Kieth Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 I have all the Columbo TV series in .avi that I would like to make into DVDs for my wife for Christmas. The files are small enough that I can put each year on a separate DVD. But instead of making her go into dolphin and choosing the film to run, how can I put them onto a DVD and have it start automatically, giving her a choose of which film to see (like in a professionally bought DVD)? BTW, to state the obvious, this is my first attempt to do this sort of thing. :) :) [moved from Everything Linux by spinynorman] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
{BBI}Nexus{BBI} Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 One application you could use is DeVeDe. Â It's in the repos. Â Stand by for more suggestions :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 I have used dvdauthor with its corresponding gui frontend. It is easy to use and quite versatile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted November 29, 2009 Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 I generally use DeVeDe, but Tovid GUI is OK also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kieth Posted November 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 30, 2009 :) Thanks for the advice. Hopefully today I can get to work on it. If not, soon. Thanks again! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfoss Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 I'm curious about the DeVeDe application you are referring to. I've been onto their website and I can see that it is possible to make special discs using DIVX/AVI as the source, but it's not clear that if it will re-encode the Divx files into MPEG2 as is needed for DVDs. "Kieth" wrote that he wanted to put a seasons worth of AVI files onto one DVD. Past experience tells me that each season would require multiple DVD discs as the MPEG2 encoding is so much less efficient and ends up with very large files. So what kind of discs can this application make? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted December 7, 2009 Report Share Posted December 7, 2009 DeVeDe can re-encode the video into a standard that it will read and create your DVD's from. It also has the option of allowing you to fit more on the disk by reducing the quality of sound/video output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kieth Posted December 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2009 Ahh, today I had decided to give an update on making DVDs. I'm still learning how to do it, but have made more than 1. In fact, as kfoss mentioned, a lot of space is being taken up on the DVD. With DeVeDe, I made a DVD with 2 .avi films (456 mb and 455 mb). With a 4.7 GB DVD in the computer, according to DeVeDe I had to "adjust disk usage" as the two films were taking up 183% of the DVD space. After "adjusting the disk usage", the program said I would use 99% of the DVD. After the .iso file is made (over 2 hours of work), it is 2.9 GB, not 4.7. Comparing the quality before doing the adjustment with it afterwards, some aspects remained the same and others obviously did not. Here is the info (according to DeVeDe): Original size (pixels): before - 512x336; after - same Final size (pixels): before - 720x576; after - same Length (seconds): before - 5395; after - same Video rate (Kbits/sec): before - 600; after - 2641 Audio rate (Kbits/sec): before - 96; after 224 As you can see, the video and audio rates are different. Now, if I add another .avi video (455 mb), according to DeVeDe I am using 273% of my 4.7 GB DVD. So, I "adjust disk usage" again. Now the video and audio rates for the same film I listed above are: Video rate: before - 600; after 1690 Audio rate: before - 96; after 224 As Ian mentioned, the quality is less. After 3 hours and 22 minutes, the .iso file is only a mere 3.7 GB. I presume at this point that I need to keep adding films and adjusting the "disk usage" until I get the videos down to their original video and audio rate, so that I can use the whole DVD. What I really don't understand is why DeVeDe says I am using so much space, when I reality I'm not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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