[mythtv] Archiving Shows to DVD

Martin Bene martin.bene at icomedias.com
Sun Aug 14 11:40:27 UTC 2005


Hi Aaron,
> I have released a patch (ticket #158) that has similar 
> functionality and does not require any external software (at 
> least not for the cutting of the MPEG2 files).  It does GOP 
> accurate cutting of MPEG2 streams and adds DVD Nav packets.  
> It uses myths libavformat/libavcodec to demux and remux the 
> MPEG stream.

I didn't know this existed, thanks very much for the pointer. 
One of the reasons I went with projectx is that it can handle multiple
audio streams, which I have on some DVB programs and want to preserve to
get multilingual DVDs. Can you tell me if that's supported in your
patches?

I had the impression that the one place where mythtv could handele mpeg
a/v sync perfectly was on decode, and this only supports video + 1 audio
stream, plus requires recoding; ther's been talk if it wouldn't still be
a valueable option to have a reencoding mpeg2=>mpeg2 transform since
it'd allow you to
 - do frame-accurate cuts
 - optionaly reduce bandwith to cram more stuff onto a DVD
 - have no trouble with A/V sync - decode in mythtv definitely gets that
right.

How well does the demux/remux step work for PVRx50 recordings which seem
to be notoriously difficult to keep in sync?

> I've also included a simple UI for authoring DVDs.  I have 
> visions of a wizard with a bunch of templates to create DVD 
> menus etc, but at the moment it creates autoplay DVDs.  All 
> from within mythtv.

That's covered quite well by the mythburn scripts:
 - add a short intro clip
 - choose background image for main menu
 - choose audio/music track for menus
 - choose highlight image for selecting titles.
 - titles are put on the menu as graphic buttons with title, subtitle
and recording time, screenshot from the title is used as button.
 - 9 chapter marks spaced evenly over a title are generated
 - optionaly generate title submenus with pics for the 9 chapters +
description from the database.
 - Menu Buttons on the main menu can either be still images or animated
sequences cut from the titles.
 - four shows fit on one page of the main menu; if required, multiple
pages with required navigation buttons are generated.

The downside is that most of the mythburn dependencies come from the
tools required for manipulation of titles and images to create this menu
system: ImageMagick, mjpegtools, transcode.

Still, if you're thinking about adding DVD menus you might want to look
at the mythburn scripts.

dvdauthor, dvd+rw-tools and cdrtools are pretty much a given if you want
to create a DVD, burn it or create an ISO image.


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