Hi,

Has anyone been able to author DVD's in Linux? I've been trying to
do it for quite some time and am on the verge of giving up!

I have an MPEG2 video I'd like to burn onto a DVD and have this video
divided up into "chapters" and perhaps even a menu, but the menu isn't
as important.

I have bee able to successfully make a DVD with KLVEmkdvd. However, it
is one huge track. i.e. I can't jump to different sections of the video
without having to scan through it from the beginning.

I tried qdvdauther, which uses dvdauthor, but it fails. The last thing
qdvdauthor does is execute the following:

/usr/bin/dvdauthor -x "/home/george/tmp/GCFirstDVD/dvdauthor.xml"

After that, I see the following:

DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

INFO: Locale=en_US
INFO: Converting filenames to ISO-8859-1
INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
STAT: Picking VTS 01

STAT: Processing /home/george/CC605_apple_ii_forever.mpg...
WARN: System header found, but PCI/DSI information is not where expected
(make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
..
..
..


The warning "WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU..." is then
repeated for a long time until. eventually, a segmentation fault occurs.
It looks as though there is something wrong with some header information
in the mpeg video. What is the 18 bytes of header information supposed
to be (as mentioned in the warning)? Why doesn't KLVEmkdvd, or any other
media players I use complain about this header information in the video?

Here is information about the software I'm using:
Linux version: Mandrake Linux 10.1 (Official)
dvdauthor: version 0.6.10
qdvdauthor: version 0.0.8-1


Any help would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks!
George

George <whippet0@rogers.com> wrote in news:g46dncy8jbVzaFTcRVn-
qQ@rogers.com:

> Hi,
>
> Has anyone been able to author DVD's in Linux? I've been trying
to
> do it for quite some time and am on the verge of giving up!
>
> I have an MPEG2 video I'd like to burn onto a DVD and have this video
> divided up into "chapters" and perhaps even a menu, but the menu isn't
> as important.
>
> I have bee able to successfully make a DVD with KLVEmkdvd. However, it
> is one huge track. i.e. I can't jump to different sections of the
video
> without having to scan through it from the beginning.
>
> I tried qdvdauther, which uses dvdauthor, but it fails. The last thing
> qdvdauthor does is execute the following:
>
> /usr/bin/dvdauthor -x "/home/george/tmp/GCFirstDVD/dvdauthor.xml"
>
> After that, I see the following:
>
> DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
> Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
> Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
>
> INFO: Locale=en_US
> INFO: Converting filenames to ISO-8859-1
> INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
> STAT: Picking VTS 01
>
> STAT: Processing /home/george/CC605_apple_ii_forever.mpg...
> WARN: System header found, but PCI/DSI information is not where
expected
> (make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
> WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
> WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
> WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
> WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...


this tells me that your mpg file isn't in VOB format (required when
making a standards conforming DVD). use ffmpeg or mplex to transcode
the mpg file into DVD/VOB format before attempting to use dvdauthor.


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Groovy hepcat George was jivin' on Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:36:53 -0500 in
comp.os.linux.setup.
Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!

> Has anyone been able to author DVD's in Linux? I've been trying to
>do it for quite some time and am on the verge of giving up!

I've been doing it successfully without too many problems.

>I have an MPEG2 video I'd like to burn onto a DVD and have this video
>divided up into "chapters" and perhaps even a menu, but the menu isn't
>as important.
>
>I have bee able to successfully make a DVD with KLVEmkdvd. However, it
>is one huge track. i.e. I can't jump to different sections of the video
>without having to scan through it from the beginning.
>
>I tried qdvdauther, which uses dvdauthor, but it fails. The last thing
>qdvdauthor does is execute the following:
>
>/usr/bin/dvdauthor -x "/home/george/tmp/GCFirstDVD/dvdauthor.xml"
>
>After that, I see the following:
>
>DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
>Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
>Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
>
>INFO: Locale=en_US
>INFO: Converting filenames to ISO-8859-1
>INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
>STAT: Picking VTS 01
>
>STAT: Processing /home/george/CC605_apple_ii_forever.mpg...
>WARN: System header found, but PCI/DSI information is not where expected
> (make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...

Looks like your MPEG file is not DVD compliant or is corrupt or
something. How are you encoding it? Are you using transcode for this?
What is the exact command line you're using?

>The warning "WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU..." is then
>repeated for a long time until. eventually, a segmentation fault occurs.
>It looks as though there is something wrong with some header information
>in the mpeg video. What is the 18 bytes of header information supposed
>to be (as mentioned in the warning)? Why doesn't KLVEmkdvd, or any other
>media players I use complain about this header information in the video?

Perhaps KLVEmkdvd reencodes the video or something. Or perhaps it
simply is more relaxed about DVD compliance or is more forgiving about
corrupt video files. I haven't used it, so I don't know.

>Here is information about the software I'm using:
>Linux version: Mandrake Linux 10.1 (Official)
>dvdauthor: version 0.6.10
>qdvdauthor: version 0.0.8-1

You need to tell us what you're using to encode the video. That's
where the problem lies, not in dvdauthor.

--

Dig the even newer still, yet more improved, sig!

http://alphalink.com.au/~phaywood/
"Ain't I'm a dog?" - Ronny Self, Ain't I'm a Dog, written by G. Sherry & W. Walker.
I know it's not "technically correct" English; but since when was rock & roll "technically correct"?

Hi all,

It looks like the video I was trying to write to a DVD did not have
some information in it required by dvdauthor. I looked at the man page
for "mpeg2enc" and the "-f" option states the following:

-f|--format 8
- DVD MPEG-2 for 'dvdauthor'
This version adds special dummy navigation packets into the output
stream that the dvdauthor tool fills in to make a proper .VOB for
authoring. Bit-rate defaults to 7500kbps, buffer sizes to the maximum
permitted by the DVD specification.

This is what was missing in my mpeg file.

I used the "tovid" tool to properly convert my mpeg and it worked! I was
able to successfully get qdvdauthor to make a dvd for me. (mind you,
there were some other big bugs in the qdvdauthor tool that I figured out
how to avoid. )

However, there was a big drop in quality from the original MPEG video
using "tovid". It reads the mpeg and modifies it. I'm sure I could
optimize all of the settings for mpeg2enc but there are so many and I
know very little about mpeg files.

What I'd like to know is what the "special dummy navigation packets" in
the mpeg file are? If I knew this, I could add them myself without
having to re-process the mpeg file again (and decrease the video quality).



Thanks!
George

P.S. Thank you noi, Wiseguy, and Peter for your help! I really
appreciate it!



Peter Shaggy Haywood wrote:
> Groovy hepcat George was jivin' on Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:36:53 -0500 in
> comp.os.linux.setup.
> Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!
>
>
>> Has anyone been able to author DVD's in Linux? I've been trying to
>>do it for quite some time and am on the verge of giving up!
>
>
> I've been doing it successfully without too many problems.
>
>
>>I have an MPEG2 video I'd like to burn onto a DVD and have this video
>>divided up into "chapters" and perhaps even a menu, but the menu isn't
>>as important.
>>
>>I have bee able to successfully make a DVD with KLVEmkdvd. However, it
>>is one huge track. i.e. I can't jump to different sections of the video
>>without having to scan through it from the beginning.
>>
>>I tried qdvdauther, which uses dvdauthor, but it fails. The last thing
>>qdvdauthor does is execute the following:
>>
>>/usr/bin/dvdauthor -x "/home/george/tmp/GCFirstDVD/dvdauthor.xml"
>>
>>After that, I see the following:
>>
>>DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
>>Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
>>Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
>>
>>INFO: Locale=en_US
>>INFO: Converting filenames to ISO-8859-1
>>INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
>>STAT: Picking VTS 01
>>
>>STAT: Processing /home/george/CC605_apple_ii_forever.mpg...
>>WARN: System header found, but PCI/DSI information is not where expected
>> (make sure your system header is 18 bytes!)
>>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>>WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU...
>
>
> Looks like your MPEG file is not DVD compliant or is corrupt or
> something. How are you encoding it? Are you using transcode for this?
> What is the exact command line you're using?
>
>
>>The warning "WARN: Skipping sector, waiting for first VOBU..." is then
>>repeated for a long time until. eventually, a segmentation fault occurs.
>>It looks as though there is something wrong with some header information
>>in the mpeg video. What is the 18 bytes of header information supposed
>>to be (as mentioned in the warning)? Why doesn't KLVEmkdvd, or any other
>>media players I use complain about this header information in the video?
>
>
> Perhaps KLVEmkdvd reencodes the video or something. Or perhaps it
> simply is more relaxed about DVD compliance or is more forgiving about
> corrupt video files. I haven't used it, so I don't know.
>
>
>>Here is information about the software I'm using:
>>Linux version: Mandrake Linux 10.1 (Official)
>>dvdauthor: version 0.6.10
>>qdvdauthor: version 0.0.8-1
>
>
> You need to tell us what you're using to encode the video. That's
> where the problem lies, not in dvdauthor.
>

Groovy hepcat George was jivin' on Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:58:39 -0500 in
comp.os.linux.setup.
Re: Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!

>Hi all,

Howdy! And sorry for taking so long to get back to you!

> It looks like the video I was trying to write to a DVD did not have
>some information in it required by dvdauthor. I looked at the man page
>for "mpeg2enc" and the "-f" option states the following:
>
>-f|--format 8
>- DVD MPEG-2 for 'dvdauthor'
>This version adds special dummy navigation packets into the output
>stream that the dvdauthor tool fills in to make a proper .VOB for
>authoring. Bit-rate defaults to 7500kbps, buffer sizes to the maximum
>permitted by the DVD specification.
>
>This is what was missing in my mpeg file.
>
>I used the "tovid" tool to properly convert my mpeg and it worked! I was
>able to successfully get qdvdauthor to make a dvd for me. (mind you,
>there were some other big bugs in the qdvdauthor tool that I figured out
>how to avoid. )
>
>However, there was a big drop in quality from the original MPEG video
>using "tovid". It reads the mpeg and modifies it. I'm sure I could
>optimize all of the settings for mpeg2enc but there are so many and I
>know very little about mpeg files.

I've not used tovid, so i can't help you with it. But maybe there's
a way of specifying the bit rate. I use transcode, and although it
uses mpeg2enc to do the actual conversion, it has a different default
bit rate to that specified above. I have to specify the bit rate
explicitly to get any decent quality. Maybe you need to do the same
with tovid.

>What I'd like to know is what the "special dummy navigation packets" in
>the mpeg file are? If I knew this, I could add them myself without
>having to re-process the mpeg file again (and decrease the video quality).

I can't help you with that, i'm afraid.

>P.S. Thank you noi, Wiseguy, and Peter for your help! I really
>appreciate it!

No problem.

--

Dig the even newer still, yet more improved, sig!

http://alphalink.com.au/~phaywood/
"Ain't I'm a dog?" - Ronny Self, Ain't I'm a Dog, written by G. Sherry & W. Walker.
I know it's not "technically correct" English; but since when was rock & roll "technically correct"?

Peter Shaggy Haywood wrote:
> Groovy hepcat George was jivin' on Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:58:39 -0500 in
> comp.os.linux.setup.
> Re: Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!
>
>
>>Hi all,
>
>
> Howdy! And sorry for taking so long to get back to you!
>
>
>> It looks like the video I was trying to write to a DVD did not have
>>some information in it required by dvdauthor. I looked at the man page
>>for "mpeg2enc" and the "-f" option states the following:
>>
>>-f|--format 8
>>- DVD MPEG-2 for 'dvdauthor'
>>This version adds special dummy navigation packets into the output
>>stream that the dvdauthor tool fills in to make a proper .VOB for
>>authoring. Bit-rate defaults to 7500kbps, buffer sizes to the maximum
>>permitted by the DVD specification.
>>
>>This is what was missing in my mpeg file.
>>
>>I used the "tovid" tool to properly convert my mpeg and it worked! I was
>>able to successfully get qdvdauthor to make a dvd for me. (mind you,
>>there were some other big bugs in the qdvdauthor tool that I figured out
>>how to avoid. )
>>
>>However, there was a big drop in quality from the original MPEG video
>>using "tovid". It reads the mpeg and modifies it. I'm sure I could
>>optimize all of the settings for mpeg2enc but there are so many and I
>>know very little about mpeg files.
>
>
> I've not used tovid, so i can't help you with it. But maybe there's
> a way of specifying the bit rate. I use transcode, and although it
> uses mpeg2enc to do the actual conversion, it has a different default
> bit rate to that specified above. I have to specify the bit rate
> explicitly to get any decent quality. Maybe you need to do the same
> with tovid.

I was asked to create a DVD with some various clips people has assembled
on a particular topic. Unfortunately some are recorded, some are pulled
from the net, and they are in various .avi, .wmv, .rm, .mpg etc formats,
and some were taken with clip recordings on still cameras and are
downsize 320x200 or something larger but not 640x480.

The desired result is a DVD with an intro (to be recorded with whatever
a Sony DV camera generates) and then a menu of clips to view. The small
format clips really should be upsized to some standard size for NTSC
viewing, since they are clips of solving problems in the field. I have
tools to resize still images without serious artifact, I assume there
are similar video programs and/or methods.

Can someone point me to the the tools needed and a description of the
steps to create such a menu and DVD? Preferably somewhere between a set
of steps to follow blindly and hope (although I would try that) and a
discussion of the meaning of individual bits in headers, which is only
useful if you want to write your own application from scratch.

If this is simply more than can be reasonably done with Linux, tell me
now before I say I can do it ;-)

--
-bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
last possible moment - but no longer" -me

Groovy hepcat Bill Davidsen was jivin' on Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:01:26
GMT in comp.os.linux.setup.
Re: Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!

>I was asked to create a DVD with some various clips people has assembled
>on a particular topic. Unfortunately some are recorded, some are pulled
>from the net, and they are in various .avi, .wmv, .rm, .mpg etc formats,
>and some were taken with clip recordings on still cameras and are
>downsize 320x200 or something larger but not 640x480.

You can use transcode (with other tools) to resize and convert video
to the required format. For stills, you can use gimp to do the same. I
find the following transcode command line very useful for creating DVD
compliant MPEG (in PAL format - for NTSC make necessary adjustments):

transcode -V -x mplayer, raw --export_prof dvd_pal --export_par 2 -F
"8,-H -92" -w 6000 -y mpeg2enc,mp2enc -E 48000 -i your_input_video.avi
-o your_output_prefix

You can adjust the quality & size by changing the video bit rate (-w
option).

>The desired result is a DVD with an intro (to be recorded with whatever
>a Sony DV camera generates) and then a menu of clips to view. The small
>format clips really should be upsized to some standard size for NTSC
>viewing, since they are clips of solving problems in the field. I have
>tools to resize still images without serious artifact, I assume there
>are similar video programs and/or methods.

Like I said, transcode can do that. So can mencoder. No doubt there
are others.

>Can someone point me to the the tools needed and a description of the
>steps to create such a menu and DVD? Preferably somewhere between a set
>of steps to follow blindly and hope (although I would try that) and a
>discussion of the meaning of individual bits in headers, which is only
>useful if you want to write your own application from scratch.
>
>If this is simply more than can be reasonably done with Linux, tell me
>now before I say I can do it ;-)

It's easily done, though can be a little involved and sometimes
painstaking. Go to the following URL for a very good guide and
discussion of the topic:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709

--

Dig the even newer still, yet more improved, sig!

http://alphalink.com.au/~phaywood/
"Ain't I'm a dog?" - Ronny Self, Ain't I'm a Dog, written by G. Sherry & W. Walker.
I know it's not "technically correct" English; but since when was rock & roll "technically correct"?

George (and others),

About a week ago I started to look into mastering video
DVDs using Linux. I have some thoughts to contribute which
are different than those which are already widely disseminated.
Also, I will repeat some well-understood and widely-made
statements which are (IMHO) worth repeating. This article is
somewhat verbose - I hope you will find my observations
useful and (to some extent) original.

Much of the audio-visual stuff floating around the net
is encoded and encapsulated in modern space-efficient formats
which are a little more attractive (for that purpose) than the
slightly dated MPEG2 format which is used in DVDs.

The basic steps required are as follows:

1) demultiplex the source into audio and video streams

2) decode those source streams into raw formats

3) encode those raw data using DVD-supported mechanisms

4) remultiplex

5) master the DVD filesystem

6) burn to DVD

As for demultiplexing and decoding the source, these steps can
be tricky as they require knowledge and tools specific to the
source format.

We follow the basic UNIX idiom of generating a "filter chain"
from one format to another. One suprisingly simple way to accomplish
these tasks is to simply use mplayer!

mplayer -ao pcm -noframedrop -vo yuv4mpeg [source_file]

mplayer can handle virtually any audio or video format that
you can throw at it. Note that all we are asking mplayer to
do is decode the source. It will give us a WAV file for the audio
and a YUV file for the video. This is great because unlike some tools,
mplayer is always able to infer necessary information w.r.t. the
source.

As for step three, encoding into supported formats, this is also
easy.
First, let's look at the video. Here is a command line that I am using
currently (for my specific situation):

cat stream.yuv | yuvfps -r 30000:1001 | yuvscaler -M WIDE2STD -O DVD \
| mpeg2enc -n n -f 8 -F 4 -o video_out.m2v
# all are
mjpegtools

In this pipeline, we alter the stream's frame rate and resolution.
Then, we use mpeg2enc to encode our video using MPEG2.

I strongly recommend these mjpegtools. They simply work better
than
the other tools.

Next the audio. I recommend using AC3 (aka Dolby Digital) encoding
for DVDs. The tool to get is ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -ab 224 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -i audiodump.wav audio_out.ac3

Another option is MP2 audio. Use a tool called toolame to
encode it.

Remultiplexing the video is simple.

mplex -f 8 -o output.mpg input.m2v input.ac3

Mastering the DVD filesystem is easy - just use dvdauthor.
I will not discuss dvdauthor since it is the single ubiquitous
tool for the job and is well-described elsewhere.

Should you desire a dvdauthor GUI, I strongly recommend qdvdauthor.
It only supports the automatic generation of simple menus, and it may
fail by attempting to call underlying tools with incorrect syntax or
without regard to shell pre-processing of the command line.

The qdvdauthor GUI is excellent because (like all good GUIs) it
shows you exactly what commands it intends to execute, the order it
intends to execute them, and what purpose they have. You can even
modify those calls prior to their invocation and choose which to
actually
execute.

It can take some time to get DVD menuing correct. The tool to
use is spumux. Let's say you want a moving video main menu which
allows
for the selection of one of two main feature films on a DVD.

Here is some spumux XML that I am using for a particular
application.

<subpictures>
<stream>
<spu start="00:00:36.0" end="00:00:00.0"
highlight="highlight.png"
select="highlight.png"
force="yes">
<button y0="90" y1="230" x0="110" name="1" x1="460" />
<button y0="250" y1="390" x0="110" name="2" x1="460" />
</spu>
</stream>
</subpictures>

Although I don't intend to treat dvdauthor usage, it is appropriate
for me to include an example XML file as there are some elements
related to menuing:

<dvdauthor dest="/opt/generic_tv_show/first_two_episodes" jumppad="yes"
>
<vmgm>
<menus>
<video format="ntsc" resolution="720x480" />
<pgc entry="title" >
<vob file="/home/decourl/menu-muxed.mpg" pause="inf" />
<button name="1" >jump title 1 chapter 1; </button>
<button name="2" >jump title 2 chapter 1; </button>
</pgc>
</menus>
</vmgm>
<titleset>
<menus/>
<titles>
<pgc>
<vob file="/home/decourl/title1.mpg" />
<post> call vmgm menu 1; </post>
</pgc>
<pgc>
<vob file="/home/decourl/title2.mpg" />
<post> call vmgm menu 1; </post>
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>

So, this is the anatomy of our menu. The actual image of
the buttons is in the background video! Do not be fooled by
the "image", "highlight", or "select" images discussed by spumux
as these are simply mask images.

So, in generating the menu.mpg discussed above - put
pictures of buttons - ie: "Episode 1" and "Episode 2" - in
the movie. Cause the locations of these buttons to correspond
the the coordinates (top-left and bottom-right) described in the
spumux XML.

Okay, so about the mask images. These are slightly tricky
so here is a simple example. You really only need one image -
the "highlight" image.

Open gimp. File -> New. Enter same dimensions for "Image Size"
as the target DVD resolution (in my case 720x480 however YMMV).
Leave "Image Type" as "RGB" and set "Fill Type" to "Transparent".

Now, choose a color and flood fill the entire canvas. Then, use the
rectangle select tool to select the region that corresponds to the
location of (the pictures of) your buttons in the background video.

Then go to Select->Border, choose say 5 pixels, and Edit->Cut that
selection. Repeat for the other button location. The bit about
Select->Border causes you to select only the edges of the rectangle
and not its interior. Cutting that selection removes the color from
that region and thus that portion of the image is returned to
transparency.

Hence the entire image is filled in except for a "frame". Now, go to
Image->Mode->Indexed->Generate Optimum Palette->OK and finally
File->Save highlight.png.

The tricky thing conceptually is this: where the mask image is
transparent, the resulting DVD menu display will not be allowed
through the mask. You will instead see a "(likely) black box".
Where the mask image is filled in, the resulting DVD menu display
will shine through unadultered. Of course, this may seem counter-
intuitive but it is in fact how masks generally work.

Okay, a few ideas about how to generate a menu background video.

What we need is a single jpeg image for each frame of the moving video.

jpeg2yuv -I p -f 29.97 -j /home/decourl/menu_images/frame%0004d \
| mpeg2enc -n n -f 8 -o menu.m2v

The trick is setting up all the different jpegs. Let's say that you
have ten pictures that you want to display in the movie menu for
varying amounts of time (ie: a picture of co-star A, a picture of
co-star B, and then a picture of co-stars A and B together, etc.).

I would simply put these jpegs in /home/decourl/menu_images/01.jpeg,
02.jpeg, ..., 10.jpeg. Then create a file called flist (for frame
list) that describes the order and duration of the frames which is
intended.

Ie:
01.jpeg
01.jpeg
01.jpeg (n times)
..
..
..
02.jpeg
02.jpeg (m times)
..
..
..
etc.

Then use a (Bourne-family) script like this:

export CURR=0000
cat flist | while read file
do
ln -s $file frame$CURR
export CURR=`echo $CURR + 1 | bc | sed 's/^\(.\)$/0\1/' \
| sed 's/^\(..\)$/0\1/' \
| sed 's/^\(...\)$/0\1/'`
done

This way you only need a single (actual) copy of each image -
but the links exist so that jpeg2yuv will treat each image as
some number (ie: n or m) different consecutive frames.

Also, you will want an easy way to put the images of the buttons
in the menu video. I will use snapshots from the episode as well
as text for my example.

cat menulist | while read file
do
composite -geometry +120+113 episode_1snap.jpeg ${file}.orig
temp1.jpg
composite -geometry +120+273 episode_2snap.jpeg temp1.jpg temp2.jpg

convert -font helvetica -fill white -pointsize 32 \
-draw 'text 320,140 "Episode 1"' temp2.jpg temp1.jpg
convert -font helvetica -fill white -pointsize 30 \
-draw 'text 320,210 "In-laws visit unexpectedly"' temp1.jpg
temp2.jpg

convert -font helvetica -fill white -pointsize 32 \
-draw 'text 320,300 "Episode Two"' temp2.jpg temp1.jpg
convert -font helvetica -fill white -pointsize 30 \
-draw 'text 320,370 "Heavy boozing at office party"'
temp1.jpg $file
done

Note that for this to work you will create ??.jpeg.orig files so that
the
original images are unmodified and can be reused for other episodes.

Don't forget to execute spumux (see example XML above):

spumux menu.xml < menu.mpg > menu-muxed.mpg # (do this after
mplex but before dvdauthor).

Finally, after dvdauthor, preview your work:
xine dvd:/opt/generic_tv_show/first_two_episodes/

To burn the dvd, I personally recommend (as opposed to
mkisofs and cdrecord):
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video
/opt/generic_tv_show/first_two_episodes/

Anyhow, in recap, my main points are this:

1) it is best to fully decode A/V streams before making
the resolution and frame-rate modifications. Some information
is already lost because your source is encoded and some more
must be lost because you need to recode in a different format.

2) mjpegtools are the best tools for performing the adjustments.
In the case of video they are also the best tools for recoding the
stream. The proper "raw" video format (even for NTSC) is the YUV
format because it is treated natively by mjpegtools.

3) Since mplayer can infer everything necessary to play almost any
A/V input, and since it can be caused to dump decoded output, it is
a simple task to burn any format to DVD that mplayer can handle.
Using named pipes, it can be this simple:


infile
|
|
\ /
mplayer ---> video (YUV) -> yuvfps -> yuvscaler -> mpeg2enc -> (m2v)
| |
|-> audio (WAV) -> ffmpeg -> (ac3) -----------> mplex <-------|
|
|-> mpg


That resulting mpg is ready to be used as a title by dvdauthor!
This can be simply scripted and will definitely work no matter what
input you have. And, it is a high-quality solution.

Hope this helps!

Lincoln


George wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Has anyone been able to author DVD's in Linux? I've been trying
to
> do it for quite some time and am on the verge of giving up!
>
[...]
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
> George

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 03:47:47 -0800, decourl thoughtfully wrote:

> George (and others),
>
> About a week ago I started to look into mastering video DVDs using Linux.
> I have some thoughts to contribute which are different than those which
> are already widely disseminated. Also, I will repeat some well-understood
> and widely-made statements which are (IMHO) worth repeating. This article
> is somewhat verbose - I hope you will find my observations useful and (to
> some extent) original.
>
> Much of the audio-visual stuff floating around the net is encoded and
> encapsulated in modern space-efficient formats which are a little more
> attractive (for that purpose) than the slightly dated MPEG2 format which
> is used in DVDs.
>
> The basic steps required are as follows:
>
> 1) demultiplex the source into audio and video streams
>
> 2) decode those source streams into raw formats
>
> 3) encode those raw data using DVD-supported mechanisms
>
> 4) remultiplex
>
> 5) master the DVD filesystem
>
> 6) burn to DVD
>

> Hope this helps!
>

I think it does. Thanks very much for the step by step.

Groovy hepcat Peter "Shaggy" Haywood was jivin' on Tue, 11 Jan 2005
00:32:58 GMT in comp.os.linux.setup.
Re: Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!

>Groovy hepcat Bill Davidsen was jivin' on Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:01:26
>GMT in comp.os.linux.setup.
>Re: Problems with dvdauthor - please help.'s a cool scene! Dig it!
>
>I
>find the following transcode command line very useful for creating DVD
>compliant MPEG (in PAL format - for NTSC make necessary adjustments):
>
>transcode -V -x mplayer, raw --export_prof dvd_pal --export_par 2 -F
>"8,-H -92" -w 6000 -y mpeg2enc,mp2enc -E 48000 -i your_input_video.avi
>-o your_output_prefix

Oh, I forgot to mention that this will create two output streams,
one video and one audio, with filenames your_output_prefix.m2v and
your_output_prefix.mpa respectively. You then use mplex to multiplex
them into a single MPEG file. See transcode and mplex man pages for
more information.

--

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