Current version: 1.3
DeVeDe is a program that allows you to create a video DVD from an MPEG, AVI, MOV... video file, suitable for home DVD players. DeVeDe uses Mplayer, Mencoder and DVDAuthor, so you can use any video playable with Mplayer.
To install DeVeDe, first you must ensure you have Mplayer, Mencoder and DVDAuthor in your system. Then, yous run the install.sh script as root. It will copy all the files at the right place. It should create even an entry in your Gnome/KDE/freedesktop-compatible-windowmanager menu.
Here is an screenshot of the main interface:
A DVD is divided in Titles and Chapters. Each title is a film on its own, and, when played, you have to choose the one you want to see. Into each title you can add as many files you want, and cut them in chapters to allow an easy search.
In the screenshot, we see that there's two titles, and at title two we have two files. The files in a title will be played one after another, so they will be treated as a single film. So if you only want to create a DVD with one single film from multiple files, you have to put them in a single title. Your player will merge all of them in a single film.
The File info box contains all the information about the selected file: desired audio an video rate, original size, FPS and length in seconds. It has the stimated size in Mbytes, but have in mind that is an estimation, so the final size can be lower.
The DVD usage shows the percentage of the DVD currently used. You can occupy more than the 100% because it's based in an stimation, so the final size can (and probably will) be lower than the spected. You can choose the DVD size too.
Finally, the Action block allows you to choose what do you want to create. The first option, Only convert files to DVD-compliant MPEG-2 files takes each file and converts it to a DVD-compliant MPEG-PS file. You can choose a generic name, being the default name "movie", so the files will have names like movie_XX_YY.mpg, being XX the title, and YY the file position into the title. An example: if you have two titles, and two files in the first title and three files at the second title, you will get five files: movie_01_01.mpg, movie_01_02.mpg, movie_02_01.mpg, movie_02_02.mpg and movie_02_03.mpg. This option is specially usefull when you want to create DVD menus with other program like DVD Styler, Q DVD Author or PoliDori.
The second option, Create DVD structure creates the MPEG files and then uses DVDAuthor to create the DVD tree structure. After that, it erases the MPEG files. You can use this option to create the folder and files for a DVD and use your own DVD recording program to create the ISO image and burn it into a DVD.
The third option, Create an ISO image, ready to burn to a DVD, converts the files to MPEG, creates the DVD tree and, using MKISOFS, creates the ISO file, erasing then the MPEG and DVD tree to free disk space. Use this option to create the ISO image ready to be burned to a DVD.
Remember that DeVeDe deletes all the temporary files, so, if you choose to create the ISO file, all the other files (the DVD tree and the movies in MPEG format) will be erased.
When you add a new file to a title, you will see this window:
First you choose the file you want to add. After doing it, you can see its properties at the File info block. You can then choose the new audio an video rate. Remember that bigger rates will give you more quality, but bigger size too.
You can choose to divide the file in chapters each X minutes, so if you choose 5 minutes, you will have a chapter each 5 minutes. You can choose different intervals for each file. Is a good practice to divide files in chapters, because that allows you to easily jump to the desired part of the DVD.
Then, you can choose the expand method to use when the aspect ratio of the original file is not 4/3. The first method is the preferred, and consists in adding the classic bars up and down. It has the advantage of maintain the aspect ratio, so the faces will look natural. The alternative method consists in expand the film, so the faces will look enlarged.
The Audio delay box is used to adjust the audio/video sync, allowing to fix videos with audio out of sync. You can set positive or negative values.
Finally, you can choose if you want to create a PAL/SECAM or a NTSC DVD. DeVeDe will remember the last option you used, even between sessions, so you can choose it once and forget it.
Maybe you ask why I put this option here and not in the main window. The answer is: because this way you can create hybrid DVDs, with some films in PAL/SECAM format and others in NTSC. What is the utility of this? I don't know, but maybe someone needs it someday...
There's a Preview button that converts some seconds (you can choose how many), allowing you to check the audio/video quality and the audio sync. It will create the temporary file at /var/tmp, so be sure to have write access there.
Is possible that the preview doesn't play smoothly. This is because the program has a reduced priority. Don't worry about that, just keep your attention in the picture/sound quality and in the audio sync.
DeVeDe will choose automagically the best resolution and framerate, based in the original video resolution and if you wanted PAL/SECAM or NTSC format. DeVeDe will use resolutions of 352x288 for PAL/SECAM, or 352x240 for NTSC, if the video's resolution is smaller than that. If not, it will jump to 720x576 for PAL/SECAM or 720x480 for NTSC.
After adding all the files you want, you will be prompted for a directory where DeVeDe will create all the files, and a generic name for them. The directory must have sufficient free space to hold all the temporary files (aprox. the double of the final DVD size). The generic name will be used to name all the temporary files, so the MPEG files will be named as GENERICNAME_XX_YY.MPG, the DVD tree directory will be named GENERICNAME, and the ISO image will be named GENERICNAME.ISO.
Finally, the program will start to create the files. Remember that this is a very slow process, and can need more than an hour to be completed.
DeVeDe 1.1 can be installed in other directories, like your own home directory. This allows to use DeVeDe in machines where you don't have root access. To do so, just copy the files:
into a folder, and run devede.py from that directory ("barras.png" and "estira.png" are in the "pixmaps" directory).
Version 1.3
Version 1.2
Version 1.1
Version 1.02b
Version 1.02
Version 1.01
Version 1.0
This program has been created by Sergio Costas (Raster Software Vigo).
http://www.rastersoft.com
e-mail: raster@rastersoft.com