have to activate it in the MAKEFILE (I use 10.22)
The tools bmptopnm, ppmquant and ppmtobmp are needed, if you plan to use
Netpbm for quantizing the images.
Pro: better (my optinion) qualitiy, at least for the quantization with 15 colors.
Contra: much slower than ImageMagick. Quantizing for 256 colors is painfully
slow on my VDR (approx. 18 seconds),
but it's acceptable for the 16-color-mode (approx. 3 seconds),
where the quality of quantizing
is more important. So I recommend using Netpbm for the latter.
If you are using Netpbm the plugin
will create temp-pictures in the directory so you have to ensure that it
exists
and VDR has the right to read and write into this directory.
Installation:
-------------
Like the majority of all other plugins. Just type
in the VDR-source-directory and add the plugin to your VDR-start-script:
-P 'OSDImage --directory ' or
-P 'OSDImage -d '
It is only possible to add one directory, so if you have more than one directory
I recommend you make a "master-dir" where you link to other dirs.
Mounting of CD- or DVD-drives is also not supported, so if you're planning to
watch pictures from one of those it is best to use an automounter.
BTW, bash-variables in the path are not evaluated (it's on my TODO).
Features:
---------
- Viewing pictures ;-)
- Slideshow (interval configurable via the setup-menu)
- changeable alpha-values for picture, background and text-area
- supports two different quantizer
- autmatically determines the capability of the OSD-providing hardware
for selection of 256- or 16-color-mode
Key-assignment:
---------------
In the picture-selection-mode:
- LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN traditional navigation mode
- OK on [..]
jump to the parent-directory
on [xyz]
enter the directory [xyz]
on pic.jpg
generate playlist for all the pictures in the current directory
(without the subdirs) and show the selected one
- EXIT
back to the main menu
- RED
generate playlist for all the pictures in the current directory (including the subdirs)
and show the first one
- BLUE
end the plugin
In the picture-viewing-mode:
- DOWN, UP
previous, next picture
- LEFT, RIGHT
jump 10 pictures down or up in the picture-list
- EXIT
end the plugin
- RED
rotate back to initial state (orientation like in the picture-file)
- GREEN
rotate 90° counter-clockwise
- YELLOW
rotate 90° clockwise
- BLUE
start slide-show, which automatically switches to the next
picture in the playlist and
stops at the end of the list (the timeout can be adjusted in teh setup-menu)