                 DVDx 4 README NOTES
                 ===================
                 
                 Release 4.0.0.4

                 Updated by Starbuck <starbuck@labdv.com>
                 June 6th, 2011

DVDx 4.0 is an audio/video encoder as well as a powerful DVD copier. You can read DVDs and quiet any audio or video files and encode them to quiet any popular video formats: VCD/CVD/SVCD/DVD, Xvid/Divx, MPEG-4, H.264, AVC, QuickTime, Flash Video, Ogg, WebM, AC.3, WAV, MP3, MP4/AAC, Lossless Audio, PCM, Vorbis etc.

DVDx 4.0 is very easy to use: open a DVD or file in the player, play it with audio/subtitle of your choice ; encode a short preview and play it to ensure it's what you expect, and then start the whole encoding job which can take about one hour but you're quiet sure to get a very good result!

DVDx 4.0 is based on the most popular and powerful encoders: x264, MEncoder and FFmpeg. It's open-source code is written for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.

DVDx 4.0 makes all good choices for you: popular video and audio codecs and appropriate settings (for fair quality, high quality or smaller size files) but you can tune the encoder with your own preferred settings. 

Your feedback will be appreciated on the DVDx forum or by email to me.

1) Installation
---------------

Windows users:
- download dvdx-open-edition-  4.0.0.4-win32.zip installer
- deflate the archive and execute dvdx-  4.0.0.4-win32.exe

Linux users:
- download and install dvdx-open-edition_4.0.0-4_i386.deb Debian package

* Ubuntu users: open dvdx-open-edition_4.0.0-4_i386.deb with Ubuntu Software Center (ie: double-click the file) and proceed with the GUI setup. DVDx 4 is installed in Applications/Sound & video/DVDx 4 menu.

* Uninstall : sudo apt-get autoremove --purge dvdx4
    
Mac OS X users:
- download dvdx-open-edition-  4.0.0.4-macosx_x86_64.dmg and install the package.

2) Documentation
----------------

* Read the documentation in the doc/ directory. If /doc is missing please visit DVDx homepage at http://www.labdv.com/dvdx

3) Licensing
------------

* See the LICENSE.LGPL file.

4) Quickstart guide
-------------------

* Run DVDx 4, in "File" menu, open a DVD folder or drive, in player controls the main title is already selected, so choose audio and subtitle, then start playing to check this is want you want to copy/encode.

* In the encoder dashboard, select the output format you want and maybe the video and audio codecs you prefer. Click the "Configure" button to choose the encoding profile, "Medium" is usually a good choice. Then click "Start encoding preview" button and wait a few seconds the encoding is finished. Play the preview to ensure it plays what quality you're expecting.

* Now you're ready to start an encoding job, uncheck "Preview" box and click "Start encoding" button. You can follow on the progress (yes it may takes one hour to copy a whole DVD movie) in the job manager.

* If you want a VCD, SVCd or Xvid/DivX output, you can start the preferred job in the "Job" menu, immediately after loading the DVD and selecting audio and subtitle.
 
5) Supported output format
--------------------------

* 3G2, 3GP: H.263, MPEG-4 and H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) video for mobile phones
* AVI: most popular format for Xvid/DivX movies
* FLV: H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) Flash video files
* IPOD: MPEG-4 and H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) movies for iPod
* MKV, Matroska: powerful format becoming standard HTML 5 format named WebM
* MOV: MPEG-4 and H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) QuickTime format
* MP4: H.263, MPEG-4 and H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) in ISO standard MPEG-4 file format
* MPEG: MPEG-1/MPEG-2 video for VideoCD, CVD, SVCD and DVD
* OGG: patent-free open format for Theora/Vorbis video files
* PSP: H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) video for Sony PlayStation Portable
* WebM: HTML5 video (Google/On2's VP8 video and Vorbis audio)

6) Supported input
------------------

* DVD discs or folders 
* Most video and audio file formats.
