problems with easy remake of dvds, help and understanding requested

[Jelle de Jong]

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Hello everybody,

After a long time of bad experiences with crashing totem-xine, xine and
gxine when clicking on elements on dvd menus (sometimes they work the
other time they do not, extreme annoying) I decided to re-investigate my
options.

I have been an expert Debian Linux user for more then 4 years now. In my
dark days I used the tools DvdReMake Pro, DVD Rebuilder and Cinema Craft
Encoder to create absolute perfect dvds. But I neither use proprietary
software or that other operating system in my current days. (Linux used
for all Computing Tasks)

When explaining my problem on irc #debian, #linux I always get answers
that dvd menus are evil and suck and that I should not use them. I hope
I don't really have the defend the usefulness of dvd menus in this mail
and that the added value of menus can be very high in some situations.

I think it's now more then a year ago that I reported bugs against
totem-gstreamer in the gnome project that dvd menu playback is not
working sufficient, There is now extreme experimental support for menus
but it still is far from the usability of my 25 dollar dvd player, (yes
currently a 25 dollar dvd player has better dvd support then all the
code available in the Linux community, witch is like a badly hurting
*open wound* for me)

I would like to offer *150 euro* for a GTK+, C/C++, GPLv3, GNU developed
style application that has the same functionality as DvdReMake Pro. I
can host, manage, support and release all the project aspects.

I really love the command line it makes my work flows very efficient,
but for visual editing of DVD's it is a bid tricky, since I need an easy
way to preview what video tracks I am deleting or changing.

Beside this I am willing to give dvdauthor a good try to remake a dvd.
But I cant find easy documentation for it. I would like to be able to
easy do the following:

- - How do I remove subs tracks?
- - How do I remove audio tracks?
- - How do I remove extra features without breaking the menu?
- - How do I remove advertising and intros?
- - How do I change 4:3 intros to 16:9 format

With DvdReMake Pro I could do this in 4 min per DVD's it was extremely
easy to do. I would like to have a similar or better usability
experience when working on my Linux systems.

Could somebody help me heal my painful open wound regarding remaking of
dvds with Free/Libre open source software?

Best regards,

Jelle de Jong
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[Jelle de Jong]

Hi Marko,

Marko Loparic wrote:

> Hi Jelle,
>
> 2008/12/29 Jelle de Jong <jelledejong@...>:
>> After a long time of bad experiences with crashing totem-xine, xine and
>> gxine when clicking on elements on dvd menus (sometimes they work the
>> other time they do not, extreme annoying) I decided to re-investigate my
>> options.
>
> I have a better experience with vlc. But it is not perfect. Anyway I
> make my dvds to watch on the tv, with dvd players, not on the desktop.
> My need of making dvds come from sending films of my children to my
> parents, step parents and other relatives. I have kept the first dvd
> player I bought, a very bad one. It's excelent for testing, if the dvd
> works with it it will work with the dvdplayer of anyone!
>
>> I have been an expert Debian Linux user for more then 4 years now. In my
>> dark days I used the tools DvdReMake Pro, DVD Rebuilder and Cinema Craft
>> Encoder to create absolute perfect dvds. But I neither use proprietary
>> software or that other operating system in my current days. (Linux used
>> for all Computing Tasks)
>
> After having debian from 1996 to 2000 I switched to windows (my wife
> prefered). With windows I had once the opportunity of making a dvd
> with windows gui tools (no idea of what it was), I said to myself that
> I would never do that again, if I really wanted to do a dvd again I
> would install linux back and look for a command-line tool. But having
> windows was perfect for me: I almost never used the computer, I used
> to read, do plenty of things with the children...:-) In 2003 my wife
> asked me to put linux back because of viruses (she knew that she would
> never have my help for that task!). Then in 2003 I put debian back and
> later ubuntu. Everyone is happy now (its true that linux gui improved
> a lot, and that I don't have to insist to my wife to learn
> command-line, she never accepted that...). Eventually I started to
> look for a command-line tool to do the dvds what I wanted (dvds with
> family video). It took me one year to find the perfect tool: todisc. A
> wonder. It does everything I need, the way I had imagined (and more!).
> So this was the happy end of the story of a poor command-line addicted
> looking to do dvd authoring...
>
> With todisc all I have to do is to choose split my mpeg files into
> directories, each directory fitting the size of a dvd, give a title
> for each mpeg (or group of mpegs) and launch the script. A nice dvd
> with animated menus is ready after a few hours.
>
>> - - How do I remove subs tracks?
>> - - How do I remove audio tracks?
>> - - How do I remove extra features without breaking the menu?
>> - - How do I remove advertising and intros?
>> - - How do I change 4:3 intros to 16:9 format
>
> For a guiphobic guy like me the perfect solution for that is
> dvdunauthor. You run it, you edit the xml file and then you use
> dvdauthor back. It is unfortunate that there is a version
> compatibility problem between dvdunauthor and dvdauthor. I did not
> investigate further because I didn't have to do reauthoring, but it
> seems to be a easy problem to fix.
>
> Good luck,
> Marko

Link to the program todisk where marko was referring to:
http://tovid.wikia.com/wiki/Tovid_Wiki

The todisc tool looks nice if you are looking for building dvds from the
start, like with self made movies. I am not looking for such solution, I
want to reauthor/remake existing dvd's.

I received a private mail, that my problem lies in the dvd menu
specification which is very expensive and has a NDA so can not be used
for free software development. A reversed engineered project could be
started to solve this, but good take 2 fte's for a year. I am also
wondering about blue-ray and hd-dvd do they have the same problems with
menu's... are we falling in a multimedia gab with these new formats...

I searched with google for dvdunauthor tutorial but did not find
anything useful.

Maybe somebody can give a presentation about remaking/reauthoring dvds
with linux tools on fosdem 2009? We can buy a season dvd box of Lost or
some other dvd box with lots of adds and sub menus and convert it to a
perfect dvd with menus?

Best regards,

Jelle


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[Marko Loparic]

> I searched with google for dvdunauthor tutorial but did not find
> anything useful.

It's true, I actually find quite intriguing that there is so little
information on it and apparently not many people using it. I haven't
played with dvd reauthoring much and I don't know how much of the
secret dvd menu specification is missing there, but I think that given
your interest you should try it at least to see if its _approach_ fits
your needs even if some _functionality_ is missing. To run it you just
insert a dvd and type the command. A xml file is created and (very
useful!) a bunch of mpeg files are extracted from the vobs (with their
file names appearing in the xml file).

Marko

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[Jelle de Jong]

Marko Loparic wrote:

>> I searched with google for dvdunauthor tutorial but did not find
>> anything useful.
>
> It's true, I actually find quite intriguing that there is so little
> information on it and apparently not many people using it. I haven't
> played with dvd reauthoring much and I don't know how much of the
> secret dvd menu specification is missing there, but I think that given
> your interest you should try it at least to see if its _approach_ fits
> your needs even if some _functionality_ is missing. To run it you just
> insert a dvd and type the command. A xml file is created and (very
> useful!) a bunch of mpeg files are extracted from the vobs (with their
> file names appearing in the xml file).
>
> Marko

http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/r2287.html
apt-get install dvdauthor

Ok, I run the dvdunauthor command which was very easy, it created a
5000+ lines file and I have absolutely no idea how to alter that file to
get the things I would like to see :-p (hence my gui wish for these
kinds of things)

remove subs tracks?
remove audio tracks?
remove extra features without breaking the menu?
remove advertising and intros?
change 4:3 intros to 16:9 format

Best regards,

Jelle


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[Jelle de Jong]

Jelle de Jong wrote:

> Marko Loparic wrote:
>>> I searched with google for dvdunauthor tutorial but did not find
>>> anything useful.
>> It's true, I actually find quite intriguing that there is so little
>> information on it and apparently not many people using it. I haven't
>> played with dvd reauthoring much and I don't know how much of the
>> secret dvd menu specification is missing there, but I think that given
>> your interest you should try it at least to see if its _approach_ fits
>> your needs even if some _functionality_ is missing. To run it you just
>> insert a dvd and type the command. A xml file is created and (very
>> useful!) a bunch of mpeg files are extracted from the vobs (with their
>> file names appearing in the xml file).
>>
>> Marko
>
> http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/r2287.html
> apt-get install dvdauthor
>
> Ok, I run the dvdunauthor command which was very easy, it created a
> 5000+ lines file and I have absolutely no idea how to alter that file to
> get the things I would like to see :-p (hence my gui wish for these
> kinds of things)
>
> remove subs tracks?
> remove audio tracks?
> remove extra features without breaking the menu?
> remove advertising and intros?
> change 4:3 intros to 16:9 format
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jelle

forgot some additional info:

dvdunauthor ../DVD_S1D1_MOUNT/
...

dvdauthor -o output/ -x dvdauthor.xml
DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.14.
Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@...>

ERR:  Cannot match start tag 'titlemap'.  Valid tags are:
ERR:      fpc
ERR:      titles
ERR:      menus

So unauthoring seems to go fine, but reauthoring the output back seems
to fail.

Best regards,

Jelle

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[Jelle de Jong]

Jelle de Jong wrote:

> Jelle de Jong wrote:
>> Marko Loparic wrote:
>>>> I searched with google for dvdunauthor tutorial but did not find
>>>> anything useful.
>>> It's true, I actually find quite intriguing that there is so little
>>> information on it and apparently not many people using it. I haven't
>>> played with dvd reauthoring much and I don't know how much of the
>>> secret dvd menu specification is missing there, but I think that given
>>> your interest you should try it at least to see if its _approach_ fits
>>> your needs even if some _functionality_ is missing. To run it you just
>>> insert a dvd and type the command. A xml file is created and (very
>>> useful!) a bunch of mpeg files are extracted from the vobs (with their
>>> file names appearing in the xml file).
>>>
>>> Marko
>> http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/r2287.html
>> apt-get install dvdauthor
>>
>> Ok, I run the dvdunauthor command which was very easy, it created a
>> 5000+ lines file and I have absolutely no idea how to alter that file to
>> get the things I would like to see :-p (hence my gui wish for these
>> kinds of things)
>>
>> remove subs tracks?
>> remove audio tracks?
>> remove extra features without breaking the menu?
>> remove advertising and intros?
>> change 4:3 intros to 16:9 format
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Jelle
>
> forgot some additional info:
>
> dvdunauthor ../DVD_S1D1_MOUNT/
> ...
>
> dvdauthor -o output/ -x dvdauthor.xml
> DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.14.
> Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
> Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@...>
>
> ERR:  Cannot match start tag 'titlemap'.  Valid tags are:
> ERR:      fpc
> ERR:      titles
> ERR:      menus
>
> So unauthoring seems to go fine, but reauthoring the output back seems
> to fail.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jelle

Sorry all an other update, it seems a new feature/bug came into a new
tar release breaking my tar command to do what I thought it did.

this seems to greate a gzip inside a gzip due to some new
--auto-compress feature when using --create
tar --create --verbose --gzip --file $filename.tar.gz ${query[@]}

the new command seems to be working ok so see the new attachment.
tar --create --auto-compress --file "$filename".tar.gz "${query[@]}"

Best regards,

Jelle


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