from .avi file to DVDdisc howto

[jackren]

DVD movie howto (from .avi file to DVDdisc)

Having a DVD drive, and some movies, I have always wished to create DVDs that I could watch on my stand alone DVD player. I was successful today and thought I would share this information in the event that it is useful to anyone. I have done this using a existing AVI file. What you will need:

1. Transcode. Available at: http://zebra.fh-weingarten.de/~transcode/
2. mjpegtools. Available at: http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net.
3. Latest dvd+rw-tools. Available at:http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
4. mkisofs. Available at: http://freshmeat.net/projects/mkisofs/
5. Mencoder (comes with the mplayer package). Available at: http://www.mplayerhq.hu
6. dvdauthor. Available at:http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
7. K3b if you use KDE is quite nice. Avialable at: http://www.k3b.org/

To make things read easier , I'll use a real filename : matrix.avi

Create a new dir ( I use movies )
mkdir movies

here you can sore the ...avi files you want to burn to DVD

Encoding the movie:

Know or find out what TV format you will be using.
For most of Europe & Australia, use PAL.
For America (and others?), use NTSC.

For PAL:
transcode -i matrix.avi -V -y mpeg -F d -Z 352x288 --export_fps 25 --export_asr 2 -E 48000 -b 224 -o matrix

For NTSC:
transcode -i matrix.avi -V -y mpeg -F d -Z 352x240 --export_fps 29.970 --export_asr 2 -E 48000 -b 224 -o matrix

Replace matrix.avi with the .avi file you want to encode and replace matrix with the name you want to give to the encoded files.

We now have 2 new files: matrix.m2v (video) and matrix.mpa (audio)

Combine the new audio & video files into one DVD mpg.

mplex -f 8 -o matrix-dvd.mpg matrix.m2v matrix.mpa

This will result in a file : matrix-dvd.mpg

You should test this file by playing it ( with xine or kaffeine) and see if it looks good and if audio/video synchronizion is ok.

If audio/video(AV) sync is not correct, try overriding transcode's AV Sync auto correction with '-D 0' like so:

transcode -i matrix.mpg -V -y mpeg -F d -Z 352x288 --export_fps 25 --export_asr 2 -E 48000 -b 224 -D 0 -o matrix

If all is ok , we can proceed.

In order for our disc to be played in a stand alone DVD player, the directory structure HAS to be perfect, so please make sure you type the next several commands exactly as shown, in the order shown:

mkdir dvd

Now we have to use the program "dvdauthor" ,which can create the file and dir structure for a DVD. It has many features to create menus and picturebackgrounds for DVDs , but I'll not go in to that, we keep it simple (we just wanna watch the movie on DVDplayer)
Dvdauthor requires a simple configuration file. This is a xml file that you create.
Here is an example from the dvdauthor website:

<dvdauthor>
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<titles>
<pgc>
<vob file="matrix-dvd.mpg" />
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>


You can copy and paste this file into your favorite editor ( I use Kedit) and save it as "dvdauthor.xml .
The only line you need to change is the "vob file"line, replace matrix-dvd.mpg with the .mpg file you created before.
ps this is all done in the same dir (~/movies )

Now let dvdauthor do its work with this command:

dvdauthor -o /path-to-dvd-dir -x dvdauthor.xml

in my case:

dvdauthor -o /home/jack/movies/dvd -x dvdauthor.xml

IF all went well, you have in the dvd dir 2 new dirs : VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS

Now we need to create an .iso file of the dvd dir so we can burn it to DVD.

Still in movies dir type:

mkisofs -dvd-video -udf -o matrix.iso dvd/

replace matrix.iso with yout-title.iso

And finaly, start up K3B Tools/DVD/burn dvd iso image
and select the iso file you just created before, and burn your DVD.

Happy viewing.

Jack renders

ps I made this howto from several different howtos I found on the net , but they didn't work for me ,I had to take info from several
howtos and combine it , so it would work for me.

[mzilikazi]

Of course you could just do it the easy way and use lxdvdrip

Transcode is a very good encoder but very slow. Streamdvd is amazingly fast and is implemeted by lxdvdrip.

It makes 1:1 copies of dvd's in about an hour on my XP2200 w/ 1G system RAM. No fuss no muss. Only drawback - no menus yet just the main title of the movie which is sufficient for my tastes.

[jackren]

so can I use lxdvdrip to convert the .avi files I downloaded from internet to .mpg files and burn them to DVD?
and If so, is here a deb package available for lxdvdrip?

[HomerCube]

so can I use lxdvdrip to convert the .avi files I downloaded from internet to .mpg files and burn them to DVD?
and If so, is here a deb package available for lxdvdrip?

As far as I know, lxdvdrip is only meant to rip a DVD, not to convert from .avi to .mpg, but I could be wrong.
I'm not aware of .deb packages for lxdvdrip, but simple configure/make/make install worked fine for me. Please have a look at README before compiling: there are some pre-steps in order to build dvdauthor and vamps.