NAME
    Video::DVDRip - GUI for copying DVDs, based on an open Low Level API

DESCRIPTION
    This Perl module consists currently of two major components:

      1. A low level OO style API for ripping and transcoding
         DVD video, which is based on Thomas Oestreichs program
         transcode, a Linux Video Stream Processing Tool.
         This API is currently well undocumented.

      2. A Gtk+ based Perl program called 'dvd::rip' which provides
         a nice GUI to control all necessary steps from ripping,
         adjusting all parameters and transcoding the video to
         the format you desire.

    The distribution name is derived from the Perl namespace it occupies:
    Video::DVDRip. Although the DVD Ripper GUI is called dvd::rip, because
    it's shorter and easier to pronounce (if you omit the colons... ;)

PREREQUISITES
    transcode

    dvd::rip delegates all the low level DVD handling to transcode, which
    can be obtained here:

      http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/

    dvd::rip expects all transcode binaries to be found in the standard
    search PATH.

    Image Magick

    For image processing dvd::rip uses the widely distributed software
    package Image Magick, at least the programs identify and convert should
    be installed on your system. All versions above version 4 should work
    (actually tested with 5.3.1). dvd::rip does not use Perl Magick.

    Perl Modules

    For its GUI component dvd::rip needs the Perl Gtk module, which presumes
    Gtk+ version 1.2 or higher. I tested dvd::rip with Version Perl Gtk
    0.7008.

    You can find the Gtk module on CPAN, e.g.:

      http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-module/Gtk/

    xine

    If you have the movie player xine installed, you can preview selected
    DVD titles with the appropriate audio channels. Maybe I'll support
    mplayer, too, in upcoming versions.

DOWNLOADING
    You can download dvd::rip from any CPAN mirror. You will find it in the
    following directory:

      http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-authors/id/J/JR/JRED/

    I recommend downloading from a mirror, which are listed here

      http://www.perl.com/CPAN/SITES.html

    You'll also find recent information, some screenshots and documentation
    on my homepage:

      http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-joernre/

INSTALLATION
    First install all packages listed in the PREREQUISITES section.

    Then extract the .tar.gz file, change into the created directory and
    generate the Makefile and execute make:

      perl Makefile.PL
      make

    Among other things this builds the binary program 'splitpipe', which
    uses dvd::rip for ripping and scanning the DVD in the same run.

    Now it's up to you to type

      make install
  
    which installs all the Perl modules in your Perl library path, and the
    two executables

      dvdrip
      splitpipe

    in your Perl bin directory. Otherwise you can use dvd::rip right here
    and now by executing the 'dvdrip' program from the build directory.

BASE CONFIGURATION / PREFERENCES
    On first startup of dvd::rip you should check the global preferences in
    the Edit menu. Enter your DVD configuration and data directory here. The
    defaults will most likely not work on your system.

    These settings are stored in your home directory:

      ~/.dvdriprc

    Remove this file for falling back to the defaults.

NOW HAVE FUN
    Create a new project by choosing the appropriate entry of the main menu.
    The GUI should be more or less self-explanatory. Please check my
    homepage for more details on using dvd::rip.

BUG REPORTS / CONTRIBUTING
    If you find bugs or have suggestions which make dvd::rip a better tool:
    don't hesitate to send me emails (see AUTHOR section below).

    If you find a bug which crashes dvd::rip, please add the following
    information to your report:

      1. information about your Linux installation, which may be interesting
         (Kernel version, Distro version, X11 Version)

      2. information about your Perl installation. Simply send me
         the output of the "perl -V" command.

      3. if possible a description how the bug can be reproduced.

    Patches are welcome. I prefer unified context diffs created this way:

      diff -urN Video-DVDRip-0.21 Video-DVDRip-0.21.patched

    where Video-DVDRip-0.21 is the root directory of the original
    distribution and Video-DVDRip-0.21.patched your modified version.

    If you encounter problems ripping specific DVDs, this is probably a
    transcode problem. Maybe you want to report this directly to Thomas
    streich. If you're not sure about this, report the problem to me and
    I'll see what I can do for you.

AUTHOR
    Joern Reder <joern@zyn.de>

    You can contact me by email. Please place the word "dvd::rip" everywhere
    in the subject, in addition to your real topic, because this helps me
    classifying your email correctly. Thanks.

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2001 by Joern Reder, All Rights Reserved.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
    perl(1).

CHANGES
    $Id: Changes,v 1.14 2001/12/18 22:44:51 joern Exp $

    Revision history for Perl extension Video::DVDRip

    0.27 Tue Dec 18 2001, joern
	Bugfix:
	- this release fixes only a minor bug in the debugging window
	  and log file output. The snapshot command missed the
	  frame number, so the -c option was malformed.

    0.26 Sun Dec 16 2001, joern
	Bugfix:
	- tar.gz distribution was incomplete. Updated MANIFEST.

    0.25 Sat Dec 15 2001, joern
	Features:
	- create logfile of all processes, display it in a separate
	  logging tab
	- renamed "Snapshot Directory" to "Temp Directory", because
	  it's used not only for the snapshot images. DivX4 analyze logs
	  and the dvd::rip log are also stored here.

	Bugfixes:
	- "transcode & split" did not work
	- spaces in project name not allowed, thanks to
	  Matthias Rieber <matthias AT lsoe.uni-karlsruhe.de>
	  for the bug report. dvd::rip did not work correctly
	  with spaces in the project name. Checking of other
	  user supplied values is still on my TODO list.

    0.24 Thu Dec 13 2001, joern
	Just a major release, no changes since pre-release.

    0.24_02  Tue Dec 11 2001, joern
	Features:
	- You can open a debugging window, which shows all transcode
	  commands executed by dvd::rip by pressing Ctrl+T or selecting the
	  "Debug/Show Transcode Commands..." menu item. Thanks to
	  Norbert Preining for his suggestion. This should help finding
	  bugs in dvd::rip, where wrong transcode options are genereated,
	  or something similar.
	- modified 16:9 anamorph fast resizing Preset: added 2nd Clipping
	  to get rid of 4 black top and bottom lines
	- Added a transcode title number field to the rip tab. This way
	  you can workaround the transcode/libdvdread bug which results
	  to wrong assigned titles. Please use this with care and only
	  if you know, what you do. This fields changes only the title
	  number passed to all transcode commands. The dvd::rip filenames
	  will be named with the orignally (maybe wrong) scanned title nr.
	  Thanks to Bjoern Buerger <b.buerger AT tu-bs.de> for his
	  suggestion.

	Bugfixes:
	- Preset "16:9 Anam. Enc., No Letterbox, Fast Resize" did not
	  switch fast resizing on
	- Fast Resizing: 32 pixel boundary must be given only for
	  axes which are resized. Thanks to Norbert Preining for
	  his patch.
	- dvd::rip now checks, whether VOB files are already ripped,
	  even if the project file says, they're not (e.g. if you
	  forget to save after ripping, restart dvd::rip and create
	  a new project for this DVD). Thanks to Norbert Preining
	  for the hint.
	- dvd::rip now checks if the needed programs (transcode,
	  ImageMagick etc.) are installed and complains if not.
	  Thanks to Michal Szymanski <msz AT astrouw.edu.pl> for his
	  bugreport.

    0.23  Sun Dec 09 2001, joern
	Bugfixes:
	- fast resizing: 32 pixel boundary check ommited checking the
	  clip1 size
	- transcode progress label did always show the "split afterwards"
	  message, even if started without splitting.

    0.22  Sun Dec 09 2001, joern
	Bugfixes:
	- applied Perl 5.005 patch supplied by Norbert
	  Preining <preining AT logic.at>. Thanks.
	- DVD read-toc code always tried a mount, even if the
	  DVD was already mounted. This could confuse systems
	  using automounter.

	New Features:
	- Support of the fast resizing algorithm of transcode
	  (transcode-0.5.2-20011206 is recommended because of
	  a bug in the horizontal fast resize code in earlier
	  versions). Fast resizing presumes 32 pixel boundaries.
	  If you break with this rule, you'll get an error window
	  on transcoding. I'm planning a wizard which helps
	  calculating the correct values, because this can be a
	  brain squeezing task ;)
	- Added two new Presets for anamorph transcoding using the
	  fast resizing algorithm. They should bypass the time,
	  until the fast resizing wizard is finished.
	- Support of multipass DivX encoding.
	- Added a button to the Transcode tab for viewing the
	  transcoded non-splitted AVI file.
	- transcode progress label shows, whether started with or
	  without splitting

    0.21  Sat Dec 01 2001, joern
	Bugfixes:
	- fixed color problem with snapshot images
	
	New Features:
	- transcode 0.5.1 supports 4GB AVI files, so max.
	  filesize for the bitrate suggestion is now 4000 MB
	  (was 2000 MB with transcode 0.5.0)

    0.20  Tue Nov 27 2001, joern
	- First public release. Should be usable but is not tested
	  with thousands of DVDs.

