Slashdot Mirror
DVD Authoring In Linux
leming writes "This article in Linux Journal explains low-cost DVD authoring available in Linux. 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."
Finally, an article that outlines, with examples, how to create a dvd under linux. not very in depth, but enough to get you going. sure, there are alot of tools out there for making/burning dvd's under linux. i've been searching the net for months trying to find info on how to create dvd's. in the process i've found many different projects mature enough to use. yet none seemed to provide enough information to actually produce a working dvd. the few that did explain how the program worked failed to provide examples.
maybe i was looking in the wrong places or for the wrong thing. but to find nothing helpful enough is odd, to say the least. i for one feel this area has been overlooked as far docs, howto's, guides, and tutorials go. i'm no newbie, but i no longer have the time or the money to fool around with it till i get it right.
of course, if anyone has links to other articles, faq's, tutorial's, howto's, etc.. please let me know!
I agree with you. I know I will be using dvdauthor for testing and "playing around" with different features. On the other hand, even with my demo DVDs, I find there are times I use mroe "esoteric" features of DVD authoring.
On a similar track (and this gets back to my original post, the one I'm replying to, and my point above), I first installed Linux using Suse 6.4. It took me a day or two to get it up and running, including my Internet connection. I would not, at that point, have recommended it to anyone who was a newbie (like I was). I think that was about 4 years ago. I just installed Mandrake 9.2 on a new system and was amazed -- other than needing to use network files for authentication, it was easier installing Mandrake than the last verison of Windows I installed.
I am really amazed at how far UIs have progressed in Linux in the past four years (even the past 2 years). OSS is catching up with commercial software in many ways. I'd say it's about 95% there -- and it'll take a few years to reach that last 5%, which includes things like being able to use drag and drop as easily as it works on a certain other OS that tends to crash and including easy to use programs for multimedia work (like video editing and DVD authoring).
I will likely have to buy a Mac G5 to do my video work. I'm sure OSS will eventually provide what I need, and when it does, I'll switch, but for now, I have to go with something I can use so I can focus on my work, not on how to use my tools.
That may work for you, but that doesn't mean it works for others. If what you were saying were true, than why did GUIs catch on? If the text/console interface WERE so much more intuitive and easy for most people to use, when GUIs first came out, they would have been a novelty and few people would have used them.
/., about why users and developers don't like each other and it pointed out that studies had shown that users did not like programmers creating interfaces and telling them what they (the user) needed. I know programmers tend to have disdain for users, but, face it, without end users, programmers wouldn't have well paying jobs. If most people found little need for word processors, Word wouldn't be such a popular program.
The fact is when GUIs started coming out, they caught on quickly. Even the text based ones that let you point and click your way through a directory tree (or page through it with arrows and page up/down, etc).
I taught for a number of years with learning disabled students. That means I had to learn a lot about how people learned -- both when everything is working well and when there are disabilities. I found that there are a myriad of learning styles (and that doesn't apply to just learning, it applies to how we process and work with information). The kind of person who uses text as opposed to images or intuition is also the type of person who is likely to end up as a programmer and (and I'm not just saying this to be mean), they are most likely to see things in one way and not easily adapt to different points of view. It is a black and white way of thinking (ironic, since text based systems are almost black and white -- actually green and white, but you get the idea).
I know about using words. I am a writer (I said so in my original post). When I write, I worry about the words, and that is the point -- I have to be able to worry about the words I'm writing, not what menu key I have to press for this function. I have to keep my mind on what I am writing, not how I am writing it.
When I am shooting video, I work with cameras that are easy to use, not ones where I have to keep futzing with controls every few seconds (actually, few video cameras are that contra-intuitive). When I am editing that video, I have to be able to focus on the rythm and flow of the material, how the soundtrack matches the action, what camera angle I am using, etc. I've got too much to worry about, at that point, without having to add to that the worry of HOW does this program work. The same goes for authoring DVDs.
It may get on your nerves, the "endless churning," but it doesn't seem to have occured to you there is a reason for it. That reason is, quite simply, that most of us work better and faster with a GUI. You may not, but that doesn't mean others don't. What it does seem to mean is that you feel that what works for you works best for everyone and the popularity of GUIs bears out the need for intuitive interfaces. (If consoles were so wonderful for the average user, and were in demand, there would have been a huge demand to make the DOS Prompt easier to access and use on Windows.)
I can't remember all the details, but a while back there was a story here, on
Again, I'm not saying this to be mean, but your attitude is exactly the kind of attitude that I'm pointing out is a problem. And your response is a perfect, text book example of why it is a problem. I point out that most people need a GUI to make working with computers easier and that programmers don't like writing GUIs, but they are necessary for users if a program is going to be widely used. The problem is that programmers don't see this and would rather tell everyone that a command line util is as easy to use as a GUI.
Then, after saying that, you come along and say a command line util is as easy to use as a GUI. Okay, two points: 1) That is your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it and 2) It may be true for you, but that doesn't mean it is true
Cough. Actually patents grant a temporary MONOPOLY on a technology. That means if you did not get that tech from a sanctioned source, you have no right to it. What you describe is more akin to copyright and fair use (or what is left of it).
In addition, patents and open source do not mix at all. Indeed patents are a very real threat to open source software because they can effectively bar their distribution/use and/or be used to extract royalites/damages from distributors/(usually) major users.