I have used ffmpeg to convert .avi file into a dvd file. when i burn it to a disc, it doesnt play on my dVD player, it just says MPEG, and doesnt play. I am assuming it is somethign i am doign wrong, how can i help?
The conversion is to a DVD compatible MPEG, of which you can create a VIDEO-DVD that can be read in a stand alone player.
You should not have burnt the file to disk (though it will still play in your computer and some stand alones).
A simple way:
Install ‘devede’ from the Packman repo, hit Alt-F2, type “devede”, hit Enter.
Devede has a simple interface, where you “put in” the generated MPEG, choose DVD, burn with k3b option, done.
A VIDEO-DVD simply said has a different architecture, it has 2 folders, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS, and media are stored in VOB-containers. Just open an officially released DVD in Dolphin and you’ll see.
Good luck, it is fun once you know how to do it.
Right, when I am converting it with the gui of ffmpeg… what do i select it to convert to? MPEG4? DVD? << which is what went wrong last time… there are many others,
For every dvd that I am about to create, I always check the mpeg file before burning (and indeed before the .vob creation) for mpeg compatibility.
The way that I have done that is to install the packman packager’s packaged version of tovid. With tovid comes a program “idvid”. And for example, if I have a mpeg file called oldcpu-video.mpg, I will test its compatibility by typing:
idvid oldcpu-video.mpg
and that will give me a technical assessment whether the mpeg is dvd compliant, ready for vob creation.
Another quality check I do, prior to burning from k3b, is I open the .vob directory (that I created prior to dragging the files into k3b) with the program vlc. vlc will often give me a good quality check if the .vob structure is ok.
Ummm, i’m not quite understand what you mean :\ im new to all this stuf lol… could u explain it any further?
If I understand correctly, you are trying to create a ‘video dvd’ that you can just put into your dvd player, and have it play.
There is a specific file structure that MUST be on that dvd in order for a standard dvd file to play the dvd. That file structure consists of two top level directories: audio_ts (which is usually empty) and video_ts (which as various files in it, such as video_ts.bup, video_ts.ifo, vts_01_1.bup, vts_01_1.ifo, and vts_01_1.vob where the last file with the “.vob” extension (and there may be multiple files with this .vob extension) is the file with the video inside. The other files contain important information for the dvd menus, chapters and other essential playback information, whether or not it is used.
Hence typically programs such as man2dvd, tovid, dvdauthor, etc … create the two video_ts and audio_ts directory, and one has to thus drag the contents of the video_ts directory into the appropriate location in the k3b program when a “dvd format” is selected.
I was “lazy” in my post and called it a .vob directory, when in fact it is really a “video_ts” directory. Mea culpa.