[juneau-lug] Re: Burning DVD Video

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:49:30 -0800
James Zuelow <e5z8652@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Anyone know of a DVD Video authoring package for Linux?  Something along the 
> lines of iMovie for Macs.
> 

OK, after playing around it isn't too terribly hard to make a DVD that will 
play in a standalone DVD player.  Kino will capture from my mini-DV camera and 
export the files into mpeg2 format, and then dvdauthor will convert the files 
into vobs, mkisofs will create the image and then dvdrecord burns it.  Simple.  
Yesterday my son and I went out and made a science movie about salmon at the 
glacier, then burned it to DVD and watched it on our DVD player for the 
television.

There are a few finishing up problems with doing it on Linux - for example, 
menus and titles are done via command line as far as I know.  I still haven't 
worked out a good method of creating menus that will let you click to go to a 
chapter, just because the process is so involved.

Menus are a three layer image - one jpg and two png files, plus audio, all 
rolled into one mini "movie" file.  Then there is an xml file for dvdauthor 
that needs to be edited by hand to set up the menus, buttons, button actions, 
etc.  Making a simple movie that just plays is easy.  Making the professional 
menus is harder.  There is a script called "dvdwizard" out there that I've 
downloaded.  It appears to make bare-bones menus (chapter 1, chapter 2, etc.) 
but I don't have all of the pre-requisites installed on my machine.  Once I 
build some software I'll try it to see if I can make a grandmother ready menu, 
and educate the masses about salmon.


(Salmon trivia - did you know that those foil packets of Chicken of the Sea 
pink salmon that say "Product of Thailand" are actually Alaska salmon?  The 
cans all say "packed in Alaska", but the pouches say Thailand.  I was confused, 
so I asked them where the pink salmon spawn in Thailand.  As I thought, there 
aren't any salmon runs in Thailand.  Apparently they ship frozen pinks down to 
Thailand, where they are put in the foil pouches.  Then they ship the pouches 
back to Alaska so you can buy them here in Juneau.  Well traveled fish.)

Cheers,

James

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