How to burn video dvd

Description of how to produce a dvd that plays videofiles in any dvd player. Doing it this way will assemble all video files on the dvd in one title, and make different chapters of them. It will play the files automatically one after the other. It will not produce a menu, but start the (first) film immediately.

It uses tovid: a kind of wizard soft / conversion script that relies on ffmpeg to do the coding. It executes scripts to automatise parts of the encoding process necessary to go from whatever filetype to a proper MPEG2, containing correct audio and videostreams. It allows you to see if your videofiles are suitable for burning on a video dvd with the built programme Idvid, and can write xml files necessary for the VOB file structure via built in program makexml.

For options and help see the man pages of the softwares.

Steps:

1. install:

ffmpeg

tovid

dvdauthor

k3b (or other dvd burner)

make sure to install all dependencies (automatically done in synaptic)

2. make a compatible mpeg2 of your film:

change working directory to your folder

type:

tovid -in (input filename) -dvd -full -pal -out (output filename(no suffix!))

I tried mov and mpeg files, both worked fine.

or make several compatible MPEG2 files from a list of files:

type:

tovid-batch -dvd -full -pal -infiles (list of filenames)

• note:

the tovid script will produce and delete a series of temporary files. Make sure to keep an eye on the filesize of the audiodump. I saw that the process of converting a mov file to an MPEG2 stuck, and the audiodump.wav file that should have been deleted kept growing up to 10 G, and would have grown bigger if i would not have quit the program.

3. control the dvd compatibility of your files:

type:

idvid (filename)

The output will give you an analysis of your file(s), including the conclusion whether or not the file is suitable for producing a video dvd

4. make xml file necessary for dvd file structure:

type:

makexml -dvd filename.mpg filename(no suffix)

or for a list of files:

type:

makexml -dvd -group filename1.mpg filename2.mpg filename3.mpg -endgroup filename(zonder suffix)

5. make the filestructure for the dvd:

type:

dvdauthor -x filename.xml

6. burn to dvd

open k3b

choose:

file - new project - new video dvd project

Find the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directories that were created in the previous steps Drag and drop the files in them from the top box to the box below.

choose:

Project - burn

ready !(?)