VideoLAN vlc-0.8.5 ReplayTV custom version

customizations by Kevin Moye, moyekj@yahoo.com
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/vlc/vlc85_alpha1/

=======================
ReplayTV customizations
=======================
1. Automatic Commercial Advance (CA) support added when playing ReplayTV files
   or when streaming directly from ReplayTV (both 4K and 5K series supported).

   All end points of computed commercial points are automatically setup as
   bookmarks. In none full-screen mode you can access the bookmarks
   dialog box by selecting:
      Settings -> Bookmarks...
   The dialog box will show all the computed commercial block ranges.
   A bookmark is also added right at the start of the show to accompany
   the other CA bookmarks.
   Double-clicking on a bookmark takes you to the end of that commercial
   block similar to Show|Nav capability of 5K RTVs. So this is a convenient
   way of examining all the computed commercial blocks for this show as
   well as an easy way of jumping to next show segment.

   In Fullscreen mode if you right-click the mouse button and slide the
   mouse pointer down to the Bookmark slider menu you can also see and
   access the CA bookmarks.

2. Stabilized elapsed/total time indicator so it doesn't jump all over the
   place when playing back RTV mpegs.

3. Added fix so that jump to bookmarks actually works. For some reason
   the stock vlc-0.8.5 release does not include support for jump to a
   bookmark.

4. Added several RTV-specific hotkeys. See following section for details.

==============================
REPLAYTV MPEG-SPECIFIC HOTKEYS
==============================
NOTE: The default hotkey bindings can be modified under:
 Settings -> Preferences...
 Enable "Advanced options"
 Interface -> Hotkeys settings

- Hotkey F9 is setup to toggle CA on and off as desired. Note that by
  default CA is automatically enabled on startup, so if you want to turn
  if off you can press the F9 key to toggle it off. Press F9 to re-enable.

- Hotkey <Ctrl>. (control-period) is setup to jump forward to the next
  bookmark, which is the end of the next commercial block or the start
  of the show after next commercial.

- Hotkey <Ctrl>, (control-comma) is setup to jump backwards to the previous
  bookmark, which is the end of the previous commercial block or the start
  of the show after last commercial.
  NOTE: You can jump back multiple bookmarks in succession by activating the
  bindkey again within a second or so of the previous press.

NOTE: Hotkeys are known not to work reliably in VideoLAN VLC. A workaround
to the problem which appears to make them more reliable is as follows:
- If VLC is in Fullscreen mode, switch it to non-Fullscreen using the right
  mouse button.
- Settings -> Switch Interface -> wxWindows
  This will split up the player into 2 windows, one the control window
  and the other the video window. In this mode and as long as you have
  the focus in the video window the hotkeys appear to work consistently.

***NOTE: YOU CAN MAKE VIDEO AND CONTROL WINDOWS SEPARATE BY DEFAULT AS FOLLOWS
 Settings -> Preferences...
  Enable "Advanced options"
  Interface -> Main interfaces -> wxWidgets
   Uncheck "Embed video in interface"
Click on "Save" button to save your changes.

============================
NOTE ON VIDEO DE-INTERLACING
============================
Make sure that VideoLAN VLC is set to de-interlace video as follows:

Settings -> Preferences...
  Expand "Video"
   Click on "Filters"
    For "Video filter module" select "Deinterlacing video filter"

 Expand "Filters"
  Click on "Deinterlace"
   Check that both Display and Streaming are set to "Linear"

Click on Save button and now your preferences will be permanently saved.

AUTHORS
Kevin Moye (moyekj@yahoo.com)

THANKS TO
FlipFlop, Lee Thompson, Agent X and others (for replaypc & evtdump code)
Gerry Duprey (for DVArchive interface)
AVS Forum j.m. (for pointing me in the right direction and some really)
great ideas on improving the implementation.)
Countless others at AVS Forum

=======================
CA Implementation Notes
=======================
- Note that computation of commercial points relies on
  the presence of .ndx file (and .evt file for 5K series) in the
  same directory as the .mpg file you are playing. If those
  files are not present in same directory, CA will not work.

- CA support for files streamed directly from RTV only works
  using DVArchive 3.1. The implementation currently relies on
  DVArchive for obtaining the .evt/.ndx files from the RTV
  in order to compute commercial points.

- The commercial points are marked in terms of their file
  positions instead of time points so will work properly even though
  VLC may display the wrong elapsed/remaining time of the stream.

- When a commercial skip happens a ">>> mm:ss" swish is displayed
  so that you know how long (in minutes and seconds) the skip was.

- My testing shows the CA skip points match the RTV ones very
  closely. However as most RTV users can attest for certain
  shows CA does not work reliably and so this implementation
  is subject to the same problems.

==========
OS SUPPORT
==========
This customized version of VideoLAN VLC was developed using
Windows XP. I used to also test under Linux RedHat but that became
too much of a hassle for little return so no longer check
the source code for other OS platforms.  It may be possible some
OS-specific source code tweaks are needed to support other platforms,
however it should be possible to get this compiled on any platform
supported by VLC.

==================
WIN32 INSTALLATION
==================
No self-installing executable is provided, but the installation
is very simple:

1. Unzip the vlc-0.8.5-replaytv-win32.zip file in a fresh folder.
   The main executable resides in <path>\vlc-0.8.5-replaytv\vlc.exe.
2. Setup your DVArchive 3.1 installation to point at the
   the above vlc.exe:
     - File -> DVArchive Properties...
     - Under General tab use the above vlc.exe for
       both "MPEG Video Player" and "Streaming MPEG Video Player"
       settings.

==================
OTHER INSTALLATION
==================
For all other platforms you will have to build vlc from source.
I am providing a source code tar file containing all the files I
modified in the code tree to implement the replayTV specific
enhancements.

1. The main VideoLAN 0.8.5 VLC source code can be obtained here:
   http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/0.8.5/vlc-0.8.5.tar.gz
   NOTE: This does NOT include many 3rd party software that
   is used by VideoLAN VLC in conjunction with it's own code.

2. Uncompress and untar the source into a fresh directory.

3. Untar my source code patch file (vlc-0.8.5-replaytv.patch.tar)
   in directory: <install-dir>/vlc-0.8.5

4. Follow the OS-specific instructions for compiling VLC at:
   http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/
