Free DVD Recording Tool For Linux?

jobsagoodun writes " cdrecord-ProDVD is OK for burning DVDs but (i) it grumbles pointlessly about device names and (ii) it has a weird binary-only license that expires every six months or so. There are some Free forks off cdrtools - dvd+rw/+r/-r ,dvdrtools and this patch - do any of them make a good replacement?"

Comments

Some info

[Guiri]

I use dvd+rw-tools and works pretty good.

To burn a DVD I just do:

growisofs -Z /dev/burner -R -J /path/to/data

A very good option for doing all this very easily is to get K3b which is part of the KDE distribution.

For authoring DVDs I recently discovered Qdvdauthor, and it works like a charm!, I was able to create my own DVDs with menus with custom backgrounds, sound, etc.

Also check my homepage for help about video conversions: http ://dvdripping-guid.berlios.de

Re:Some info

[Corhonio]

I've been using dvd+rw-tools (my distro is gentoo) exlusively for burning dvds since I got a plextor 708A last xmas.

I never had a single problem with it from day 1 :)

I'd like to mention that with the -overburn flag I can squeeze a bit more of data (above 4.7 billion bytes but below 4.7 million Kbytes(Kbyte=1024 bytes)) when needed.

In addition I update my dvd burners firmware with PXUpdate for UNIX http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employee s/joerg.schilling/private/firmware.html, something which is very important for people that don't dual boot.

As demonstrated in https://expressivefreedom.org/Projects/PVR/Firewir e-Methodology.html a 4gb+ single file (ie a backup tar/bz2ball) can be squeezed in dvd, which is something that propably(I can't say for sure since I haven't used windows for ages) can't be done in windows.

Chris. PS Use the above at your own risk

K3B

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

K3B, dvdbackup, and dvdshrink (ran under wine, 3.0b5) work awesome.

dvdrtools

[mishan]

I use dvdrtools (dvdrecord), which works completely perfectly for me. Debian even has dvdrtools in their distribution already. I use it just like cdrecord.

dvdrecord -v dev=/dev/dvdrw driveropts=burnproof -dao -data MY_DVD_IMAGE.ISO

dvdrtools

[james b]

dvdrtools in Debian unstable works pretty well.
I use it like this:

mkisofs -f -udf -V "Your Disc Label" -o currentcd.img -r "your-directory-of-data"
dvdrecord dev=/dev/hdd -dao currentcd.img

It gives a warning about accessing the drive via /dev/hdd being depracated, but works fine.

growisofs is your friend

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use growisofs! It comes with the dvd+rw-tools and it works like a charm. It only requires mkisofs.

So to burn a data DVD:
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -r -J my_directory

and to burn a video DVD:
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video my_dvd

I don't know the story behind cdrecord-prodvd and all that license cruft (was Mr. Joerg "you must use SCSI" Schilling involved with that nonsense?)

The less you have to deal with Schilling the better.

Re:Is this a joke?

[\/\/]

I did not think there could be any desktop user that has not heard of k3b...

I did not think there could be any desktop user that doesn't understand k3b is a GUI FRONTEND to several command line tools, one of them being cdrecord-ProDVD for writing DVDs. Without these backends, your k3b will DO NOTHING. Another option for writing DVDs are the dvd+rw-tools, which also work for DVD-R now. THAT is what the question is about, not your GUI-of-the-day.

Perhaps for the next Ask Slashdot we could have a question about free web browsers? Or maybe a free Linux C compiler?

Or maybe have a question about what's the difference about a GUI frontend and an actual work-performing backend?

Re:What I'd like to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see that, too, although I am alot happier to discover that video DVDs do NOT REQUIRE menus! Because, personally, I just want to pop in a disc and go. I don't want to do more work than press play, and I doubt my presently-DVD-less parents want anything different from the "play/stop/rewind/ff" interface of a VCR they're familiar with either.

So here's my formula to get DV to DVD without crufty menus. With almost minimum fuss.

1. use kino to grab the DV and do basic editing. It can't do much editing (i.e. you can't trim in between clips) and it's sluggish in some respects but it works like a charm.
2. Inside kino go to EXPORT->MPEG and select option 8 for the file format.
This uses mpeg2enc, which is amazingly SLOW, but does a good job. Expect many hours encoding 1 hour of footage. My FX-53 is about 1/10th real time. If you want to retain chapters, make sure to select "scene split" before exporting!
3. So now you have one or more .mpeg files. Use dvdauthor to construct the directory. First you must make an XML file (the second-most annoying part of the whole procedure after mpeg2enc slowness).
<dvdauthor>
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<titles>
<pgc>
<vob file="/path/to/first.mpeg" />
<vob file="/path/to/next.mpeg" />
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>
4. Generate the DVD file structure.
dvdauthor -o my_dvd -x my.xml

5. Burn it with growisofs
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video my_dvd

Voila! Alot of steps and very slow, but not too painful otherwise. And no annoying menus!

Re:What I'd like to see...

[AstroDrabb]

You can get MainActor for Linux. A professional multi-platform editor. Some info from the site:

MainActor 5 for Linux offers professional features almost identical to the features you already know from the Windows version, including DV capture and MPEG-1/2 import and export in a new interface.

You can download the demo and give it a whirl. I think it cost about $99.

For lighter work, there is Q DVD-Author. It is FOSS and works well for making DVD's with menus, etc.

If you're using scsi emulation

[rsilvergun]

You should already have DMA, since it's on by default in scsi emulation (I used to turn scsi emulation on for just that purpose). Still, you're better off w/o scsi emulation, it can do weird things with the device nodes. Check your lilo.conf or grub.conf for the line 'hdc=ide-scsi' and remove it.

If you want better speed, upgrade to the latest DVD+/-rw-tools. There's a ton of recently fixed speed bugs with newer drives. Install from source is easy. just make && make install as root and it'll copy itself in /usr/local where k3b will find it (you'll have to go in and tell k3b to use the new binaries). I couldn't set my speeds correctly until I upgraded, and was left choosing between 8x (not happening on my 4x media) or 1x. Once I upgrade everthing just worked.

Re:Not so fast!

[PCM2]

Kernel 2.6.8 has effectively killed non root users from burning CDs and DVDs.

I had no idea what this guy was talking about either, until I read this.

Re:Dev=0,x,0 vs. dev=/dev/hdx

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I knew the answer to this as well.

All I can say is the entire reason I went through the hassle of SCSI on my old system was just to avoid the hassle of ide-scsi with cdrecord. The entire ide-scsi flap seems to be centered around cdrecord and Joerg Schilling's stubborn refusal to accept reality and deviate from his beloved SCSI. Never mind the reality that almost no one carries optical SCSI devices anymore! (Save hard drives you can't find SCSI *anything* anymore!)

Schilling also has his own "make" program, IIRC, because he refuses to write a makefile that works with GNU's make. This was discussed on the amd64 gentoo forum recently.

Then there's cdrecord-prodvd and its annoying nagware license. Again, Schilling at work.

Then recently there was some flap on LKML, though I have not read it because, frankly, I don't know the best place to even look at LKML.

Heck, you can almost get a sense of his attitude from the wording of his website:
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glon e/employee s/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html

I saw this problem brewing in 2000 when I got my SCSI CD burner--about the last one available. The problem is as long as Schilling is the only person with disc burning software we are all subject to his whims.

So bring on the free and open alternatives. growisofs, for example, is fantastic, although also dependent on mkisofs (which I think is also Schilling software, but at least it doesn't seem to suck yet). Take Schilling out of the loop and then we aren't 100% dependent on him.