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DVD Authoring Under Linux?
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."
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6953
I'm pretty happy with this, although it was a bit on the pricey side (59.99 after 20 dollar rebate at best buy). the dvd builder app allowed me to add images or video clips (quicktime, mpeg1/2, etc) to my project, has a selection of 10+ themes I can use, you can choose your own background, button style from pre-defined themes, move the buttons anywhere you want on the main page, resize the buttons, create chapter menus by defining chapter points. When I created a longer movie, the auto detect scene automatically created chapter points at scene changes which was pretty sweet...
:)
It's just damn cool
Prosumer? Come on now.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Author the DVD on your mac friend's computer, and then duplicate it on your own ;)
IDVD and Imovie come free with Macs, and have a nice simplicity/power trade off. I know this is not useful for the person who posted, but is maybe something you want to think about when buying a new computer (plus, you know, chicks dig the mac).
I recommend checking out www.vcdhelp.com. They have tons of links and guides and howtos on various tools. Here is a link to their authoring page.
I use DVDLab to author dvd's myself, which you can find here. It works in most cases, but sometimes I use ifoedit to do really advanced things. However, Ifoedit is not for the feint of heart.
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
they said your rightious indignation was overdue.
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ There are the guides, there are also several links to tools that you can use. You can go very expensive (scenarist, dvdmaestro), cheaper trialware (tmpg, spruceup) , or freeware tools (dvdauthor, ifoedit). Granted freeware isn't quite at the level of the others, but definitely a powerful improvement over the software that you have been using. You will probably learn alot more about the DVD format by using these guides/tools also.
www.TechiePlus.net "...we make IT easy" (serving Sioux City, Iowa area) Offering PC support, custom PCs, and web design
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.
http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net
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.
True, and that's good info for people who haven't invested any money yet and are looking to start fresh with DVD authoring. I'm sure I'd think hard about a Mac if that was my goal...
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.
Not trying to flame or troll, but I mean, seriously, if you posted asking about a software solution for your Mac and people started posting about all sorts of Windows and Linux software, wouldn't you be annoyed? Why is it that Mac people feel compelled to do this all the time? =)
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.
A few links:/ dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net/i ence.org/james/dvd/presentations /20031016/medres/text0.html. uk/Linux/dvd.htmll l idori.chapelperilous.net/c eforge.net/
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/
Cinelerra(video editing)
Transcode(video encoding)
Gear Pro(not free)
mkisofs (for making images with the -dvd-video switch)
linuxvideostudio (gooey)
lsdvd (for listing dvd contents
CCA (and, by implication CSS), have NOTHING to do with being able to author DVDs at home -- or even doing professional authoring...
--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.
Okay a few things to get out of the way.
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.
First, please realize that the DVD menus are simply MPEG files. You can create a static menu with the gimp, or if you're into motion, use Cinelerra or another video editing program like MainActor, Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premier.
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.
Using Linux only...look here
Ban Reality TV!
Which is one of the biggest challenges in OSS: it's "free" as in speech, so it should also be "free" as in beer.
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?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Perhaps you should actually make an attempt to find out, rather than ignorantly assuming that menu support isn't available. What's actually happened is that the menus have been rolled into the main Xine package, rather than being maintained as a separate package. Menu support under Xine is excellent; random or shuffle menus are not yet supported (many hardware DVD players don't support them, either, so this is hardly a major criticism) but menu support is complete and correct otherwise.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
That's what I was going to suggest for Windows.
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.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
dvdauthor is a very good software.
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
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Pardon me sir. I have rewritten your post to underscore my cynicism for your viewpoint. Examine:
"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!"
Hey freaks: now you're ju
This guide was posted on the Gentoo Forums by shiznix. Find it here: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709
I know you Slashdot users hate Gentoo, but this is actually an excellent guide that features animated menus and all!
My Systems
I found doom9.org was a good place to begin in creating DVD's they have a great tutorials and some damn good programs (only windows).
you know I allways drink coffee while I watch the rader everyone knows that.
(Probably stolen from a bash.org quote. Free karma to person who posts the link)
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Complete with ispell. ;-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
He is looking for a re-authoring tool. AFAIK, DVDShrink/DVDXCopy work well for making "backups" for your DVDs, however that type of software is very limited in the authoring department. The original question refers to him using other software, yet it was very limited in its authoring features also.
www.TechiePlus.net "...we make IT easy" (serving Sioux City, Iowa area) Offering PC support, custom PCs, and web design
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. 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
Linux at home
dvdwizard
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 != DVD Burning
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.
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
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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 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 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, unless you have an attachment to the command line too
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
tmpgenc isnt very good, especially for interlaced source material. it has a lot of bells and whistles and blinky lights though.
x ?sku=CCEB) is probably the best mpeg2 encoder you can get for under $2000. And its only $60. it is also miles, miles faster than tmpgenc.
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.
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.
I don't have Mandrake 10 downloaded yet, but according to press releases I have read, they have put DVD writing ability into K3B as of Mandrake 10. I use K3B for all my CD writing on my current Mandrake 9.2 system and I am more than happy with it. If the DVD writing performance is on par with the CD writing in K3B, I'm sure you would like it too :)
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