From VIDEO_TS to working video DVD in Linux / 2007-11-27

A friend created a video dvd in the form of a VIDEO_TS subdir with some files, so I finally had to find out how to create a working DVD from that. Using Linux, ofcourse. And using the command-line.

This is the subject of several dozen howto's on the web, all differing in opinion on certain subjects.

From VIDEO_TS to .iso

First, converting the VIDEO_TS to a correct dvd image. You need to have the VIDEO_TS data in a subdir(!!) from the root of the future dvd. Start with an empty dir:

$ mkdir dvd
$ cd dvd

Put the VIDEO_TS data in a VIDEO_TS subdir. Indeed: with capital letters.

$ ls
VIDEO_TS

Creating the dvd image with mkisofs with the -dvd-video commandline flag.

$ mkisofs -dvd-video -o ../dvd.iso .
INFO:   UTF-8 character encoding detected by locale settings.
        Assuming UTF-8 encoded filenames on source filesystem,
        use -input-charset to override.
Unknown file type (unallocated) ./.. - ignoring and continuing.
  0.70% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:31:25 2007
  1.40% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:31:25 2007
  2.09% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:31:25 2007
  2.79% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:32:00 2007

 99.03% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:32:52 2007
 99.72% done, estimate finish Mon Nov 26 15:32:52 2007
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 2158
Path table size(bytes): 26
Max brk space used 0
716987 extents written (1400 MB)

Now you have a dvd-video ready iso file:

$ cd ..
$ ls -lh dvd.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 koos users 1.4G Nov 26 15:32 dvd.iso

To be sure, you can check it:

$ isoinfo -l -i dvd.iso 

Directory listing of /
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 26 2007 [    275 02]  . 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 26 2007 [    275 02]  .. 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 26 2007 [    276 02]  VIDEO_TS 

Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 26 2007 [    276 02]  . 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 26 2007 [    275 02]  .. 
----------   0    0    0            8192 Nov 22 2007 [    281 00]  VIDEO_TS.BUP;1 
----------   0    0    0            8192 Nov 22 2007 [    277 00]  VIDEO_TS.IFO;1 
----------   0    0    0           36864 Nov 22 2007 [ 479292 00]  VTS_01_0.BUP;1 
----------   0    0    0           36864 Nov 22 2007 [    285 00]  VTS_01_0.IFO;1 
----------   0    0    0       980969472 Nov 22 2007 [    303 00]  VTS_01_1.VOB;1 
----------   0    0    0           30720 Nov 22 2007 [ 716821 00]  VTS_02_0.BUP;1 
----------   0    0    0           30720 Nov 22 2007 [ 479310 00]  VTS_02_0.IFO;1 
----------   0    0    0       486391808 Nov 22 2007 [ 479325 00]  VTS_02_1.VOB;1 

Burning the .iso

This needs to be done as root (not too much of a surprise as this requests low-level access to the dvd-burner).

# growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/hdc=dvd.iso 
Executing 'builtin_dd if=dvd.iso of=/dev/hdc obs=32k seek=0'
/dev/hdc: "Current Write Speed" is 16.4x1385KBps.
         0/1468389376 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
         0/1468389376 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
         0/1468389376 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
         0/1468389376 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
         0/1468389376 ( 0.0%) @0x, remaining ??:??
   4063232/1468389376 ( 0.3%) @0.9x, remaining 138:08
  35028992/1468389376 ( 2.4%) @6.5x, remaining 17:43
  66486272/1468389376 ( 4.5%) @6.7x, remaining 10:32

1344405504/1468389376 (91.6%) @10.0x, remaining 0:13
1392017408/1468389376 (94.8%) @10.1x, remaining 0:08
1440120832/1468389376 (98.1%) @10.2x, remaining 0:03
builtin_dd: 716992*2KB out @ average 6.6x1385KBps
/dev/hdc: flushing cache
/dev/hdc: closing track
/dev/hdc: closing disc

The result: a fresh video dvd. And it works in the DVD-player at home (which is from way back when DVD-players weren't given away with laundry soap).

Making dvd stuff in Linux

From source to video_ts is a different process. I'm not active in that area yet.

• Linux gazette 83, DVD authoring