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

Written by:                  Martin Wache

Project's homepage:          http://softdevice.berlios.de

Latest version available at: http://softdevice.berlios.de

See the file COPYING for license information.

Description:

Plays media files with the VDR and the Softdevice as output device.

The softdevice uses ffmpeg to decode the mpeg2 video and audio streams. 
Since ffmpeg supports a lot more codecs than just mpeg2 it's quite easy
to make the softdevice decode all other codecs which are supported by ffmpeg.
This is what SoftPlay does. It reads the media file, puts the softdevice to
a special playback mode which supports other video/audio codecs than mpeg2 and
sends the video/audio packets directly to the softdevice.

Please note that this is a very early release, for me it works without any
troubles for almost all Video and Audio file formats (depending on your ffmpeg
vestion *.avi,*.mov,*.mpg, *.mp3, *.wav, *.ogg and many more).

Start with :
./vdr -Psoftdevice -P"softplay --media-path /path/to/media/files"

where /path/to/media/files is the path to the top level directory of
the files you'd like to playback. I recommend to use symlinks to compose
this directory from different file systems.

Requirements
=============

- ffmpeg 0.4.9-pre1 or later (_has_to_be_ the same version which is used by 
  the softdevice)
- softdevice-0.1.1 or later (recommended is >softdevice-0.1.2)
- vdr-1.3.22 or later (others may work, I use 1.3.22)

Installation
=============

Install and compile ffmpeg and the softdevice. Copy the source of the this
plugin into the directory PLUGINS/src/ and adjust the path to your ffmpeg 
installation in the softplay makefile. Softplay expects the source of
the softdevice your are useing in PLUGINS/src/softdevice.
As usual do a "make plugins" in the vdr directory to compile the plugin. 

 MANUAL
=======

There are two playback modes: single file playback and playlist mode.

During single file playback you can use the keys almost like you are used to
from vdr recording playback. Green/Yellow skip forward/backward in the stream,
the blue button stops the replay. Up/down start/pause the playback and right/left will toggle fast forward/backward (doesn't work yet :-( ) .

In playlist mode you can additionally use the following keys to change
titles/albums (they are similar to vdr cutting and dvd-plugin navigation
keys):

(If you have enabled LiveTV during audio playback:
        (1)                  (2)
       Chan.                Chan.
       down                  up
)
       
        (4)       (5)        (6)
       Prev.    Playlist     Next
       Album   Album View    Album

       (7)        (8)        (9)
       Prev.   Playlist      Next
       Title   Title View    Title


The Files Menu
==============

In the file selection menu you select files for single file playback, compose
playlist or play whole directories. To skip to a certain file you can enter the
corresponding number using the remote, to play a file/directory press the green
button.
If you select a directoy to be played a new playlist containing all files
(including the subdirectories) will be created and the playback of this list
will start.
To add/remove a file or directory to the current playlist use the yellow
button, files included in the current playlist will be marked with '*'. To
start the playback of the current playlist press the blue button.

The Setup Menu
==============

Use Fileindex:
 if switched to yes, sofplay uses extended information for example
 mp3-id tags and saves the information in a separate file for easier 
 access

Watch live TV while audio replay:
  I guess that's self-explanatory. Nice for commercial breaks :-)
  
Remember last directory:
  opens the last browsed directory in the File Menu by default.
  
Return to live TV after replay:
  Also self-explanatory. 
  
  
TODO
----
- fix all the remaining bugs ;-)
- fast forward / backward
- selection of audio tracks for videos
X playlist saving 
X add .m3u-playlist support
X read ID 3 tags for playlists (introduced file index)
- get playtime of playlists
x introduce a setup menu (with option saving)
- playlist reading at startup
- add files in playlists

Problems
--------

Probably quite a lot ;-)

Discussions and development of this plugin takes place on the softdevice 
mailling list softdevice-devel at berlios dot de. So in case you experience
problems (or even crashes) with this plugin you will get help there.

Many Thanks to
--------------
- Nicolas Huillard and Stefan Lucke for the suggestions and the discussion
  about the user interface
- Rolf Ahrenberg for the finnish translation
- all who contributed to ffmpeg, a really great video/audio library

