[mythtv-users] Burning DVD from ripped vob files

[Jason Cooper]

Darren Mak (mythtv at digitalweb.ca) scribbled:
> Hi Jason,
> 
> Could you give a quick little 10 line howto regarding this script and the
> software needed? DVD and Linux is very new to me.
> 
> Darren

Hmmm... okay, I'll start with packages needed.  I'm running Gentoo, so
if you're not, you'll have to go to the site for the package and follow
the install steps there.

transcode v0.6.11 http://zebra.fh-weingarten.de/~transcode/
	tccat
	tcextract
	tcrequant
	tcprobe
mjpegtools v1.6.1.90 http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/
	mplex
dvdauthor v0.5.0 http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvdauthor/
	dvdauthor
dvd+rw-tools v5.13 (front to mkisofs v2.01a23)
   http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
	growisofs

As far as I can tell, growisofs has worked on my DVD-R, DVD+R, and
DVD-RW media.  The name of the package may be legacy or something...

If you're running Gentoo, 'emerge <package>' will fix you right up.

The main purpose of this script is to backup the main feature of a DVD
to a DVD-/+R/RW as perfectly as possible.  The problem lies in the fact
that commercial DVD's are 7.9GB and DVD-/+R/RW are 4.7GB. transcode 
takes too long and messes with things too much.  tcrequant (as far as 
I have learned) removes small fragments of extra detail from the video 
stream in place.  This removes just enough data so that one audio 
stream (eg 5.1 english) and the video stream can fit on one disk. 

What you loose:  
	The menus.
	The ads.
	The bonus crap.
	The subtitles (they could be extracted if needed)
	Other languages.
	Other audio streams (2channel, etc)
What you gain:
	The kids get their own collection to scratch all to hell.
	Losing them at a party is no big deal.
	Less likely to be stolen on a flight or from the car.
	Damn near as perfect as you're gonna get.
	
I've played the backups back to various audiences, they can't tell the
difference in quality. ;-)

With this script I typically comment out half of it (after calcing the
requant number), run it, then flip the comments so I run the other half
and based on the requant number, I determine wether or not to run
tcrequant.  At the end, before I burn, I'll typically play movie.mpeg
through mplayer to check that the audio is in sync (that used to be a
problem).  Then I burn it.  Obviously, the perl version will handle this
BS automagically.  End-users shouldn't have to comment out shit.

If you're just starting out, I highly recommend using a DVD-RW.  It'll
save a lot of time in the long run.

Have fun, and let me know of any problems.

Cooper.