videotrans - A package to convert movies to DVD format and
to build DVDs with
videotrans is a set of scripts that allow its user to
reformat existing movies into the VOB format that is used on DVDs.
Furthermore, videotrans supplies programs which allow its
user to create a complete DVD, including selection menus which allow the
viewer to choose which movie he/she wants to see, if more than one movie
fits onto a DVD.
If you want to start quickly, please read on to the "quick
start" section.
videotrans has the following programs available (each
program has a separate manual page that explains the program in detail):
- movie-to-dvd
- The movie-to-dvd program takes one or more input files and converts
them into a separate MPEG2 video stream and a separate MP2 or AC3 audio
stream. If you want, it will combine the video and audio into a
DVD-compatible .vob file, although this is usually not necessary
because the program movie-title will do this for you if it hasn't
been done yet when you are generating a DVD image to burn to a real DVD,
which saves disk I/O.
- This program takes care of all the necessary conversions, such as
framerate adjustment, audio adjustment, zooming/shrinking for DVD frame
sizes, etcetera. The program can determine which conversions are necessary
on its own, no user intervention is required (but of course, it is
possible).
- When making a DVD, you'll first convert all the movies that you want to
put on the DVD into the MPEG2 video and MP2 or AC3 audio streams. Later,
you'll combine these with the movie-title program into a complete
DVD.
- movie-title
- The movie-title program takes one or more video files that were
converted by the movie-to-dvd program and a special title sequence
that was produced by movie-make-title or
movie-make-title-simple and combines all of these into a menu from
which the viewer of the DVD can choose which movie he or she wants to
watch.
- The menu is created by displaying the title image or movie in the
background, with no images or static or animated picture-in-picture
versions of all the movies on top of that. The creator has the option of
supplying information about the movies. This information can be viewed
from the menu as well, on a movie-per-movie basis.
- The program also generates an XML file for use with dvdauthor, the
program that is used to actually create the DVD image that you will burn
onto a DVD disc. The program tells you how to run dvdauthor to do
the processing for you.
- movie-make-title
- The movie-make-title program is used to create a background movie
and an audio track for DVD menus.
- The movie-make-title program takes a single movie and cuts a
specified part of out it. It then converts this piece of the movie into
separate frames and saves the audio track in a WAV file for you.
- You'll have to manually view all the frames and throw away those that you
do not want in the title sequence of your DVD (the first few frames and
the last few frames). It's not possible to automatically cut out the piece
of the movie that you want exactly. I recommend xv for this
purpose, although any image viewer that understands JPEG picture files
will do.
- Also, you'll have to process the WAV audio file by hand, to cut out
exactly that audio track that you want to hear when the menu is displayed.
I personally find sweep a very useful graphical audio processor for
this purpose. The movie-title program will make sure that the audio
track lasts exactly as long as the movie clip that you cut out does. This
is to compensate for possible changes in the video frame rate and to
correct small mistakes. Sweep can be downloaded at
http://sweep.sourceforge.net/.
- movie-make-title-simple
- The movie-make-title-simple program is used to create an optional
background image and an optional audio track for DVD menus.
- You have the choice of using an empty background of a specific color
(black being the default) or an image that you supply.
- You also have the choice of including an audio track or to have no sound
with the menu.
- movie-rip-epg.data
- The movie-rip-epg.data program is a convenience program that can
convert an EPG data file generated by VDR into a .info file that
can be used together with movie-title. The movie-title
program will then be able to display the movie's name in the menu and
provide an information button which leads to the generated
information.
- movie-compare-dvd
- The movie-compare-dvd program can be used after burning a DVD image
to a DVD disc to verify whether all the data was written onto the disc
intact. The program takes the on-filesytem copy and the on-DVD copy and
compares the checksums of the files on both to find any differences.
If you want to start quickly with these programs, and you have a
couple of movies that you want to put onto a DVD, try this (assuming that
your TV standard is PAL, otherwise specify ntsc instead of pal
everywhere that it's used):
- movie-to-dvd -m pal movie1.avi movie2.avi movie3.avi
movie-make-title-simple -o title -m pal \
-i background.jpg -s -a
music.mp3
movie-title -o title.vob -t title \
movie1.m2v movie2.m2v
movie3.m2v
dvdauthor -o dvd_directory -x title.vob-dvdauthor.xml
a_command_to_burn_a_dvd_from dvd_directory
In case you don't want a selection menu, you may also try:
- movie-to-dvd -m pal -M movie1.avi movie2.avi movie3.avi
dvdauthor -o dvd_directory movie1.vob
dvdauthor -o dvd_directory movie2.vob
dvdauthor -o dvd_directory movie3.vob
dvdauthor -o dvd_directory -T
a_command_to_burn_a_dvd_from dvd_directory
In this case, you'll have to use the DVD player's navigation
controls to get to the various movies on the DVD.
The author is Sven Berkvens-Matthijsse (sven@berkvens.net). Please
send any project related e-mail to videotrans@berkvens.net.
None known. Please report any bugs to
videotrans@berkvens.net!