DVD

Animated SVG terminal recordings.
Write a script, run dvd, get an infinitely-scalable animation you can drop in any README.

Quick start · Why SVG · Recording · Syntax · Themes · CLI · FAQ

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What you get

DVD turns terminal output into a single self-contained animated SVG. No ffmpeg. No headless browser. No video encoder.

Because the output is SVG, it is text: the frames are real glyphs, so the result stays sharp at any zoom, weighs almost nothing on the wire, and can be edited, diffed, and version-controlled like source.

npx dvdrw-cli demo.cd

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Quick start

Install

Homebrew	brew install tool3/tap/dvd
Shell	curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tool3/dvd-cli/master/scripts/install.sh | bash
npm	npm install -g dvdrw-cli # global npx dvdrw-cli --help # no install npm install -D dvdrw-cli # per-project

The npm package is dvdrw-cli; the binary it installs is dvd. With npx you must use the full package name: npx dvdrw-cli.

Your first recording

dvd new demo

That scaffolds demo.cd:

Output demo.svg
Set Template macos
Set Theme dracula
Set Title "My Terminal"
Type "echo 'Hello World!'"
Sleep 500ms
Enter
Sleep 1s

Render it:

dvd demo.cd

Then embed it anywhere that takes an image:

![Demo](demo.svg)

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Why SVG

An honest comparison — including where DVD is the wrong tool.

	DVD	VHS	asciinema
Output	animated SVG + MP4/WebM/GIF	GIF / MP4 / WebM	.cast + player
External binaries to render	none for SVG, ffmpeg for video	ffmpeg, ttyd	none
Resolution-independent	yes (SVG)	no	yes
Text is real text	yes (SVG)	no	yes
Works as a plain <img>	yes	yes	no (embed)
Single self-contained file	yes	yes	no (needs player/host)
Loop styles	4 modes	basic	basic
Print / retina quality	yes (SVG)	no	no
Video for social & slides	yes	yes	no
Hosted sharing & playback	no	no	yes (asciinema.org)

Use DVD for README embeds, docs sites, and anywhere you want a crisp, tiny, text-based animation — and reach for -o demo.mp4 when you need a video of the same recording.

Use asciinema when you want hosted, shareable, pausable playback with a real player.

About file size

Raw SVG output looks large, but it is highly repetitive text and every HTTP server gzips it. Measured from examples/:

File	Raw	Gzipped
intro_original.svg	2.4 MB	39 KB
rainbow.svg	272 KB	8 KB
chartscii-stdin.svg	3.7 MB	304 KB

The wire cost is small. The real cost of a very long recording is DOM size and browser memory, not bandwidth — see FAQ.

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Video output

SVG does not embed on social platforms, and some places want a real video. Give --output a video extension and you get one:

dvd demo.cd -o demo.mp4 # H.264, yuv420p — plays everywhere
dvd demo.cd -o demo.webm # VP9
dvd demo.cd -o demo.gif # palette-optimised GIF

Works the same for the other two input modes:

chartscii 3 5 8 -e | dvd -o chart.mp4
dvd render session.cast -o session.mp4

What video needs

Video is entirely opt-in — installing dvd pulls in nothing extra, and SVG output needs neither of these:

brew install ffmpeg # or apt / winget. Set FFMPEG_PATH to override.
npm install -g @resvg/resvg-js # optional peer dep, ~3MB prebuilt, no compiler

If either is missing, dvd tells you which one and how to get it.

Why a second tool at all: the animated SVG is SMIL, and nothing outside a browser executes SMIL — so DVD does not convert the SVG into video. It re-renders each frame of the recording as a still image and streams those through ffmpeg, which means the video comes from the same frame data as the SVG rather than being a lossy copy of it. Turning those frames into pixels needs a rasterizer, and Node has no built-in one (ffmpeg only decodes SVG if it was compiled against librsvg, which most builds are not).

Flag	Meaning
--quality, -q	low, medium (default) or high
--fps	Output frame rate — overrides the tier's own (see below)
--loops	Times the animation repeats (default 1)
--font-file	Font to rasterize with — otherwise a system monospace is used

Quality

dvd demo.cd -o demo.mp4 -q high

Tier	Scale	FPS	Looks like
low	1x	15	Fine in a chat window; visible softness on edges
medium	1x	30	Pixel-for-pixel with the SVG at 100%
high	3x	30 / 60	Indistinguishable from the SVG, including zoomed

high picks its frame rate from the recording: it measures the tightest gap between frames and rounds up, so a slow typing demo stays at 30 while a fast in-place animation (chartscii -e, a spinner) gets 60. Sampling faster than the source ever changes would only duplicate frames. --fps overrides all of this.

The lever that matters is supersampling, not bitrate. Terminal output is thin, high-contrast glyph edges — the worst case for a block-based codec at 1:1. high renders the vector at triple size (real extra detail, not an upscaled bitmap) and lets the player downscale, which is what makes text read as crisply as the SVG at any zoom.

Flat colour compresses almost for free, so the cost is far smaller than the pixel count suggests. A representative clip:

Tier	Output	FPS	Size
low	700x240	15	4.0KB
medium	700x240	30	6.3KB
high	2100x720	60	20.8KB

Encode time grows with pixels and frames, so high is roughly 9x the pixel work of medium at up to twice the frame count.

Two things behave differently from the SVG, both unavoidable:

• Cursor blink is off. Blink is a CSS animation; a still frame can only sample one phase of it.
• Dimensions round up to even numbers. H.264's yuv420p subsampling rejects odd width or height.

Frames the animation holds still — the pauses between keystrokes, Sleep commands — are rasterized once and reused, so encoding time tracks the number of visible changes, not the frame count.

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Three ways to record

1. Scripted — .cd files

Declarative and reproducible. Best for docs you want to regenerate in CI.

dvd demo.cd
dvd demo.cd -o out.svg --theme nord --template minimal

2. Piped — any command's output

Wrap a command and capture exactly what it printed, colors and all.

ls -la --color | dvd -o listing.svg
neofetch | dvd -o system-info.svg --title "System Info"
lolcat -a -d 2 <<<"Hello World"| dvd -o rainbow.svg

Animated command output is captured frame by frame:

chartscii $(seq 1 5) -c "gradient(pink,cyan)" --animate | dvd -L reverse -P 1000 -w "made with dvd"

3. Live — record a real session

dvd rec captures an interactive PTY session to an asciinema v2 .cast file. Exit the shell or press Ctrl+D to stop.

dvd rec # -> recording.cast
dvd rec session.cast # custom path
dvd rec session.cast --command "ls -la --color"# one-shot, non-interactive
dvd rec session.cast --title "Demo session"# embed a title

The output is standard asciinema v2, so it works with any asciinema-compatible tool.

Already have .cast files? DVD renders them straight to SVG — dimensions are auto-derived from the recording:

dvd render recording.cast
dvd render recording.cast -o demo.svg --theme dracula --template macos --title "Demo"
dvd render recording.cast --no-cursor --font-size 16 --loop-style reverse

Render options for .cast files

Option	Alias	Description	Default
--output	-o	Output SVG path	<file>.svg
--theme	-T	Color theme	dark
--template	-m	macos, windows, minimal	macos
--title	-t	Window title
--font-size	-s	Font size (px)	14
--line-height	-Y	Line height multiplier	1.4
--padding	-d	Content padding (px)	16
--border-radius	-R	Window border radius (px)	8
--cursor-blink		Enable cursor blink	false
--no-cursor		Hide cursor entirely
--custom-glyphs	-G	Render block elements as shapes	true
--loop-style	-L	loop, reverse, rewind, fade	loop
--optimize	-O	Optimize SVG output	true
--verbose	-v	Verbose output	false

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Showcase

ANSI & truecolor	ASCII art
Charts	Animated output
Git log	Directory listing
Text selection	Color tables

More in examples/.

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Syntax reference

.cd scripts are declarative. Lines starting with # are comments.

Commands

Command	Purpose	Example
Type	Type text with realistic timing	Type "echo hi"
Enter	Execute the current command	Enter
Sleep	Pause the recording	Sleep 500ms / Sleep 2s
Backspace	Delete characters	Backspace 4
Left/Right	Move the cursor	Left 5
Screenshot	Capture a static frame	Screenshot test-results.svg

Typing speed can be set per-command with an @<ms>ms suffix:

Type@100ms "Slow typing..."
Type@10ms "Speed typing!"

Editing works as you'd expect:

Type "Hello Wrold"
Backspace 4
Type "orld!"

Keyboard navigation and selection are fully supported:

Shift+Left # Select character left
Shift+Right # Select character right
Alt+Left # Move word left
Alt+Right # Move word right
Alt+Shift+Left # Select word left
Alt+Shift+Right # Select word right
Cmd+Left # Move to line start
Cmd+Right # Move to line end
Cmd+Backspace # Delete word

Settings

Every setting uses Set <Setting> <value>. Output is the one bare directive.

Output demo.svg
Output path/to/output.svg

Appearance

Set Theme dracula # see the Themes gallery below
Set Template macos # macos | windows | minimal
Set Title "My Terminal"
Set Padding 16
Set BorderRadius 8
Set BorderWidth 2
Set BorderColor #ff0000

Dimensions — omit for auto-sizing

Set Width 800
Set Height 600

Fonts

# System font — the viewer must have it installed
Set FontFamily "Fira Code"
Set FontSize 14
Set LineHeight 1.4
# Embedded font — guaranteed to render identically everywhere
Set EmbedFont path/to/font.woff2

Use Set EmbedFont for anything public. A system font that the viewer lacks will silently fall back.

Cursor

Set CursorStyle block # block | bar | underline
Set CursorColor #ffffff
Set CursorBlink true

Prompt & typing speed

Set TypingSpeed 50 # default ms per character
Set PromptPrefix "$ "
Set PromptPrefix "❯ "
Set PromptPrefix "\x1b[95m❯\x1b[0m " # ANSI escapes work

Header & footer

Set HeaderHeight 40
Set HeaderBackground #333333
Set HeaderBorder true
Set HeaderBorderColor #444444
Set HeaderBorderWidth 1
Set FooterHeight 30
Set FooterBackground #333333
Set FooterBorder true

Watermark

Set Watermark "Made with DVD"
Set WatermarkStyle "opacity: 0.5; padding: 10"

Raw SVG markup is allowed, so a watermark can be a link:

Set Watermark `<a href="https://github.com/tool3/dvd-cli">
<text text-anchor="end">DVD</text>
</a>`

Backgrounds & gradients

# Solid
Set Background #1a1a2e
Set BackgroundPadding 40
# Vertical gradient (default direction)
Set Background gradient(#667eea, #764ba2)
# Horizontal
Set Background gradient(#f093fb, #f5576c:horizontal)
# Multi-stop
Set Background gradient(#ff6b6b, #feca57, #48dbfb, #ff9ff3)
Set BackgroundPadding 60

Execution environment

Set Shell /bin/zsh
Set WorkingDirectory $PWD # or an absolute path

Playback speed

Set PlaybackSpeed 2 # 2x faster
Set PlaybackSpeed 0.5 # half speed

Full grammar: FORMAT.md.

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Loop styles

Four ways to handle the end of a recording — a small thing that makes README animations feel deliberate rather than jarring.

Style	Behaviour	Tuning
loop	Restart from the beginning (default)	Set LoopPause 2000
reverse	Play forward, then backward at the same speed	Set LoopPause 2000
rewind	Fast reverse, like rewinding a tape	Set RewindSpeed 10 (def. 5)
fade	Fade to black before restarting	Set FadeDuration 1500

Set LoopStyle reverse

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Themes

37 built-in themes. dvd themes lists them all.

Set Theme <theme-name>

a11yDark	base16Dark	base16Light
blackboard	catppuccinMocha	cobalt
dark	dracula	draculaPro
duotoneDark	githubDark	githubLight
gruvboxDark	gruvboxLight	hopscotch
lucario	material	monokai
night3024	nord	oceanicNext
oneDark	oneLight	pandaSyntax
paraisoDark	seti	shadesOfPurple
solarizedDark	solarizedLight	synthwave84
terminal	tokyoNight	twilight
verminal	vscode	yeti
zenburn

Custom themes

Pass a JSON object. Unspecified colors inherit from the current theme, so partial overrides are fine.

Set Theme {"background": "#1a1a2e", "foreground": "#eaeaea", "cursor": "#f39c12", "red": "#e74c3c", "green": "#2ecc71", "blue": "#3498db"}
Set Theme {"background": "#0d1117", "foreground": "#c9d1d9"}
Set Theme {"background": "#0a0a0a", "foreground": "#00ff00", "cursor": "#00ff00"}

All theme properties

Property	Description
name	Theme name (optional)
background	Terminal background color
foreground	Default text color
cursor	Cursor color
selection	Selection highlight color
black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white	Standard ANSI colors
brightBlack, brightRed, brightGreen, brightYellow, brightBlue, brightMagenta, brightCyan, brightWhite	Bright ANSI colors

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Templates

macos traffic lights	windows Windows buttons	minimal no chrome

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Animation engines

DVD ships two engines. Filmstrip is the default and is right for almost everyone. SMIL is a targeted fix for one specific problem.

Filmstrip (default)

Each unique row is emitted once as an SVG <symbol> and referenced from every frame that uses it via <use>. Frame cadence comes from CSS @keyframes with step-end visibility switching.

• Smaller files. Size scales with the number of unique rows, not frames. Repetitive output — prompts, ASCII art, mostly-static screens — compresses dramatically.
• Well-optimized on desktop browsers, which is where README and docs traffic lands.
• Can stutter at 120Hz on mobile Safari. Every frame switch goes through the browser's CSS style-resolution pipeline, which adds per-tick overhead on some devices.

SMIL (--smil)

Each frame is its own <g> group, and visibility is switched by a native SVG <animate attributeName="visibility">. The SVG engine pre-computes the schedule and paints only the active frame.

• Smoother on 120Hz, mobile Safari, and iOS Chrome — the native path skips CSS style resolution entirely.
• Larger files. Size scales with total frame count rather than unique rows: typically 2–4× filmstrip, more for long or highly-varied recordings.
• SMIL is less actively maintained in browser specs than CSS animations, so treat it as a tool for a known problem rather than a default.

Which one?

You want…	Use
A README or docs embed on desktop	Filmstrip
The smallest possible file	Filmstrip
Long recordings with lots of repeated prompt lines	Filmstrip
Buttery-smooth playback on iOS / 120Hz screens	SMIL
Short, high-FPS animations where smoothness matters	SMIL

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CLI reference

dvd script.cd # render to script.svg
dvd script.cd -o output.svg # custom output
dvd script.cd --verbose # detailed output
dvd new my-demo # scaffold a script
dvd new my-demo --template showcase # scaffold from a template
dvd themes # list all themes
dvd validate script.cd # check syntax without rendering
dvd rec session.cast # record a live session
dvd render session.cast -T dracula # render a .cast to SVGcommand| dvd -o output.svg # pipe mode

All options

Option	Alias	Description	Default
--output	-o	Output file path	<input>.svg
--verbose	-v	Show detailed output	false
--optimize	-O	Optimize SVG output	true
--smil		Use the SMIL engine	false
--loop	-l	Loop the animation	true
--loop-style	-L	loop, reverse, rewind, fade	loop
--loop-pause	-P	Pause before loop restarts (ms)	0
--pause-at-end	-p	Pause at end before looping (ms)	1000
--fade-duration	-F	Fade duration for fade style (ms)	1500
--rewind-speed	-r	Speed multiplier for rewind	5
--fps	-f	Frames per second
--playback-speed	-S	Playback speed multiplier	1
--theme	-T	Color theme	dark
--template	-m	macos, windows, minimal	macos
--title	-t	Window title
--width	-W	Width in pixels	auto
--height	-H	Height in pixels	auto
--font-size	-s	Font size in pixels	14
--font-family	-y	Font family name
--line-height	-Y	Line height multiplier	1.4
--letter-spacing	-a	Letter spacing in pixels	0
--padding	-d	Content padding (px)	16
--border-radius	-R	Border radius (px)	8
--border-color	-C	Border color (hex)
--border-width	-B	Border width (px)
--background	-A	Outer background color or gradient
--background-padding	-n	Padding around the window (px)	0
--cursor-style	-c	block, bar, underline	block
--cursor-color	-k	Cursor color (hex)
--cursor-blink	-K	Enable cursor blink	true
--custom-glyphs	-G	Block elements as geometric shapes	true
--header-background	-b	Header background color (hex)
--header-height	-e	Header height in pixels
--header-border	-D	Show header border
--header-border-color	-E	Header border color (hex)
--footer-background	-g	Footer background color (hex)
--footer-height	-i	Footer height in pixels
--footer-border	-I	Show footer border
--footer-border-color	-J	Footer border color (hex)
--footer-border-width	-j	Footer border width (px)
--watermark	-w	Watermark text

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FAQ

Do animated SVGs actually work in GitHub READMEs?

Yes. CSS and SMIL animations run when an SVG is loaded as an image. Two things to know:

1. Use raw.githubusercontent.com URLs, not github.com/.../blob/... — blob URLs serve an HTML page, so the image will appear broken.
2. GitHub proxies and caches images through camo. If you update an SVG in place and the old one still shows, append a cache-buster: demo.svg?v=2.

Links inside an SVG are not clickable when it is embedded as an image.

My output is several megabytes. Is that a problem?

Usually not — SVG is repetitive text and gzips 10–60×, so a 2.4 MB file is ~39 KB on the wire. What does matter is DOM size in the browser for very long recordings.

If a recording feels heavy: keep it under ~30 seconds, raise Set TypingSpeed so fewer frames are generated, lower --fps, and stay on the default filmstrip engine.

The font looks wrong on someone else's machine.

Set FontFamily references a font by name and requires the viewer to have it installed. For anything public, use Set EmbedFont path/to/font.woff2 — it embeds the glyphs so rendering is identical everywhere.

Can I get a GIF or MP4?

Not today — DVD outputs SVG. If you need a raster video for social media or slides, use VHS.

Does dvd rec work on Windows?

Recording uses a PTY via node-pty. On Windows it falls back to COMSPEC (cmd.exe). SVG rendering itself needs no PTY and works everywhere Node 18+ runs.

What exactly are the dependencies?

Rendering needs no external binaries — no ffmpeg, no headless browser, no video encoder. That is the claim.

The npm package does have normal Node dependencies: the dvdrw rendering library, shellfie, yargs, and node-pty (a native module used only by dvd rec).

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Related

• dvd — the rendering library behind this CLI
• shellfie — static terminal screenshots as SVG
• shellfie-cli — the screenshot CLI
• chartscii — ASCII charts, great input for DVD
• VHS — GIF/MP4 terminal recordings

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Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome.

git clone https://github.com/tool3/dvd-cli
cd dvd-cli
npm install
npm run build
npm test

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MIT © tool3