Making a basic DVD

From Tovid Wiki

This article shows how to create a simple DVD with four titles and a menu using the tovid suite.

[edit] Getting started

Before we begin, we need several things:

• Some videos (where you get them is up to you)
• The tovid package (see Installing tovid)
• The tovid manual pages
• A command-line interface (any terminal or console will do)
• Some patience, and perhaps a nice cup of coffee

I'm going to be authoring a DVD with four videos on it:

• Serenity.mpg, a trailer for Serenity, the Firefly movie
• HHGG.mpg, a trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie
• ROTB.mov, a computer-animated LEGO short featuring Star Wars characters
• MGS4.wmv, a trailer for the PS3 game Metal Gear Solid 4

[edit] Converting the videos

Videos come in all kinds of formats, but DVD only accepts a few specific standard formats. Fortunately, you don't have to worry much about it, because the tovid script does all the conversion for you. You tell it what video you want to encode (the -in option), and what name you want for the output file (the -out option). For example:

$ tovid -in MGS4.wmv -out Metal_Gear_Solid_4

This will convert MGS4.wmv to NTSC DVD format, saving the result as Metal_Gear_Solid_4.mpg. Since this is the output format I want to use, all I have to do is run the above command on each of my videos:

$ tovid -in Serenity.mpg -out Serenity_trailer
$ tovid -in HHGG.mpg -out Hitchhikers_Guide
$ tovid -in ROTB.mov -out Revenge_of_the_Brick
$ tovid -in MGS4.wmv -out Metal_Gear_Solid_4

You can customize your output video with additional options, for example:

$ tovid -pal -half-dvd -in MGS4.wmv -out Metal_Gear_Solid_4

This will convert to PAL format, using a "half-sized" DVD resolution (giving you 352x576). There are many other options for further customizing your output video; see man tovid for a complete list of them.

If you have a subtitles file in .srt format, you can embed it to the DVD using the -subtitles option. Please note that this won't create selectable subtitles in the DVD but it will rather "glue" the subtitles to the video.

After running a tovid command, it's time to get that cup of coffee. Video encoding takes a long time! But if all goes well, I'll end up with four output videos: Serenity_trailer.mpg, Hitchhikers_Guide.mpg and so on.

[edit] Creating the menu

Creating a menu is optional. If you don't want a menu, skip this step.

DVD menus are themselves videos, but they have some extra stuff that makes them behave like menus. But again, you don't need to worry about all the details; just use the Makemenu script:

$ makemenu "Serenity trailer" \
           "Hitchhiker's Guide trailer" \
           "Revenge of the Brick" \
           "Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer" \
           -out TrailerMenu

I specify the four titles I want on the menu by enclosing them each in double-quotes, separated by spaces. The last thing is the name I want to use for the menu itself. When this command is done, I should have a video file called TrailerMenu.mpg.

When it's eventually authored as a DVD menu, it will have a highlight that can be used to select a title.

[edit] Defining the structure

The next step is to define how the DVD will be structured. The popular dvdauthor tool can create a DVD file structure based on an XML input file in a predetermined format. But guess what! You don't need to worry about this format either, because the makexml script can create it for you. All you need to provide is the filenames of your menus and videos, along with a few other options. I'm using a pretty simple structure: a single menu, with four video titles. Here's the command I would run:

$ makexml \
    -menu TrailerMenu.mpg \
        Serenity_trailer.mpg \
        Hitchhikers_Guide.mpg \
        Revenge_of_the_Brick.mpg \
        Metal_Gear_Solid_4.mpg \
    -out TrailerDisc

As you might have guessed, the first filename after -menu is the video containing the menu itself. All the filenames after that are the videos that are linked from that menu, in the same order that they are listed in the menu. Finally, the last thing is the name to use for output. When this command finishes, I'll have TrailerDisc.xml containing a valid dvdauthor disc structure.

If you opted not to use a menu, just run makexml with a list of videos:

$ makexml \
    Serenity_trailer.mpg \
    Hitchhikers_Guide.mpg \
    Revenge_of_the_Brick.mpg \
    Metal_Gear_Solid_4.mpg \
    -out TrailerDisc

[edit] Authoring and burning

The makedvd script automates much of the process of authoring and burning the disc from the XML file created above. All that remains to do is:

$ makedvd -burn TrailerDisc.xml

You can leave out the -burn option, if you'd like to just author the disc and create an ISO image. Then, you can run the same command again with -burn to burn the already-created ISO.