README
1About libdca
2------------
3
4libdca is a free library for decoding DTS Coherent Acoustics streams. It is
5released under the terms of the GPL license. The DTS Coherent Acoustics
6standard is used in a variety of applications, including DVD, DTS audio CD and
7radio broadcasting.
8
9The main goals in libdts development are:
10
11 * Portability - currently all of the code is written in C, and
12 when we write platform-specific optimizations we will always
13 keep a generic C routine to fall back on.
14
15 * Reuseability - we do not want libdts to include any
16 project-specific code, but it should still include enough
17 features to be used by very diverse projects.
18
19 * Precision - we do not yet fully support all the core specification of
20 the DTS Coherent Acoustics standard (see TODO) so do not expect too
21 much of this library for now.
22
23 * Speed - current code is not optimised at all.
24
25The project homepage is at http://www.videolan.org/developers/libdca.html
26
27
28dcadec
29------
30
31dcadec is a test program for libdca. It decodes DTS Coherent Acoustics streams,
32and also includes a demultiplexer for mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 program streams.
33
34The libdca source code is always distributed in the dcadec package, to
35make sure it easier for people to test it.
36
37The basic usage is to just type "dcadec file" where file is a DTS Coherent
38Acoustics file.
39
40The "-s" option must be used for multiplexed (audio and video) mpeg-2
41files. These files are usualy found on the internet or on unencrypted
42DVDs.
43
44The "-o" option is used to select a given output layer. By default
45dcadec does a stereo downmix and outputs to your speakers, but you can
46try other choices using this option. This is also used for performance
47testing and conformance testing.
48
49The "-r" option is used to disable the dynamic range compression.
50
51
52Other projects using libdts
53---------------------------
54
55right now libdts is only being used by VLC media player
56(http://www.videolan.org/) a cross-platform video player and streaming
57solution.
58
59If you use libdts in another project, let us know !
60
61
62Tasks
63-----
64
65There are several places where we could easily use some help:
66
67 * Testing: If you find any stream that does not decode right
68 with libdts, let us know ! The best thing would be to mail to
69 the libdts-devel mailing list. Also if you have access to
70 encoders, we'd love to get test streams that would be free of
71 rights - so that we can put them on this server.
72
73 * Coding: you can have a look in the TODO file first ! The most
74 important items are probably to finish implementing the full
75 specification and to make sure of the accuracy of the audio output.
76
77 * Porting: If you're porting to a new architecture, you might
78 want to experiment with the compile flags defined in
79 configure.in . When you figure out whats fastest on your
80 platform, send us a patch !
81
82
83References
84----------
85
86The DTS Coherent Acoustics standard (ETSI 102 114 v1.2.1), as published by the
87ETSI, is available at http://pda.etsi.org/pda/queryform.asp (look for DTS
88Coherent Acoustics)
89
90
91SVN repository
92--------------
93
94The latest libdca and dcadec source code can always be found by anonymous
95SVN repository:
96
97# svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/libdca/trunk libdca-trunk
98
99If you build libdts from SVN you'll have to run ./bootstrap first.
100
101
102Support / mailing-lists
103-----------------------
104
105See the support information at http://www.videolan.org/support/
106
107libdts-devel
108
109This is the main mailing list for technical discussion about
110libdts. Anyone wanting to work on libdts, or maybe just stay informed
111about the development process, should probably subscribe to this list.
112
113
114Unix build instructions
115-----------------------
116
117./configure
118make
119make install
120
121
122Building for win32
123------------------
124
125There are at least three ways to do it:
126
127- natively on Windows using Microsoft VC++ and the vc++ project
128 included in this distribution.
129
130- natively on Windows using MSYS + MINGW (www.mingw.org) (MSYS is a
131 minimal build environnement to compile unixish projects under
132 windows. It provides all the common unix tools like sh, gmake...)
133
134- or on Linux, using the mingw32 cross-compiler
135
136
137Building using MSYS + MINGW on windows
138--------------------------------------
139
140First you will need to download and install the latest MSYS (version
1411.0.7 as of now) and MINGW. The installation is really easy. Begin
142with the MSYS auto-installer and once this is done, extract MINGW into
143c:\msys\1.0\mingw. You also have to remember to remove the make
144utility included with MINGW as it conflicts with the one from MSYS
145(just rename or remove c:\msys\1.0\mingw\bin\make.exe).
146
147http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MSYS-1.0.7-i686-2002.04.24-1.exe
148http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MinGW-1.1.tar.gz
149
150Then you can build the package using:
151# ./configure
152# make
153
154
155Building using the mingw32 cross-compiler
156-----------------------------------------
157
158You need to install mingw32 first. For Debian GNU/Linux users, there
159is a mingw32 package. Otherwise you might get it from the mingw site
160at http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml.
161
162The videolan project also keeps precompiled mingw32 binaries at
163http://www.videolan.org/vlc/windows.html . If you install these,
164you'll have to set your PATH accordingly to include
165/usr/local/cross-tools/bin too.
166
167The build should then proceed using something like:
168# CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc
169# make
170
171