{"id":202,"date":"2011-02-11T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T00:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.analogrithems.com\/rant\/?p=202"},"modified":"2011-02-11T17:24:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T00:24:14","slug":"convert-avimkvmp4-to-dvd-in-osx-or-someother-nix-derivative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.analogrithems.com\/rant\/convert-avimkvmp4-to-dvd-in-osx-or-someother-nix-derivative\/","title":{"rendered":"Convert avi\/mkv\/mp4 to dvd in OSX or Someother *nix derivative"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often need to convert avi, mkv, mp4 or some other video format to generic DVD.\u00c2\u00a0 Using a Mac, I’ve found that this processes is a pain in the ass.\u00c2\u00a0 It surprises me that there are very few tools for pulling this together.\u00c2\u00a0 I spent a few days searching and see that there was a few tools, but they were either dead projects, or not stable.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, FFMpegX is pretty good at converting video formats, but trying to use it to actually make a dvd with subtitles just doesn’t work for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I did notice that it was based of the opensource ffmpeg, dvdauthor and cdrtools projects, so I decided to use my Darwin Ports system to install the packages (With all prerequisites)\u00c2\u00a0 and use the command line tools to do all the conversion.<\/p>\n

sudo port install ffmpeg<\/p>\n

sudo port install dvdauthor<\/p>\n

sudo port install cdrtools<\/p>\n

I had no clue how easy the command line tools would be to use and decided to document for my own use later.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of my info came from http:\/\/atomized.org\/2005\/03\/converting-divxxvid-avi-to-dvd-with-ffmpeg\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Step 1)\u00c2\u00a0 Convert Source file to DVD video format<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The first thing you need to do is convert the video file to a mpeg2 file with the proper video dimensions 720×480.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily the FFMpeg package has a predefined template for it ‘-target ntsc-dvd, or -target pal-dvd for europe’.\u00c2\u00a0 Since I have a widescreen plasma screen, I use the 16:9 aspect ratio, if you have a more square tv, or if you just want your file more square use the ‘-aspect 4:3’\u00c2\u00a0 The ffmpeg faq<\/a> has some great info on additional options like converting videos to play on game consoles or smart phones or even to just a different format.\u00c2\u00a0 FFMPEG can be downloaded from http:\/\/www.ffmpeg.org<\/a> for non-osx systems<\/p>\n

ffmpeg -i MyMovie.avi -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 16:9 -sameq MyMovie.mpg<\/p>\n

Step 2) Add Subtitles (If Needed)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The easiest way to add subtitles to your newly created mpeg2 file is with DVDAuthor’s spumux tool.\u00c2\u00a0 This tool is a bit confusing to use, so I’ll try to make this as simple as possible.\u00c2\u00a0 First you need to make a xml config file for each subtitle you want to add.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is the one I make, and tend to use over and over by copying the file and changing the subfile name inside. Get the DVDauthor tools here http:\/\/dvdauthor.sourceforge.net<\/a><\/p>\n

<subpictures>
\n<stream>
\n<textsub filename=”ongbak.3.english.srt” characterset=”ISO8859-1″
\nfontsize=”28.0″ font=”Geneva.ttf”
\nhorizontal-alignment=”center”
\nvertical-alignment=”bottom” left-margin=”40″
\nright-margin=”40″
\ntop-margin=”20″ bottom-margin=”30″
\nsubtitle-fps=”25″
\nmovie-fps=”25″ movie-width=”720″ movie-height=”480″
\nforce=”yes”
\n\/>
\n<\/stream>
\n<\/subpictures><\/p>\n

Here is a simple breakdown of what is going on in this config. Better definition found here http:\/\/dvdauthor.sourceforge.net\/doc\/spumux.html<\/a><\/p>\n