Making playable DVDs

[Uncle Tad]

I'm new to Ubuntu and Open Shot, and while I love Open Shot for its ease and simplicity, I am not able to make playable DVDs. I read a link that recommended I try to take a vob file and convert it to iso, then print that using Brasero, but the end product comes up empty and/or unable to play.

I would like to ask if anyone could outline the most simple process I could use, including which codec to use for audio and visual, and if I should make a vob file or not. I don;t have a lot of experience, I'm still learning Ubuntu so any assistance would be greatly appreciated, Uncle Tad

[hanspb]

Hi, and welcome to the best Linux video editor.
First of all, OpenShot is a video editor and not a DVD authoring tool. With OpenShot you make the video files, then you need something like Bombono to make menus and put together the final DVD.

In OpenShot you should make .mpg files with mpeg2 codec for video and aac (libfaac) for audio. That way Bombono doesn't have to transcode the files and you get the best quality.

Good luck.

[Andy]

There should be a preset on the 'Simple' tab of the export window for DVDs. It should work with Bombono as the author of that app provided the patch for Openshot

[Uncle Tad]

I am using Open Shot 1.3.0 and Ubuntu 11.04. I find that this version of Open Shot works quite well, while newer ones have given me problems, so I would rather not keep updating versions.

I can make a Simple DVD version of my short film, though Bombono doesn't recognize it, so I make an mpeg file it recognizes, but after going thru the instructions, when I get to the Output page and hit 'build dvd video' after trying to put it on a flash drive, it says 'DVD video building broken: the reason is ffmpeg failure: command not found.'
When I change it to my home folder, it says, 'file not empty, we need to remove all files', so, I empty the home file of all files and then it says, 'error removing files; device or resource busy.'

I seem to be going in a circle; what am I doing wrong? Thanks for your help.

[Cenwen]

First you should update your version of Openshot which seems to be (very) old (1.3.0)
Now, the last is the 1.4.2 .
See here how to do that : https://answers.launchpad.net/openshot/+faq/1850

[Uncle Tad]

Cenwen, thank you for your reply. Every time I have updated Open Shot, 3 times now, I have had nothing but problems with the editor. Effects don't work, fades are filled with flashes, and the 1 second timeline is only good to the 5 minute mark, then it goes to 2 seconds, then 3. With OS 1.3, at least everything is working cleanly. Do I have to update OS in order to make playable DVDs? Isn't there some other way? Thank you, Uncle Tad

[Cenwen]

Re: Making playable DVDs

Postby Andy » Thu May 03, 2012 12:32 pm
There should be a preset on the 'Simple' tab of the export window for DVDs. It should work with Bombono as the author of that app provided the patch for Openshot

Like Andy have said, the author of Bombono DVD have done a patch for an issue encountered with our preset for DVD and if I remember well, it was near this versions (1.3.0/1.3.1). It can explain why you are not able to making a playable DVD's. The solution, at this period, was to pass by Devede which re-encode in a good format the file obtained by Openshot before to create a DVD usable on a player.
So, it is like you want, use this workaround and keep a version working for you or update to a next version but at first look you seem to get some issues with the last ones. Why ?

[Andy]

The settings you should use:

Profile: DV/DVD PAL (or NTSC)
Video format: dvd
Video codec: mpeg2video
Bir Rate 3MB/s

Audio codec: ac3
Sample rate: 48000
Channels: 2
Bit Rate 192

[Uncle Tad]

Thank you, Andy, I used your instructions and it's working perfectly, after some updates with ffmpeg. Really appreciate your help, Uncle Tad

[scrungy_doolittle]

I followed the instructions as to what to select, and now I have a file titled.
whatever_name.dvd what the heck do I do with this to make a dvd?

[ahagge]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but are there any plans to do more integration between OpenShot and any Linux DVD authoring tools? Specifically, I'd like to be able to specify DVD creation metadata in OpenShot (chapter points, titles & images, menu location(s) and information, etc.) and have it saved with the OpenShot project, then be able to do a "one-click" DVD burn that would use the DVD authoring program (Bombono, DVDstyler, or whatever seems the most appropriate choice) to author and burn the DVD.

That way if edits are made to the video, the chapter points can move with the edits and the entire process of authoring the DVD in a standalone application won't have to be repeated. It'd also help a lot with the newbie/occasional user who wants to go from raw footage to final DVD with a minimum of hassle and learning.

[emptythevoid]

My two cents: I use DeVeDe to author video to be DVD-playable. In Openshot, I tell it to export the file as DVD NTSC (or PAL), Fullscreen or Widescreen, and quality (I set it to High) and it'll output a .dvd file. I then open DeVeDe, click new VideoDVD, add the video that OpenShot created, and under the Misc tab, I specify that it's already a DVD-compliant file. Then I'm free to create a menu or whatever else I need to do. Specifying that it's already a DVD-compliant video means it doesn't have to do another transcode (the only exeption to this is if the OpenShot video is too big to fit on a standard DVD - I have to uncheck this option and let it transcode the video so it'll fit). DeVeDe will then create and burn a DVD, or preferably, output an ISO image that you can then burn to a DVD (its safer this way, I think)

Been using this method for over a year to produce video for a local church and it's been kind to me.

[Andy]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but are there any plans to do more integration between OpenShot and any Linux DVD authoring tools? Specifically, I'd like to be able to specify DVD creation metadata in OpenShot (chapter points, titles & images, menu location(s) and information, etc.) and have it saved with the OpenShot project, then be able to do a "one-click" DVD burn that would use the DVD authoring program (Bombono, DVDstyler, or whatever seems the most appropriate choice) to author and burn the DVD.

That way if edits are made to the video, the chapter points can move with the edits and the entire process of authoring the DVD in a standalone application won't have to be repeated. It'd also help a lot with the newbie/occasional user who wants to go from raw footage to final DVD with a minimum of hassle and learning.

We've had on the roadmap for a while (although no one has got round to implementing it) plans to include a simple DVD creation interface. It wouldn't be as advanced as what you mention though, just some way of creating a DVD with a title and a play button. We don't want to build in a full scale DVD authoring program.

[Uncle Tad]

I'm encountering a new problem: I have updated my Ubuntu to the latest version, and my Open Shot was recently updated to its latest version (October 2012). Until this upgrade, I had no problems making dvds that, when sent to Bombano, work perfectly.

At present, I can make a playable .mpeg file using the simple tabs, but when I go to make a dvd for Bombano use, either with simple or advanced (using your excellent instructions always, Andy), I get a document file with no data, with a reference to soemthing called 'gedit' but nothing to open. So, no video to view. Can anyone guide me to some solution here? Thanks, Tad

[XXLRay]

The only thing I can say is that gedit is a text editor. Sorry that I have no idea about the real problem.

[Andy]

I'm encountering a new problem: I have updated my Ubuntu to the latest version, and my Open Shot was recently updated to its latest version (October 2012). Until this upgrade, I had no problems making dvds that, when sent to Bombano, work perfectly.

At present, I can make a playable .mpeg file using the simple tabs, but when I go to make a dvd for Bombano use, either with simple or advanced (using your excellent instructions always, Andy), I get a document file with no data, with a reference to soemthing called 'gedit' but nothing to open. So, no video to view. Can anyone guide me to some solution here? Thanks, Tad

Do you know what version of MLT you have? There was a bug in 0.7.4 that prevented DVD export. I think it is fixed in 0.7.6 & up. If that's not the problem, then I can only think that there is something wrong in the libavformat/libavcodec libraries - what version of those do you have?

[XXLRay]

Do you know what version of MLT you have?

You find it out by entering the following command into the command line:

Code: Select all

melt -version

[Uncle Tad]

I am using the libavcodec-extra-53 which I just installed before trying to make a dvd. I don't know what MLT I'm using; how do I find that?

[Andy]

See the post from XXLRay just above yours - type -melt version at the command line.

[Uncle Tad]

Andy, I am using mlt 7.4