OK, so now that we know the list isn't broken, just quiet, I thought I'd throw a topic out there to get some input.
What's the best DVD authoring software for linux? Preferably, I'd want something GUI-based that you can make menus and add video clips or directories of pictures as slide shows and outputs to an ISO file I can burn with my program of choice. Below, are the programs I've tried.
Avidemux: I can't figure out what exactly it's even supposed to do. Re-sampling/re-encoding video maybe, but not dvd-authoring. Cinnelera: This app feels REALLY clunky, and while it got much kudos from TLLTS, I can't get it to do anything useful. When I start it, it says to run "echo "0x7fffffff" > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax". So I do that, and try to restart it, and it doesn't even come up! I see a window titled "[x]" on the taskbar, but until I kill off that window, i can't even launch the applications menu to find another program. QDVDAuthor: Depends on QTDevel, any one of xine, vlc, or mplayer, and dvd-slideshow. Looks like they put as much work into the compiler/installer as they did into the app itself. It's kind of touchy, and I still haven't gotten it to do what I want, but haven't given up yet. DVDBaker: Haven't tried it yet DVD-Slideshow: CLI, which I would normally prefer, but it doesn't make sense in my head to create a graphical work through a text interface. I only downloaded and installed this because it was a dependency of QDVDAuthor DVDStyler: I can't figure out how to import a directory of pictures. It looks like a nice clean program, and outputs to an ISO like I want. However, when I try to make a disk of a video, I get "**ERROR: [mplex] Too many frame drops -exiting. Error executing of command: mplex -f 8 -S 0 -o "/home/BCrook/Desktop/dvdstyler/title0- 0-0.vob" "/home/BCrook/Desktop/dvdstyler/title0-0-0-0.m1v" "/home/BCrook/Desktop/dvdstyler/title0-0-0-0.mp2"" ExFalso: WTF. I don't even get what it's supposed to do. Kino: I like it. It's probably the best yet for editing video sequences. However, I don't know about picture galleries, and I can't figure out to get an ISO out of it. AND, the AUDIO IS OUT OF SYNC! So I can't use it. It also had to convert the mpg files into dv files, which I'm OK with, but maybe that conversion caused the audio to be out of sync.
Also on a humorous side-note, when you're on a plane with 80% battery remaining, don't start up all these tools at once in their own workspace. Even with 4 gigs of ram, when they're all trying to load up or inport 500 megs of media, it ties up the system for some time.
-Billy
For actually authoring the DVD, I've found a set of scripts called tovid. Safe to run the CVS, since they're just scripts/wrappers for other functions, and they are working on it on an hourly basis. I have literally made a request and had the feature within five minutes. The main scripts are console-based, but there is a gui and a tk guy which basically run the scripts with slightly limited options. You can run through with the GUI and get the commands to make the disk, then just tweak the fine points in the console, or you can take what the GUI gives you which is pretty nice.
I use avidemux for some other things like editing or trimming. Not sure why it's hanging on you, try ignoring that startup command.
Billy Crook wrote:
However, I don't know about picture galleries, and I can't figure out to get an ISO out of it.
You might try using Google Picasa. It can create a video slide show from a selection of photographs. Then you could use Kino to add the audio. Just a thought.
If you don't mind spending money (200), Mainactor is a pretty nice video editor. You can download it and try it out. The demo is full featured, except it puts a big watermark across the video. My wife got Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films to pay for our copy, so I'm diggin it for free. :-) She uses it every day and has had good success with it.
HTH, Jim
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Billy Crook -
Jim Herrmann -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Luke -Jr