NAME
videotrans - A package to convert movies to DVD format and to build
DVDs with
DESCRIPTION
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-tv.com
The movie-rip-tv.com program is a convenience program that I
personally use to gather interesting information about TV
series. Given the name of a series (such as Star Trek
Enterprise), a season number and an episode number, this program
will create an information file in the correct format for use
with the movie-title program. The movie-title program will then
be able to display the episode’s name in the menu and provide an
information button which leads to the generated information
(such as the director, the guest stars list, the description of
the particular episode, etcetera).
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.
QUICK START
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.
SEE ALSO
movie-to-dvd(1), movie-title(1), movie-make-title(1), movie-make-title-
simple(1), movie-rip-tv.com(1), movie-compare-dvd(1), movie-rip-
epg.data(1)
AUTHOR
The author is Sven Berkvens-Matthijsse (sven@berkvens.net). Please
send any project related e-mail to videotrans@berkvens.net.
BUGS
None known. Please report any bugs to videotrans@berkvens.net!
videotrans videotrans(1)