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DVD Authoring Under Linux?
from the creating-your-own-media dept.
To add on to phorm's query, smz420 asks: "A few months ago, I acquired a DVD burner and have had a lot of fun creating discs. While they come out well, they're very much cookie-cutter, due to the software I've been using to create them. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of flexibility built into the consumer level authoring systems out there, and I'd like to take my discs to the next level. Can anyone in Slashdot-land recommend books, links or software packages that could lead me down the road towards 'prosumer' DVD authoring? I'd like to be able to take full control over authoring: design my own button shapes and structures; place text where-ever I want on a menu page; create custom navigation structures, and possibly plant an easter egg or two. So far, I've tried Pinnacle Studio 8, Sonic MyDVD and Nero on Windows 2000. While each had very good aspects to them, all of them fell short of enabling 'next level' DVD authoring. Any advice would be most appreciated."
You may find this link useful (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.silvermoon.co.nz/)
Re:You may find this link useful (Score:5, Informative)
Trick out home videos with a fun, featureful menu system that viewers can navigate from a regular DVD player.
Traditionally, DVD authoring has been an expensive affair. Full-featured professional applications can cost thousands of dollars, while cheaper products, such as Apple's iDVD, have arbitrary restrictions that significantly reduce their usefulness. A new open-source effort, dvdauthor, is bringing the possibility of low-cost, professional-grade DVD authoring to Linux. Although it doesn't yet support all the features of the DVD specification, development is proceeding at a fast pace, and new features are being added with each release. Together with a more established open-source toolkit, mjpegtools, this article explains how to construct a relatively complex DVD application, a photo album, with dvdauthor. We also illustrate the various features that dvdauthor currently supports and how to use open-source tools to construct a DVD-R that can play on almost every DVD player.
How a DVD Works (Quick Version)
A DVD is comprised of one or more video title sets (VTSes), which contain video information in the form of MPEG-2 video streams. Each disc can have up to 99 VTSes, and each title set can be subdivided further into as many as 99 chapters, allowing DVD players to jump to a certain point within the video stream. Within each VTS, a DVD can have up to eight different audio tracks and 32 subtitle tracks that the viewer can switch between at will. A menu system can be included within a title set, allowing the viewer to select between the different subtitle and audio tracks. An optional top-level menu, known as the video manager menu (VMGM), is used to navigate between the different title sets. One VTS may contain a feature film and another may contain a documentary on the film, and the VMGM allows viewers to select which one they want to watch.
The DVD format doesn't eliminate the differences between the two competing broadcasting formats, NTSC (primarily used in America) and PAL (the standard in Europe and Japan). I live in Britain, so the frame information and resolution details used in this article are for a PAL system, but I point out the differences you need to be aware of when they appear and offer appropriate settings for an NTSC disc.
The DVD specification includes advanced features, such as the concept of region coding, the possibility of viewing different angles of a video stream and simple computations using built-in registers provided by a DVD player. I don't know much about these features, and they aren't discussed in this article. The dvdauthor mailing list is a good source for further information.
Planning
Before we rush headlong into creating menus, subtitling and multiplexing, it's a good idea to sketch out the structure of the DVD with paper and pencil. Proprietary DVD tools offer GUI systems for creating this type of structure, but no such tools are available yet for DVD production on Linux. As you'll soon see, the command-line tools have a lot of different options, so having your ideas on paper is preferable to trying to keep everything in your head.
The DVD application I'm creating is a photo album, using pictures that I took while studying abroad at UNC-Chapel Hill this past year. For simplicity's sake, I have only six photos in each category. On paper, I decide that the main menu (the VMGM unit) should have five buttons, four of which are simple text buttons (one for each different photo category), plus a secret link unlocking extra pictures (secret extra features are a common occurrence in commercial DVDs) and a music track playing in the background. The four regular buttons link to one of four menus, one for each different section. The menu system for each section consists of two menus and an audio track, with selectable preview images of the slideshow, a button to move onto the next set of preview images and two buttons that allow the viewer to watch the complete slideshow or go back to the main menu. To keep things simple, the photo s
Re:sorry for more of the obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, there's lots of packages for the PC like iDVD that work very well. The Nero tools are very well done, but I think have the same limitations as iDVD - very simplistic and template driven for the average user, with a lot of limitations as to what you can do.
DVD Studio Pro looks very nice, but aside from it not running on his computer, it's $500... =)
Personally I'm interested in what people say in this thread as I recently got a DVD burner and ran into the same problem. Of the few packages I've looked at, they all work very well, and I can make a nifty DVD with an animated menu with a few mouse clicks and drag-n-drop, but I'd be interested in hearing about tools that provide a lot more power and flexibility, specifically as regards menu creation.
Re:sorry for more of the obvious (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Complete with ispell. ;-P
Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
It's just damn cool
Re:Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 (Score:4, Informative)
(http://rdlc.net/)
Re:Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Now you can put as many as you want, move them anyway, resize them. That was a big seller for me.
Also, you can now attach as many music files as you want to slides, add a bajillion different transitions, add special effects (like so the movie looks like it's playing in a camcorder view finder) or other cool things. you can add great text effect to it.. it really is leaps and bounds over verison 6. i also like the export to divx they now support..
Re:I'd suggest DVDShrink (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.techieplus.net/)
Damn. I should've phrased my question better- (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.gotsheep.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 13 2003, @11:49PM)
Frankly the best I've seen is for the Macintosh, which is unfortunate due to my high investment in PC hardware.
I currently make wedding 'dvds' from photographs using Studio 8.1 and, recently, have been experimenting making AVIs and converting them to MPGs. Just doesn't work well tho.
No, no, no, no (Score:5, Funny)
(Probably stolen from a bash.org quote. Free karma to person who posts the link)
Re:No, no, no, no (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
<dm> I discovered that you'd never get an answer to a problem from Linux Gurus by asking. You have to troll in order for someone to help you with a Linux problem.
<dm> For example, I didn't know how to find files by contents and the man pages were way too confusing. What did I do? I knew from experience that if I just asked, I'd be told to read the man pages even though it was too hard for me.
<dm> Instead, I did what works. Trolling. By stating that Linux sucked because it was so hard to find a file compared to Windows, I got every self-described Linux Guru around the world coming to my aid. They gave me examples after examples of different ways to do it. All this in order to prove to everyone that Linux was better.
* ion has quit IRC (Ping timeout)
<dm> brings a tear to my eye...
<dm> So if you're starting out Linux, I advise you to use the same method as I did to get help. Start the sentence with "Linux is gay because it can't do XXX like Windows can". You will have PhDs running to tell you how to solve your problems.
<dm> this person must be a kindred spirit of mine
"Prosumer" (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday November 28 2005, @12:21PM)
1992 called... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This thread required under the DMCA... (Score:5, Informative)
--UNLESS you want to scramble content so it can't be copied without using DeCSS.
I really don't see how the question even applies to home DVD authoring. I (and my friends) who do video production have been producing professionally authored DVDs for several years with no thought to DVD CCA at all.
And, while I'm here, in regards to software -- you're either going to have to pay >$400 for DVD authoring software on Windows, AND >$600 for true video editing software on Windows, as well, or go for a Mac.
It just doesn't exist yet in the FOSS world, or in the Linux world. While there are some capture and simple editing programs, there is nothing professional for either video editing or DVD authoring. The closest is Main Actor, put out by Main Concept, which is a pretty good editing program available for Linux or Windows. It's about $250.
Re:This thread required under the DMCA... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a huge difference. Look at your DVD of The Matrix and all the cool menu formats and extra features, like the ability to listen to the commentary. These are things that are needed for a good DVD authoring program.
K3B is a good program (I use it a lot), but to say that it helps for DVD authoring is like someone with a pencil saying he can print and publish a book.
Ask your mac friend (Score:4, Informative)
Try DVD-Lab (Score:5, Informative)
I use DVDLab to author dvd's myself, which you can find here [mediachance.com]. It works in most cases, but sometimes I use ifoedit [kewlhair.com] to do really advanced things. However, Ifoedit is not for the feint of heart.
I've been using dvdlab also (Score:4, Informative)
DVDLab is one of the few apps that let me easily burn 480x480 mpeg streams. They work fine in most DVD players I've tried.
That's actually one of the few reasons I ever boot to Windows. I haven't found any easy to use Linux software. I hear dvdauthor works but until it's integrated into K3B with a menu builder or something then I'm out of luck.
I see a lot of posts in here about iDVD. I might give it a shot since I have a Mac sitting here that I hardly ever use. Thank goodness for firewire DVD burners.
however.... (Score:4, Informative)
Cinemacraft Encoder Basic (http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/productview.asp
when it comes to absolute quality, eg converting out-of-print laserdiscs which will never be released on dvd, i use cinemacraft basic to encode the video.
disclaimer: i have purchased both tmpgenc and cce basic and used both extensively for years.
DVDRHELP and VCDHELP (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.techieplus.net/)
stop with the mac comments (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://bill.nowherecollective.net/index2.php | Last Journal: Monday March 15 2004, @12:37PM)
mark me as -1 troll, but I get tired of this sort of thing on slashdot. He did not ask about what operating system would be best for dvd authoring, he's just looking for some software that'll work with his current OS.
Re:stop with the mac comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you realize people are not telling him to change operating systems? They're saying the best solutions are iDVD and DVD Studio Pro, which just happen to run only on the Mac.
I know what you're saying, but they're not telling him to switch to Mac because it's a better operating system, they're telling him to switch because these applications are only available on Mac.
The mac comments come for a reason (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://jseliger.wordpress.com/)
I use Windows on a day-to-day basis, but I've met lots of people who swear by iMovie, FCE and FCP.
He didn't ask for OS advice, but if the poster wants to make great DVDs in as little time as possible, I've heard only positive things about one OS and a few programs.
dvdauthor (Score:5, Informative)
it's lowlevel but you can do virtually anything you want -- custom nav, animated menu, etc. it'll even let you do some things that are illegal according to the spec. It works on many Unices and there's even a Cygwin port.
disclaimer: I wrote it.
Re:dvdauthor (Score:4, Funny)
thank you
Re:dvdauthor (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://neilmcallister.com/)
May as well own up to what I'm doing: I suck a bunch of chapters off a commercial DVD, filtered through a DeCSS algorithm. Then I ran all the resulting VOB files through dvdauthor, to create a disc image with no menus.
The artifacts I mention are in the chapter stops. Sometimes there's a very brief pause as my player goes from chapter to chapter, and fast forward and rewind behave really crazy.
I'm not so much asking when you're going to fix that, though (in fact, I think it's already been fixed) -- I'm just wondering about the DVD format itself. How complicated is it?? How can things like this show up
I'm just really curious about this format and why there should be so many hurdles in creating DVDs with open source software (since after all, unlike CD audio, a data DVD uses the same filesystem as a movie DVD).
Go to my Web site and grab my email address if you're willing to talk about it in private.
dvdauthor (Score:5, Informative)
http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
http:/
http://www.pcxper
http://www.tappin.me
http://gecius.de/linux/dvd.htm
http://www.dahnielson.com/primer.txt
http://po
http://qdvdauthor.sour
http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/
Useful Programs *Not Necessarily for DVD Authoring (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.student.gsu.edu/~zliu2/centrinia.html | Last Journal: Saturday March 13 2004, @11:26AM)
Transcode [uni-goettingen.de](video encoding)
Gear Pro [gearsoftware.com](not free)
mkisofs [fokus.gmd.de] (for making images with the -dvd-video switch)
linuxvideostudio [debian.org] (gooey)
lsdvd [thirtythreeandathird.net] (for listing dvd contents
You're going to hate me... (Score:5, Informative)
First, most consumer oriented DVD authoring apps are absolute garbage and not worth your time if your looking to make something unique that is your own and you don't need templates written in stone to guide you.
On the PC side Ulead DVD Workshop was a decent app with some flexibility but it has its limitations. If you need something more powerful then DVD Workshop I would recommend Adobe Encore.
If you need something more advanced then Encore you are now entering the realm of Sonic Scenarist which is what is used by a lot of the pros for Hollywood movie DVDs. It comes with a very high pricetag depends on which version you opt for.
On the Mac side of things you've got iDVD 4 which is very nice for non-technical people. It has some nice features and flexiblity. If you need more then iDVD 4 skip ahead to DVD Studio Pro 2 which is IMHO one of the easiest to use fully featured DVD authoring apps I've had the pleasure to use. There are a very few things that DVDSP2 doesn't do that Sonic Scenarist does support and if you need them your usually in a postion to afford the cost of Scenarist.
Personally, if your going to be making money off DVD authoring I'd have a Mac around just for working in DVDSP2 and then use something like CinemaCraft SP on a very fast PC for MPEG-2 encoding (unless G5 encode speeds are fast enough for you, depends on your projects and turnaround time).
DVD authoring on Linux I have yet to try but this stuff is non-trivial to do even under Windows. DVDSP2 is great because it helps hide some of the underlying complexity, just enough so its not overwhelming but you do need to know a few things about the DVD spec. I suspect part of Linux's problem when it comes to DVD authoring packages is the mutli-application aspect of such a program. Remember an authoring package has to understand multiple media types for assest, be able to composite both 2D images and moving video as well as deal with sound, editing, compositing, not to mention DVD scripting and other things if it intends to allow you to do anything allowed withing the DVD-Video spec.
Keep in mind that some of these higher end authoring packages like Scenarist are so complicated that you have people whose whole job description can be summed up as "Sonic Scenarist Specialist" when it comes to DVD authoring.
Re:For linux software to be great... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.dasmegabyte.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:41PM)
"Guys, I want you to go steal all of Apple's ideas. That way, you don't have to come up with an interface or features by yourselves! Innovation is best left up to Apple, a company that pays for talented developers to engineer quality products. But fucked if I'm going to pay for it! I ain't no sucker. Now, make me free software, I command it!"
In Linux - not too difficult. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://eric.windisch.us/)
Finally, you can add buttons to the menu with dvdauthor. There aren't many frontends for dvdauthor, but it is easy to use manually or you can kludge together your use of a video editor and qdvdauthor.
try this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:try this (Score:4, Informative)
(http://rustyp.freeshell.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 29 2003, @09:22AM)
HOWEVER, the problem remains that transcode can only work with AVI files reliably, and even then it doesn't deal with any of the MPEG4 codecs, such as DIVX.
The other thing that I found out was that mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] people have decided to build an output system into mencoder (their file-reencoder) to do DVD-compatible mpegs as an output format.
This is a big thing, because it is also something that gives Linux an edge over Windows encoding solutions, and probably over all proprietary solutions, since mplayer can decode more than any other video player. So you could take old cartoons you downloaded from the net in wmv format, add a video in mjpeg format from your camera, and put them both on the same DVD.
Best of all, I think, is that it's about twice as fast, or more, than any other processing solution I know about.
I imagine that the reason that there is no good Linux solution for this at the moment is that video re-encoding isn't up to the standard such that making GUIs to do things for it is too complicated to be really useful. This may change that issue.
Ulead DVDWS (Score:3, Informative)
Some suggestions: (Score:3, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 04 2006, @09:14PM)
I've heard nothing but good things from my co-workers on DVD authoring on the Mac. I would consider buying one if I spent a lot of time doing DV video editing and such.
dvdauthor (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday December 07 2004, @09:19AM)
It certainly isn't point&click dvd creator, everything has to be written in xml files defining dvd structure. But it has support for buttons, multiple menus of all types (i.e. root, title, subpicture etc). It also allows to write programs running on DVD Player virtual machine.
dvdauthor also contains software to multiplex graphical and textual subtitles into mpeg2 stream (spumux) as well as software to extract subtitles from existing mpeg2 stream, such as VOB files (spuunmux).
You will need lots of other programs to create your dvd videos, like mplex from mjpegtools, some mpeg encoder (transcode or mencoder from mplayer), toolame and/or ffmpeg for creation of proper mpeg2 audio tracks, sox for occasional resampling of audio (dvd needs 48kHz sound whereas audio is often available in 44.1kHz).
If you think it looks cryptic, you are right: it is. But after a while one manages to handle this whole mess and with the help of several scripts make his own video dvds with separate audio tracks, chapters, multiple subtitles and much, much more.
Robert
Panasonic DMR-E80 (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a DVD-R in my PC as well, and I know I'm probably a total loser but I found that video editing on the computer was more of a PITA than it was worth. DV bridge, hundreds of dollars worth of software, and a shitload of time to do compression or transcoding. The PC drive mainly comes in handy for duping DVDs I made on the E80 (DVD Decrypter) or making backups of stuff I've bought (DVDShrink).
For $480 I got a DMR-E80 and spent the rest of my time doing something more productive. I know it's not the right answer for someone who HAS to do 'fancy' editing (TV or Movies), but for most anything else it's sooo much easier and reliable, and less money to boot.
Encore (Score:3, Interesting)
Short Guide Courtesy of shiznix (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.roguelazer.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 29 2005, @06:01PM)
I know you Slashdot users hate Gentoo, but this is actually an excellent guide that features animated menus and all!
Place to begin (Score:5, Informative)
(http://skunkworks.waix.net/)
Adobe Encore! (Score:3, Interesting)
Not freeware, but... (Score:3, Informative)
I also regularly use and like Adobe Premier Pro. But this is a high-dollar solution ($700), so its probably not one you're interested in.
Most of the time, I still will select Ulead Visual Studio over Premier anyway.
Again speaking as someone who has done DVD authoring commercially, I regret to say that I find the Linux applications for this to be woefully lacking. DVD authoring is the *one* thing that keeps me on a dual-boot machine as opposed to a Linux only box. I'd love to dump Windows entirely, especially after hearing that Bill Gates and Darl McBride are secret homosexual lovers, but I like being able to get my video work done in a timely and professional fashion.
Now that I've tried to answer the posted question, I'm going to chime in agreement with something a few others have posted. I've looked all over the original posting, and nowhere in it can I see the term "Mac" or any variation of it. When someone asks a PC question, "get a Mac" is not an appropriate answer. I'm sure the Mac users would get just as riled if someone posted a Mac question and only got PC answers. I would also go so far as to say that anything you can do in regards to DVD authoring with a Mac, I can do it just as well on a PC. The Mac used to be the hands-down winner in any type of multimedia application. Sorry kids, but those days are over.
"Build your own" in Linux--my steps in DVD making (Score:5, Informative)
(http://linuxathome.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 15 2005, @03:19PM)
Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment. There are lots of steps involved to do it in Linux, but it's quite powerful once you've gotten the basics down and have written shell scripts to automate the tasks.
If you find it difficult to install all these tools on your Linux box (as many do), may I recommend installing Debian linux? Best way to do this is to do a hard drive install from the Knoppix Live Linux CD [knopper.net]. The scripts to do this are built-in the cd: knx-hdinstall or knoppix-installer. Why do I recommend it? Installing all the tools I have listed above are a simple apt-get away -- i.e. "apt-get install kino" or "apt-get install mpgtx" or "apt-get install dvdauthor" -- I mean how much easier can it get?
Lastly, allow me to plug my blog that has documented this and a number of other linux tips ages ago: linuxathome.com [linuxathome.com]
My favorite menu creation method (Score:3, Informative)
dvdwizard [wershofen.de]
It's not GUI, but it does the trick with minimal effort, is mostly automatic, and has produced excellent results that fit my needs.
Once you have your
1. vmgm background image (static)
2. vtsm background image (static)
3. DVD title
4. path to
First, it creates a root vmgm menu with the DVD title specified above and the vmgm background image specified above. The two menu options provided are: "Play All" and "Chapter Select" menu.
The script then extracts a thumbnail from each chapter and creates a chapter selection menu using the screenshots in a button matrix.
It concatenates all your seperate chapters into one "movie" so you have the ability to play from beginning to end without returning to the "chapter selection" menu after each chapter finishes. It also drops in chapter markers for easy scene-to-scene navigation, just like a commercial DVD.
It uses dvdauthor to then create the DVD filesystem. It would be trivial to add an automatic burn at the end, but I like to preview everything with xine first.
Seemingly the only thing these scripts do not handle is animated menus.
Since the author lives in Germany, it is hardcoded for PAL format video, but I have converted them for my NTSC needs.
The scripts are GPL'd and my intention is to make the process as automatic as possible. I'd like to create a simple GUI for specifying the numbered items above and possibly add support for animated menus for my parents to use to archive all their old VHS tapes.
I use Cinelerra for video editing, dvgrab and Kino for capture from a Canopus ADVC-50 or my JVC GR-500 Mini-DV camera. I use dv2dv, transcode, mplex, (or tcmplex) and ffmpeg to transcode the Quicktime
As a side note, by first converting my Quicktime files to raw DV with dv2dv from the dv_utils package first, I can transcode with ffmpeg to DVD compliant MPEG-2 format at a blistering average of 15 fps!!
I've been very happy with this arrangement as most operations after the actual video editing is complete can be scripted.
Hope this helps!
mw
--Peace be with you.
DVD authoring (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday July 12 2004, @09:38PM)
1. for windows: Scenarist if you have $ is simply the poop. Most ordinary citizens don't have the $, though, and if that's the case:
2. for windows: Adobe Encore. It's fairly simple - more complex than iDVD, but somewhat easier than DVDSP2, and - it's WINDOWS ONLY. This does not bode well for Apple, as Adobe is carpet bombing all those "advertise on Daytime TV Art Schools" with the Adobe Video Solution, but that's a discussion for another day.
There are other apps, but they're not as good as the two abbove. The above will cost you $, Scenarist more than Encore (by a lot). Deal with it.
For Linux? Nemmind that stuff. None of it is as competent as Scenarist, and none of it is as easy to use as Encore. Sure: you save a few hundred dollars, but when you're sitting there QA testing your XML scripts and praying that the new DVD urner drivers work, your time will be worth MUCH more money than what you saved.
By a similar argument, the Apple Way of Working is great and cheap. For $50 you can get iLife with the latest rev of iDVD, which is more than most people need for some stupid DVD of their cousin's sister's daughter's wedding that was shot on some cheeezy Canon ZR10. 9 times out of 10, you can get away with iMovie and iDVD and *no one* will notice or care. Now, you'll need to get an Apple computer, but most anything built in the past year or two will do fine, and you can pick 'em up at somewhat less than extortionate prices these days...
I've been doing DVD authoring for years, and back around 2002 I figured that I wasn't going to beat my head against the wall anymore - it was faster, cheaper, and easier to get a mac and get it done than try and get my Windoze machine to jump the hoops at a reasonable price.
Oddly, and contrary to what some people have posted, this really is a situation where the OS matters.
So, in short:
Windows:
1. Scenarist if you can afford it. It does everything, but it's really complicated.
2. Encore if you can't or won't do Scenarist.
Windows isn't the optimal solution for this, so consider a Macintosh.
1. iLife w/ iDVD is supercheap and very very good.
2. If you need to do more advanced work, DVD Studio Pro does the job.
Linux:
Simply: it's not ready for prime time, and given the complexity of the problem it may never be. Yes, there are solutions out there, but you'll burn a lot of creative time dorking around with code when you could be getting work done. I would LOVE IT if there was an adequate solution out there, though - free or cheap software on a free OS on a cheap computer? Floats my boat. But I'm not holding my breath.
RS
A few words to the wise (Score:4, Informative)
Authoring video DVDs on linux is more than a little difficult, these days. That said, with a little command line knowledge and some good old-fashioned ingenuity, you can accomplish much.
I found this article [linuxgazette.com] to be a good starting point. The beginning of the article assumes that you'll be working with a framegrabber and generating MJPEG video with appropriate resolution/framerate, etc. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so you'll actually need to transcode your videos into the MJPEG format before you do the MPEG2 encoding. I find that mencoder is usually the best way to accomplish this:
Note that the above command assumes you are making a DVD for NTSC (US/Canada/Japan) format. If you use PAL, you'll want 720:576 as your resolution and 25 fps as your framerate instead. If you're encoding from a film (24 fps) source, try applying the telecine filter, as well (add ",telecine" after the scale command, and set "-ofps 29.97). This method of framerate conversion is the standard for cinematic DVDs.Now, I know you're asking, why not use mencoder to encode the MPEG2 stream directly and skip the middleman? Well, I've tried this, and it isn't possible for a couple of reasons. The first is bandwidth control. Although mencoder will accept a bitrate option for MPEG2 encoding, it is not conscious of the buffering assumptions of the DVD standard, and will produce streams that will encounter buffer underruns in hardware DVD players. The second problem is that an MPEG2 program stream for a DVD must contain empty navigation packets (these get filled in when you create the actual vobs), which mencoder won't create. C'est la vie.
It's worth noting that you can get at more advanced bitrate control options for libavcodec's MPEG2 encoder by using lavc's native transcoding application, ffmpeg. At least, theoretically you can. My version of ffmpeg 0.4.7 doesn't seem to include mpeg2 as a possible output format, even though it's accessible through mencoder. Go figure.
OK, let's move on to our friend mpeg2enc. The first thing you'll notice is that it's slow. Really slow. Especially compared to mencoder. You'll live, though. Take a nap or something. The instructions in the article will give you a stream that's perfectly fine for DVD encoding, but it's definitely worth looking at the manpage as well. One of the most important things you'll learn there is that mpeg2enc takes arguments for both aspect ratio and framerate of incoming movies. Add the option "-a n" to the command given in the article, substituting 2 for n if your video is in the 4:3 aspect ratio (regular TV), 3 if it is 16:9 (letterbox widescreen format, most movies), or 4 for 2.21:1 (cinemascope widescreen, movies shot in panoramic view). The "-F n" command specifies the framerate. IF you are using PAL or SECAM, always use 3. If you are using NTSC, always use 4. Anything else will make you cry. Finally, you can add the "-p" option if you have 24 fps input video that you intend for NTSC viewing, and you didn't already have mencoder apply telecine. I actually prefer to have mpeg2enc do telecine, as that way you are certain to avoid A/V sync problems.
Moving right along, the article tells you how to use the dvd authoring tools to eventually get an iso file ready to burn. It should be noted that the image you have ready won't have menus or other niceties. For sooth! Lucky for you, you actually can include these things, but it won't exactly be easy. Now that you know the basics of encoding for the DVD format, this guide [tappin.me.uk] can instruct you on how to add things like menus and whatnot. Anyway, once you get the iso file ready to go, I highly recommend you burn it with KDE's excellent K3B [sourceforge.net], unless you have an attachment to the command line too
Mandrake 10 DVD writing. (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.rebatefx.com/)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
But if the question is "I want to do better authoring under Linux, or Windows if I have to" then "get a Mac" is a piss poor answer to the question, and only serves annoy the person asking the question. As such, it probably DESERVES to be modded down, especially when its the 4th or 5th such answer given.
Re:There's no OSS to do [activity of interest] (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dasmegabyte.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:41PM)
Personally, I think the OSS community could do a great job on DVD authoring (having been personally impressed with Blender). But first? They'd need to have money to pay all them developers. DVD Authoring is not some piddlyshit task. It will require a devoted team to create a cohesive interface that will attract DVD creators from all walks of life. And to acheive this, might I suggest *gasp* paying the team? Set up a foundation. Take pledges and donations. Give money to the guys who make the software.
Somebody's got to be willing to do business. Otherwise, OSS really is nothing more than "free toys." Come on, guys, the ACLU does alright for itself...why not create an FSF that actually does something MORE than advocacy?
Obligatory RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 22 2004, @03:51AM)