Creating DVD Movies

[Derrick Ryalls]

On 6/20/06, Mark Kane <mark at mkproductions.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006, at 17:48:39 -0700, Derrick Ryalls wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >
> > i was wondering if anyone had a good tool recommendation for creating
> > DVD movies with FreeBSD.  Since I have a child growing up, it is
> > appealing to me to make a copy of their favorite DVD and burn it so
> > they can handle the copy, not the original (legal to make backup
> > copies).  I also was thinking it could be handy to author my own dvds,
> > but that might not be for a while.
> >
> > So far, I can use mplayer to get the DVD to an avi file, but I can't
> > find anything to get it back onto a dvd.  I have tried dvdauthor, but
> > the app kept crashing.  Does anyone have any suggestions for this?
>
> Hi.
>
> I don't normally back up DVDs so I'm not sure the best software to do
> that. I did a quick ports search and "multimedia/lxdvdrip" looks nice,
> and may do exactly what you want all in one program.
>
> As for dvdauthor crashing, I would guess it's because you're not giving
> it the right format for a DVD. AVI files can't go to DVD, you need to
> convert it to MPEG-2 PS and the proper specifications. For this, I use
> a GTK+ program called Avidemux2 (it's in multimedia/avidemux2), although
> ffmpeg or mencoder should work also. Here are my steps for an AVI file
> to DVD:
>
> 1) Avidemux to video "DVD". Set aspect ratios in "Configure" and set
> "DVD Res" in the "Filters" area. If the audio is not already AC3 (check
> from the A/V information button on the toolbar), set audio to "FFM
> AC3". Set output format at bottom to "MPEG PS A+V". Save the video
> "filename.mpg". This one is the longest step, the other two are quite a
> bit shorter.
>
> 2) Take outputted mpeg file and run it through dvdauthor:
>
> dvdauthor --video=ntsc+16:9+720xfull -t -f filename.mpg -o output
>
> 3) Burn the authored DVD with dvd+rw tools:
>
> growisofs -dvd-video -Z /dev/cd0 output
>
> For a simple backup though I'd check out lxdvdrip or search through
> ports to see if there is a faster solution. I don't see much sense in
> going from DVD to AVI then back to DVD when you can just rip directly
> from the DVD and burn it back. I provided that info for when you
> want to author your own videos though. :)
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> -Mark
>

You know, I did try dvdrip (forgot to mention it) but I found it to be
geared toward VCD and burning to a CD-R instead of DVDs.  I didn't
even see lxdvdrip.  The pkg-descr does look like it could be the exact
thing I am looking for and will try it out.

If I were to follow your steps about for a DVD copy, I assume VOB copy
or something similar to produce the mpeg would be substituted in step
1, correct?  Though this would not handle DVD9 to single DVD5
(compressed video), I might need to rethink that scenario...

Thanks for the pointers though.