[UPDATE - check out my newer howto on this subject]
Sure, you’ve been able to do this by fiddling around with arcane stuff for ages. But now it’s EASY.
Tovid is the tool to use — download it here, and install it. There is a UI, which I haven’t played with; the command line options are so straightforward, though, that it is worth getting familiar with them.
- Prepare the content.
- Gather your clips. Let’s assume you have 3 short videos you’re going to put on the dvd, and that you want a menu.
- Convert them to dvd format, if necessary; e.g. tovid -ntsc -dvd -in myclip1.mpg -out myclip1-dvd. (If you’re in Europe, use -pal insteal of -ntsc.) See the wiki for more examples. On my AMD64/3400, conversion takes about 5 minutes for a 4 minute video.
- Build the menu.
- First, find an image or a video you’d like to be the menu backdrop. For the purposes of this howto, let’s assume you go with an image named sally.jpg.
- Next, invoke the makemenu command, e.g.: makemenu -ntsc -dvd -align left -textcolor “#FFF” -highlightcolor “#FF0″ -selectcolor “#F00″ -font “Helvetica” “Sally Jumping” “Sally Singing” “Sally Running” -background sally.jpg -out “Main_menu”. (This is going to make 3 menu options on the left hand side of the screen. Order is important here; match up the order of the options above with the order of the clips you supply in the next step.)
- Now, build the xml metadata that’s needed to author the dvd, e.g.: makexml -menu Main_menu.mpg myclip1-dvd.mpg myclip2-dvd.mpg myclip3-dvd.mpg sally
- Finally, run the command to build the dvd filesystem, e.g.: makedvd sally.xml (This will create the directory structures that you can burn directly as a video dvd project using, e.g. k3b.)
Related Comments (9)
Thanks for this really handy info. I ran through it without any problems, and I’ve got a DVD image. Only two problems now:
I realize neither of these issues are your fault, but I thought perhaps someone else might run into them, or know of a solution.
Sorry mate but no _real_ video maker is ever going to create a dvd from the command line. Video is a visual medium and video makers are visual people and need good GUIs. Until linux geeks realise this linux is going to remain only a tiny fraction of computer users as linux geeks make linux for other linux geeks rather than normal users. Ubuntu is one step in the right direct but there is still a lot to do.
The point of command line tools is that they can then have any number of GUI’s built to use them. By separating the work horse from the nice pointy and clicky window then any number of tools can do dvd creation. k3b works with cdrtools in this way. To create the pointy and clicky tools then articles like this are a perfect way of bringing attention to the possibilities. Something like 6 or 7 years ago you couldn’t play a DVD in linux (IIRC), progress is being made, despite the obstacles put in the way.
The point of a command line too is not to be seen to even exist to modern day computer users.
It depends what you need the dvd for. With command line tools, you can batch them, script them, etc etc. Also, like Richard said, once you have the command line tools tested and in place, it’s trivial to lay a UI layer on top of them.
Also, maybe “real” video makers are actually concerned with getting their content out there, rather than fiddling extensively with the fluff associated with creating a dvd menu layout. Isn’t it nice to have some stuff semi-automated?
I recently experimented with creating video dvds in linux and was quite impressed with one piece of software. Not only was it entirely graphical (didn’t touch a command line once) but it was easier to use than any windows software I have tried.
DVD Styler
There’s also an accompanying GUI.
For questions and comments on tovid, be sure to visit http://tovid.wikia.com or #tovid on freenode.
I recently experimented with creating a video dvd in linux and was quite impressed with two applications. Both avoid the command line and are easy to use.
http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/
and
KmediaFactory
Personally I preferred the first, but here you go 2 gui based options.
I looked at tovid a while back, but it didn’t seem to be what I needed. I have taken care of that since, however, so I was wondering…can it trans-code .vob files? I was making an ISO, but the process was interrupted before the ISO completed, but the files are all intact. I just wonder if it can turn that whole mess back into a DVD with menu.