Ingredients

• tovid
• youtube-dl.py (mirror; rename to youtube-dl.py)

Recipe

• First, create a script that’ll download all the videos you want, e.g.

  
  mkdir youtubevids
  cd youtubevids
  ../youtube-dl.py http://youtube.com/watch?v=m2W5MjMGa14
  ../youtube-dl.py http://youtube.com/watch?v=TN6KYhIfSqw
  ../youtube-dl.py http://youtube.com/watch?v=DuMmSYSKuwA
  ../youtube-dl.py http://youtube.com/watch?v=HTdZzkb8n7E
  

  Make it executable (chmod +x getvids) and run it (./getvids). It’ll do its thing, and when it’s done, you’ll have a folder full of flv files. Flv is the Flash Video format; we need to convert these to MPGs before we can make a dvd out of them.

• To convert them, use this handy script; as above, save it in a text file, make it executable, and run it. Note that it resizes the videos to 352×240, which is more or less the size they are on youtube (but more importantly is the resolution of “VCD on DVD”). There is really not much point in scaling them up, as the resolution sucks. Instead, let your DVD player do the scaling when you come to play your disc; that’s what it’s good at.

  
  
  !/bin/bash
  mkdir mpg
  for file in *.flv
  do
          output=`ls $file -1|cut -f1 -d”.”`
          ffmpeg -i $file -ab 56 -r 25 -ar 22050 -b 500 -s 352×240 $output.mpg
  done
  mv *.mpg mpg
  cd mpg
  

  Let it do it’s thing; once it’s done, you’ll have a folder named mpg which contains the mpg versions of the videos.

• Now we need to build the DVD structure. For this, we’re going to use tovidgui, which is one of the applications bundled with tovid. Run it, and follow these steps:
  • Click “Add Menu”
  • Click “Add Video(s)”
  • Browse to, and select all, your newly created MPGs
  • Click on one of the videos on the left pane
  • Under video options, choose “352×240 VCD on DVD”
  • Click “Use these settings for all videos”
  • Click the big “Encode” button at the top
  • Click Start encoding

  Let it do it’s thing. Once it’s done, it’ll give you a makedvd command to run, which in turn invokes dvdauthor. Run it. Dvdauthor will create the dvd structure, which you can then run (using kaffeine or gxine) or burn to dvd (using k3b, gnomebaker, etc, etc).

And that’s it. Of course, the titles on the dvd are going to suck, since you didn’t change them to anything. If you want to spend some time making your dvd look pretty, play around with the options in tovidgui, and you’ll be able to customize it to your heart’s desire.

Please post comments below if you have problems with the above recipe, and I will make adjustments as necessary.

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