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+<!doctype linuxdoc system>
+<linuxdoc><article>
+<titlepag>
+ <title>VLC HOWTO</title>
+ <author>by the Videolan Team<tt><htmlurl url="mailto:videolan-faq@videlan.org" name="videolan-faq@videlan.org"></tt></author>
+ <date>v0.0.2, 21 apr 2001</date>
+
+ <abstract>
+ This document describes how to use the vlc (VideoLAN client) to read DVDs and mpeg files and DVDs.
+ </abstract>
+</titlepag>
+
+<toc>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>Introduction</heading>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>What is VideoLAN ?</heading>
+ <p>
+ VideoLAN is a project of sudent of the École Centrale Paris which aims
+ to broadcast video on the campus, and provide the students with a MPEG2
+ software-only decoder. VideoLAN is an OpenSource project which will thus
+ allow anyone to watch DVD movies under Linux, BeOS, MacOS and most Unix
+ systems
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may want to look at the port section on our website :
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org" name="http://www.videolan.org/">.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>What is the vlc</heading>
+ <p>
+ Vlc stands for VideoLAN client. It is the name of the program which is
+ capable of decoding MPEG streams, and displaying them onto your screen,
+ so you can watch you favorite movies, confortably sit in your armchair
+ :-).
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Translated versions of this document</heading>
+ <p>
+ No translation is currently available.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The English version is maintained by Henri Fallon,
+ and the VideoLAN team. It can be found at:
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/doc.html"
+ name="http://www.videolan.org/doc.html">.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Disclaimer</heading>
+ <p>
+ This documentation is given "as is", and any comment and improvement
+ are welcome.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ In this HOWTO, we consider you already have a little knowledge about Linux, and you
+ know how to use a DVD. If not, good howtos can be found on the Linux Documentation
+ Projet.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Legal</heading>
+ <p>
+ Copyright (©) 2001 by the VideoLAN project. This document may be distributed only
+ subject to the terms and conditions set forth in
+ <htmlurl url="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/LDP-COPYRIGHT.html" name="the LDP license">.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+</sect>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>Installing the vlc : the packages</heading>
+ <p>
+ This is certainly the most simple way to intsall the vlc on your system,
+ especially if you're using a packaged OS.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The first thing to do is to get an archive, on our web site
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/download.html" name="http://www.videolan.org/download.html">
+ </p>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Linux/Unix users</heading>
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>What package to chose ?</heading>
+ <p>
+ There are different packages because vlc has "plugins" which provide functionnalities
+ but also enlarges the executable and requires external libs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SDL is a lib which allows you to have an accelerated video output.
+ You will need libsdl > 1.1.6
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you're using the enlighted sound daemon, you may want to try
+ the esd-aware vlc.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Generally, when you don't know what a module name is, you don't need/use it :-)
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Binary archive</heading>
+ <p>
+ Untar it typing
+ <verb>
+ tar xvzf vlc-x.x.x.tar.gz
+ </verb>
+ Go in the vlc directory and get to the 'How to play movies' section If
+ you wish not to keep vlc in this single directory but install it fully
+ on your system, you may, as root, type
+ <verb>
+ make install
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Debian package</heading>
+ <p>
+ Just use dpkg :
+ <verb>
+ dpkg -i vlc-x.x.x.deb
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Depending on the package you have downloaded, you may have dependency
+ problems. You have to solve them, by installing the required libs.
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>RPM package</heading>
+ <p>
+ Install vlc just as you would install any rpm package :
+ <verb>
+ rpm -i vlc-x.x.x.rpm
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may have to install external libs to meet dependencies, depending on
+ the package you downloaded (gnome, gtk, esd, ...).
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>BeOS users</heading>
+ <p>
+ Double-click on the archive. It should open your favorite archive extracter.
+ You can then execute the vlc from there, or extract the archive to a
+ diretory and run it from there.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>MacOS X users</heading>
+ <p>
+ To be completed
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+</sect>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>Using the vlc</heading>
+ <p>
+ Good job, you have installed the vlc on your system. Now, it's time to
+ use it. Don't worry, it's not that difficult.
+ </p>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Lauching</heading>
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>The graphical interface</heading>
+ <p>
+ Basically, double clicking on the vlc icon, or typing 'vlc' in a
+ console should launch a graphical interface On Linux/Unix, you may want
+ to specify gnome or gtk interface, with the "--intf" option.
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>In case it doesn't work</heading>
+ <p>
+ In case this does not work, you'll have to use command line options.
+ Usually, to play a file, you'll use :
+ <verb>
+ vlc [file name]
+ </verb>
+ To play a dvd, if you dvd device is "/dev/dvd", you'll type :
+ <verb>
+ vlc dvd:/dev/dvd
+ </verb>
+ On BeOS, the dvd device looks like "/dev/disk/ide/atapi/1/slave/0/raw"
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Using the interface</heading>
+ <p>
+ By now you should see a beautiful interface, with buttons and menus.
+ The text should be quite self-explaining : "Open file", "Open Disc", ...
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For Dvd's you can choose directly from the "open" box the title & chapter
+ you want to play.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Fullscreen - chapters - features</heading>
+ <p>
+ Some of the following features don't work yet on some platforms.
+ We're doing our best to get the ports in sync.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At any time you can change the audio/subtitles channel using either the
+ "setting" menu from the interface or using the "right click" menu from
+ the video output window.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To change chapter, you can use the right-click menu or the interface.
+ Please note that the gnome interface is more advanced than the gtk or
+ qt ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Using the 'f' key when using SDL or XVideo output toggles the
+ fullscreen mode. Be warned that "right click" menus are a bit
+ unstable.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>User help</heading>
+ <p>
+ First of all, it something seems to go wrong, read and try try to
+ understand the error messages. If you are a confirmed user, you
+ may try the "-vvv" option which makes the vlc very verbose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a FAQ page on our website :
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/doc.html" name="http://www.videolan.org/doc.html">.
+ If you think one question should be in the FAQ, please contact
+ <htmlurl url="mailto:videolan-faq@videlan.org" name="videolan-faq@videlan.org">
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finally, there's a users mailing list (English speaking). To subscribe, send a mail to
+ <htmlurl url="mailto:listar@videlan.org" name="listar@videlan.org"> containing
+ "subscribe vlc" as message body.
+ </p>
+</sect>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>Advanced use of the vlc</heading>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Command line options</heading>
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Choosing the video output</heading>
+ <p>
+ You have to use the "-V" otpion. For example :
+ <verb>
+ vlc -V xvideo
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Choosing the audio output</heading>
+ <p>
+ Use the "-A" option. For example :
+ <verb>
+ vlc -A alsa
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Specifying a file</heading>
+ <p>
+ Simply put the file name at the end of the command line, you won't need then
+ to click "open" when the interface launches :
+ <verb>
+ vlc myfile.mpeg
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Specifying the title and chapter where to start</heading>
+ <p>
+ Use the "-t" and "-T" to specify title and chapter. For example, to go to the 12th
+ chapter of the 2nd title, you'll type :
+ <verb>
+ vlc -t 2 -T 12
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+</sect>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>For real men : building your vlc :-)</heading>
+ <p>
+ You can choose either to take the latest release, or a CVS source. Note that
+ CVS snapshots may be broken, although we do our best to prevent this from
+ happening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From here, you have to be a little experienced, even more if you want to use
+ the cvs.
+ </p>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Getting an archive</heading>
+ <p>
+ You have guessed it, the first thing to do is to get the source.
+ Until there, everyone should understand :)
+ </p>
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Web site</heading>
+ <p>
+ Source packages can be found in the "tarballs" section of the download page :
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/download.html" name="http://www.videolan.org/dowload.html">.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CVS snapshots are available from the address :
+ <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/packages/snapshots/"
+ name="http://www.videolan.org/packages/snapshots/">.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then untar the archive :
+ <verb>
+ tar xzf vlc-x-x-x.tar.gz
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Directly from CVS</heading>
+ <p>
+ Firs log in as suer anonymous with an empty password :
+ <verb>
+ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.videolan.org:/var/cvs/videolan login
+ </verb>
+ Then retrieve the repository :
+ <verb>
+ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.videolan.org:/var/cvs/videolan -z3 checkout vlc
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Building the program</heading>
+ <p>
+ Go into the vlc directory and run the configure script :
+ <verb>
+ ./configure
+ </verb>
+ If you want to enable options, you may add "--enable-option" to the previous line.
+ For example, to build with the xvideo extension, and alsa support, you should type :
+ <verb>
+ ./configure --enable-xvideo --enable-alsa
+ </verb>
+ To get the list of the available options, and know if they are enabled by default,
+ you can try :
+ <verb>
+ ./configure --help
+ </verb>
+ A very typical installation, on a XFree 4.1 system, recent video card, with gnome, is :
+ <verb>
+ ./configure --enable-xvideo --enable-esd --enable-gnome
+ </verb>
+ <p>
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Plugins, builtins ...</heading>
+ <p>
+ The configure script should create a Makefile.opts file, which you can edit and modify.
+ Indeed you can chose to have features (as esd support, for example) built as plugins
+ or inside the program.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you build a feature as a plugin, it can lead to a little loss of performance.
+ It you build it inside the code, i'll enlarge a bit the size of the executable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When you're done with Makefile.opts (which also works if you leave it untouched), just
+ make, typing :
+ <verb>
+ make
+ </verb>
+ It should compile without any error. If there are, please check you have the required libs
+ installed on your system, as the configure script can't check them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When you're done with it, as root, type :
+ <verb>
+ make install
+ </verb>
+ if you wish to have vlc fully installed on your system. If you prefer to keep in in the
+ current directory, you may skip the "make install". You'll then have to cd into the vlc
+ directory and type "./vlc" instead of just typing vlc.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+</sect>
+
+<sect>
+ <heading>Really advanced use</heading>
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Using the videolan network solution</heading>
+ <p>
+ I'll only speak about the vlc here. There will be a howto on the whole network solution.
+ You have to say to the vlc that it'll receive network streams. This can be done either by *
+ using the "network" button of the interface, or in the command line :
+ <verb>
+ vlc ts://server[:port]
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This works for unicast. If you are receiving a broadcasted stream, you have to specify the
+ broadcast address :
+ <verb>
+ vlc --broadcast broadcast_addr ts://server[:port]
+ </verb>
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1>
+ <heading>Developping the vlc</heading>
+ <p>
+ Christophe Massiot has written a documentation for developpers.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+</sect>
+
+</article></linuxdoc>
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