I started from zero and managed to build proper statically linked binaries at the (mostly latest) version of itself and the associated libraries. I hope this may be useful to someone.h

Here is what I set out to do: I wanted not only compiler mplayer/mencoder/ffmpeg/x264 myself but also the various and sundry libraries used by mplayer for all sorts of different purposes. Vorbis/ogg/xvid/png and what not. In the end I came up with the following list of libraries (and their versions):

Due to the fact that I continue to run into compatibilities between different Windows mplayer/mencoder builds floating on the net and YAMF, I have decided to release working builds on a more or less regular basis here myself. I create these builds from svn on the day indicated. They have been tested with the latest YAMF version.

I took this step in particular in respect to HD support. If you have a BluRay title that you can legally multiplex into a TS container using say BD-Clown (BD-Clown only processes unprotected material and there is a wealth of guides on the net on how to use it) you may have noticed that YAMF will have some problems processing it as HD. In particular it mplayer pure lacks the ability to multiplex chapters, multiple audio streams and subtitles natively. This, of course, is a pain if you need to do this manually later on. I am happy to note that the version in development and hopefully out later this weekend not only multiplexes any number of subtitle/audio streams and chapter info but also does automatic sup-sub conversions (sup, as you may know, is the subtitle format used on BluRay discs and incompatible with Matroska).

The whole multiplexing business, of course, only works with the Matroska container, so if you are still using MP4 you are out of luck and you should seriously consider migrating.

Anyhow, keep visiting the download section for the Builds.

Documentation: PHP is a long established language although PHP 5 OOP features are comparatively new or represent enhancements over previous constructs. There is PHP documentation as far as the eye can see. You are sure to fin some documentation that will work for you. But I was not only concerned with documentation of the language but of the framework. I found Symfony documentation to be excellent. There are tutorials, reference books and bibles. The quality is excellent and while I consider the learning curve for any framework relatively steep (it is essentially the same as learning a completely new language, new APIs and interfaces. The Symfony documentation is concise and largely error-free. The Symfony web site offers core books (which will run you a fair amount of money at Amazon) available for free in PDF format. The Symfony team has understood that the adoption rate will be proportional to the ability of new users to grasp its functionality. Code that works magic is useless unless I know how to use it and I managed to get a handle on Symfony, a complex framework, in a relatively short amount of time.

... and why I chose it over GRAILS, Ruby on Rails and Code Igniter...

I have spent the last few weeks completely immersing myself in Symfony, the PHP development framework for web application development. To be honest, I believe GWT with GXT represents a much more visually appealing interface but there are good reasons to use a regular framework instead of Google Web Toolkit. For one, all the frameworks I mentioned above offer three important functions, all more or less absent in GWT: