[TriLUG] VHS Tapes, Digital Video Cameras and DVD Recorders

Tue Jun 15 13:21:52 EDT 2004

Bob,

Thanks for the information.  Has anyone tried any of the tools Bob
mentions on AMD64 based Linux boxes?  I'll probably give it a shot
eventually, maybe this weekend.  I'll be sure to report back on my
success or failure.

--Reggie

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 09:03:18 -0400, Bob Shepherd <rwshep2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> I have no experience with this, but my friend who uses Linux a lot to make
> DVDs wrote this:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If Dad isn't interested in DVD menus, then this is all actually quite simple:
> 
> * Use Kino to transfer the video tapes via firewire from the camcorder into
> the PC.
> * Export from Kino in MPEG-2 format (undoubtably the longest part of this
> process: 3 - 4 hours per hour of video)
> * Use dvdauthor to create a single playlist DVD filesystem
> * Use mkisofs to create an ISO image of the DVD
> * Use growfs to put that iso onto the blank DVD
> 
> Now, if you want to get into menus and fancy stuff, it gets a lot harder.
>   Useful links:
> http://polidori.sourceforge.net/
> http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
> http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/
> 
> No experience with any of those.
> 
> Of course, the long-term upshot for everyone except Dad is that you can do
> some amazingly cool stuff with all this command-line junk, as long as
> you have patience:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=8639690
> 
> As always, one tool does one task well, and lots of "glue" applications
> pop up to fill out the user space left vacant with that tool:
> http://dvd-slideshow.sourceforge.net/
> 
> And lots of user-created doco:
> http://gecius.de/linux/dvd.html
> http://www.pcxperience.org/james/dvd/
> http://www.tappin.me.uk/Linux/dvd.html
> 
> Menus are the hardest bits for me, still.
> 
> </snip>
> 
> 
> 
> On Monday 14 June 2004 4:04 pm, Jeff Tickle wrote:
> > *gasp* :-O HOLY CRAP.
> >
> > http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709
> >
> > Yes, this is definitely the traditional Linux way of doing things, for
> > sure!
> >
> > I've been looking for a good project to learn GTK with.  Looks like I've
> > found it!
> >
> > Anyone interested in a nice graphical front-end to bring all these
> > instructions together?  I mean I don't mind doing it this way, but Dad
> > will certainly feel different.  So I guess I'll make something to handle
> > the graphical end of DVD authoring, unless someone knows of a project
> > already started that I can get in on or something, but you're right,
> > there's not much out there in this area.
> >
> > -Jeff
> >
> > On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 12:51, Michael Thompson wrote:
> > > Not sure how easy/hard it is to get the data from the vcr to the
> > > computer, but I do know that the dvdauthor software I found to try and
> > > arrange my mpegs on the dvd with menus, etc, was *not* easy.  Basically,
> > > you have to create an XML file with all the menus and movie files laid
> > > out how you want them, then it creates a DVD iso.  After a few hours of
> > > playing with it, still had no success.  Apparently, its not as easy as
> > > "just putting the files in a VIDEO_TS directory and burning".
> > >
> > > A google search on "dvdauthor" will probably bring up some information,
> > > but if you're looking for something "point and click" (brings us back to
> > > usability issues again?) then you're probably better of using one of the
> > > <sigh> "other" OSes...
> > >
> > > BTW, I was hoping that my new PowerBook (which came with iDVD) would
> > > allow me to author my DVDs into ISO files which I could burn on my linux
> > > PC, but apparently it requires a hack that is *not* allowed under the
> > > DMCA as my PowerBook did not come with the DVD burner built in.  So, if
> > > you buy a Mac hoping to put your home videos on DVD, pay the extra $200
> > > for the DVD burner.
> > >
> > > --mike
> > >
> > > On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 08:27, Jeff Tickle wrote:
> > > > Howdy..
> > > >
> > > > My Dad wants to start a fun little conversion project.  He has a bunch
> > > > of VHS tapes that he'd like to convert to DVDs, plus some stuff he's
> > > > recorded on a digital video camera (not sure of the model... so we'll
> > > > just assume it works with Linux until I find out otherwise.)
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone have experience doing this with Linux?  One thing I'm going
> > > > to have to do is make the entire process as easy as possible.  I
> > > > haven't done much research yet but I just wanted to get word from any
> > > > of your experiences.  The two things I have absolutely no clue how to
> > > > do are take the video from the camera and write video to a DVD.
> > > >
> > > > -Jeff
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Jeff Tickle <jtickle at jtsoft.net>
> > > > JTSoft.net
> >
> > --
> > Jeff Tickle <jtickle at jtsoft.net>
> > JTSoft.net
> 
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