relative positioning of marq text on screen

[mtoal]

Hi there,

We get videos on DVD from a 3rd party to air on our public access channel, and use VLC 0.8.1 on WinXP SP2 on a lackluster Dell Optiplex GX100 to show these videos on the display in fullscreen mode, which is scan-converted to the cable company's modulator.

I play them with a batch files where I have set up parameters to add text via marq with no problem. This is a nice feature! But I was hoping for some pointers on how to better utilize it.

Unfortunately many of the videos I receive are of inconsistent resolutions, i.e. sometimes 640x480, sometimes 800x600, etc. often I get different chapters recorded at different resolutions so I am always having to fiddle with the positioning of the marq text since I would prefer to show the marq text across the bottom of the screen.

I am not sure how to best articulate this, but what I would like to do is be able to specify the text positioning in "relative" terms, as opposed to explicit terms.

Is there a way to "auto-center" the marq text on the X axis?

Is there a way to specify coordinates say from the bottom of the screen, without first knowing the resolution of the video? (i.e. 10 up from the bottom, wherever the bottom is, on the Y axis) I tried saying --marq-y=-10 for example, but this actually bumped it up halfway off the screen on the top...

Barring this, is there a way that I, irrespective of the resolution of the video, can display it fullscreen, but at a fixed 640x480 extrapolated resolution? That way my X and Y position for marq text will not have to be changed for different videos...

Thanks!

[markfm]

Good question. The logo overlay allows:
"You can enforce the logo position on the video " \
"(0=center, 1=left, 2=right, 4=top, 8=bottom, you can " \
"also use combinations of these values).")

This function, added to marq, should do what you're seeking.

[Sigmund]

I'ts probably a one-line change to the relevant file (if you want bottom-centered marquee

[markfm]

It should be in the next nightly. Added marq-pos (or marq-position) shortcut.

[Guest]

Outstanding! Thank you!

Now I don't want to be greedy or anything, but while we're tinkering, would it also be possible to add an additional parameter to set the color of the marq-text in RGB format?

marq-color=RRGGBB

I think, then there'd be nothing else the marq filter could possibly need! Maybe that's a non-trivial request, so I won't hold my breath or anything.

mtoal

[markfm]

I don't know about that, though it never hurts to ask
I did add --freetype-opacity (0..100), which lets you make the text transparent (100 = totally opaque, 0 = totally transparent, "useable range" is probably about 50 - 100). Have to see what people think of it, whether it stays in or goes.

[markfm]

Added --freetype-color option. It takes a hex value, 0x000000 to 0xFFFFFF, to set the RGB values.
Updated opacity to use 0 - 255, 0 = transparent, 255 = fully opaque.

[Guest]

Holy cow... I don't know what to say except thanks again!

mtoal