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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."
Now if I can just get the woman to let me buy a DVD burner and a nice DV camcorder I can get started on that professional homemade pron I've been waiting so long to make.
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
And for open source in general, if we can provide good open source solutions to things that until now cost alot of money, it is one of the strongest ways of supporting open source, providing however that the product really does do what is needed, and does it well (which in most cases i've seen with similar projects so far, was done extremely well, sometimes even better than the commercial product).
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 slideshow s
(And I'll preface this with a comment that I've only lightly skimmed the article.)
I've seen and heard, over and over, ad nauseum, programmers and OSS advocates continually ask me why I need more or say they don't see why people need all the extra UI features, since something like this can do it all. I'm glad to see this on Linux, the problem is that it still needs a good GUI before it'll get used by many people for DVD authoring (it might be used for the actual production process, but not as much for authoring).
And, as I go into this, we reach one of the primary problems with OSS. If you're a computer person, a program like this is easy to use, since you're used to command line switches and piecing everything together by adding in images from Gimp and pulling in fragments from a number of programs. On the other hand, if you're a video producer, your focus is on CREATING THE VIDEO and PUTTING YOUR VISION on DVD. It is NOT on using the tools, figuring out the command line arguments, or other activites. While I've spent several years working as a programmer, my primary function is writing screenplays. Until OpenOffice came out, there was no word processor on Linux where I could run the program and focus ONLY on writing my screenplays (part of that is the need for macros to handle margin changes). Programmers and other computer people would say, "But you can do this with all the OSS word processors," and I'd say, "I can, but that means I have to spend my time thinking about HOW I'm doing my work, instead of focusing on the work itself."
I love OSS, I love Linux. I know GUIs are a pain (I don't exactly love writing them myself), but for OSS to be used by professionals, like writers or DVD producers, the software has to be so easy to use that the end user can focus on their work instead of focusing on figuring out the software.
Don't get me wrong -- it's great we're this far along. If I had time, I'd love to write a GUI wrapper, but I don't, and it'll be a long time before there is a GUI that makes this software accessible to DVD producers who just want to run the program and use it as a tool to help them realize their vision.
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!
A DVD "is comprised of" ...
I wince every time I hear that.
OK everyone, the parts comprise the whole, the whole is composed of the parts. Got it?
and while we're at it...
Aww, it doesn't say how to add CSS protection.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
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.