Dvd burning movies

[david38400]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the coffee lounge and feel sure I will find it very useful.
The reason I came into the forum is because I'm going mad with confusion about all the different formats being used for movies etc., There is avi, DivX, mpeg2, mpeg4, mpeg, just a few of many to mention. I am trying to do something which I feel should be relatively simple, but its far from it and I can't understand why. For example I downloaded a small movie clip of 100Kb the other day in mp4 format. I wanted to drag to my USB pendrive, watch it on my DVD player and then, if I liked it, burn to DVD with K3b which seems easy enough to use. Theres no way I can do it so I come to the conclusion my USB doesnt accept mp4, but which format does it accept I ask? I burned the clip to CD as it was and it still didn't work. My DVD player says it accepts DVD video, mpeg4 video. Also my DVD burner gives me some pretty odd messages like unable to mount....... error 255, not enough space (which is absurd).
Can anyone give me any useful advise please?
Very many thanks

[reed9]

There's a lot to try and summarize. I'm not an expert in this, but here goes.

First off, some basics. There are two parts to a media format. First there is the container format and second how it's encoded. So that avi file can contain media coded in a number of different formats, requiring different codecs to play.

There are a variety of tools out there to determine just how a file is encoded. Mediainfo is my favorite.

For DVDs, the raw video stream is compressed in the mpeg-2 format.

For video files on the web, there are a number of ways, as you noted, for compressing and encoding the video stream. Most of the common ones fall under a collection of methods called mpeg-4. Mpeg-4 part two includes dvix and xvid, mpeg-4 part 10 includes the now ubiquitous h.264 format, used by youtube primarily.

These different encoding methods have been developed over the years as different companies wanted their own proprietary standards, because of course there is big money if you can get your methods widely in use and charge content providers for the privilege of using them. There has been an ongoing debate over using h.264, for example, because while for now, they are not charging royalties for use, that could change in the future.

There is also the open source theora codec out there.

So back to your problem. There is no reason you can't store a mp4 file on your USB flash drive. I'm a little confused there. As far as putting it on a DVD and being able to play that on a DVD player, you need to convert the file back to a mpeg-2 format to burn. Simply burning it as a data disc won't cut it.

There is a fairly simple linux program out there to do this, called devede. I'm sure there are some others as well.

[david38400]

Wow ... many thanks for your lengthy reply and explanation. It sounds very complicated to me and I understand why. Its all about money at the end of the day.
To try and answer about the USB I did manage to drag and copy the mp4 file into my usb no problem, but my DVD player didn't recognise it. Thats why I wondered if the usb pendrives used only one format and I gather from what you say its mpeg-2. In theory if I can mpeg-2 the movie to check on my pendrive and then burn to disc as mpeg-2 on dvd it should work? No luck so far.
I have tried DeVeDe and like it, but never been able to figure out how to convert in order to see it first on my usb and burn to disc afterwardss. Maybe I am just stupid.It should be a relatively simple thing to do, but Ive not been able to figure it out yet.
Maybe I should have a look at mediainfo to find out whats on the movie I download in order to be able to convert for my usb and burn to disk.
I will give it a try and am very grateful for the time you have taken to try and explain everything.
Best regards and waiting any further comments from any other users having similar problems.

[Rubberman]

The process to convert from one format, such as an mp4/avi format video to another format such as mpeg-2 to record on a dvd, is called transcoding. The most powerful tool for linux to do this is called ffmpeg which I use quite frequently. Once you have transcoded your video to a dvd-compatible mpeg-2 you still need to put it into a form that your dvd player can handle and to do that you need what is called a dvd authoring program. Those programs will create a directory structure with 2 directories named VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS with the video in the VIDEO_TS directory. Here is an example of a DVD VIDEO_TS directory contents:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_02_0.BUP
VTS_02_0.IFO
VTS_02_0.VOB
VTS_02_1.VOB
VTS_03_0.BUP
VTS_03_0.IFO
VTS_03_0.VOB
VTS_03_1.VOB
VTS_04_0.BUP
VTS_04_0.IFO
VTS_04_0.VOB
VTS_04_1.VOB
VTS_04_2.VOB
VTS_04_3.VOB
VTS_04_4.VOB
VTS_05_0.BUP
VTS_05_0.IFO
VTS_05_0.VOB
VTS_05_1.VOB

Note that the AUDIO_TS directory is usually empty. In any case, the VIDEO_TS directory contains the video menus as well as the actual contents of the video. Once your dvd authoring software has created the dvd structure and data files, you can use dvd burning software such as k3b to actually burn the data to a video disc which can be played in your livingroom dvd player.

So, there are 3 steps, though some software may combine 2 or more steps for you.

1. Transcode video to dvd-compatible mpeg-2.
2. Create the dvd menu and file structure with dvd authoring software.
3. Burn dvd to disc.

On my high-end system, it can take from 15 minutes to an hour to transcode a 2 hour movie. Then with the dvd authoring software I use it takes about 15 minutes to create the menus and dvd files. Finally, k3b takes about 5 minutes for a 4.7GB dvd or 15-20 minutes to burn a 9GB double-layer DVD. So, total time to transcode, author, and burn a large move or collection of TV episodes to a 9GB DVD/DL disc is under 2 hours. For a single-layer disc, it can be as little as 1 hour or less.

[david38400]

Thanks for all this info. I really didnt know it was so complicated. I found the easiest way to do things was to use DeVeDe DivX option and this creaed an iso which I burnt to disc no problem and I could play on my DVD at home. The problem I had was I couldnt drag the iso to my pendrive to check it on the DVD player beforehand. The other problem I faced was not being able to burn 2 or 3 iso's to the same DVD to save some space. Neither was I able to edit before I converted to DivX.
I'll have to study all you say very closely, but must admit it seems a very long way round to do things to me and I may not be capable of doing it your way.
Thanks for your help.

[Rubberman]

You really can't burn an ISO to a USB thumb drive, but you can copy the DVD directory structure to a thumb drive and play that with most Linux video players.

[david38400]

mmmmm............ well thats very interesting for me. I didn't know that and it could be a good solution. Can you guide me as to how I can get to the directory of an iso so I can drag to my usb pendrive?
That will be of great help. Thanks.

[Rubberman]

If you have an iso that you want to copy to a pen drive you can mount it and then just copy the files over. Example:

# first create directory for iso
mkdir dirname
# now mount the iso image to the directory created
sudo mount -o loop dvdname.iso dirname
# next copy the directory and contents to thumb drive
cp -rf dirname /media/drivename
# finally unmount the iso
sudo umount dirname

Note that dirname and drivename are symbolic of the actual names. You can use any directory name you want, but leave out any spaces or you will have to quote it when you mount/unmount it. The drivename directory is where the automounter put the usb drive, which is usually under /media as shown.

[Rubberman]

Additional information: most dvd players have a "play from directory" capability. By default they look for dvd's in the physical drive(s), but you can tell them to use the contents of a file system directory as well, which they will treat like a dvd if it has the correct structure - a VIDEO_TS sub-directory at the least, with the BUP, IFO, and VOB files as I showed previously.

[david38400]

Well I did try in terminal but my experience just doesn't able me to do what you are telling me. As much as I would love to be able to do this my capabilities don't allow me to.
I typed in mkdir and made up the file name
next sudo mount -o loop then I got lost. Is the dvd name what the actual iso file is called? And the dirname can this be what I like for example "relaxiso" nothing else?
Thanks