Hi all

I am relatively new to linux and am using Suse 10. I have some avi files on my computer and would like to put them all together onto a DVD. I know how to get them onto the DVD as avi files, but would really like to make it possible to play the files on a standard stand alone DVD player. I would also like to put a basic menu on there, so you can select which avi file to view.

If anyone can tell me any software that can manage this or tell me how it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Turner

not sure how it's done now, but for me on my old distro with older packages the process is to convert the avi to a mpeg2 file using something like avidemux. Then you can use a program like dvdstyler to make the menu and burn the mpeg2 file to the dvd.

I have also been trying to do this, and here is where I am right now. There are a couple of apps that can create the dvd file structure and burn the disk. They are qdvdauthor and dvdstyler. I think they are both gui for dvdauthor. I have been using dvdstyler, and it is doing its job well.

The hard part is converting from avi to mpeg2 format. There are several command line tools that should be able to do this: transcode, mencoder (part of mplayer), and ffmpeg. There is a gui for mencoder called avidemux that I used to use to do this, but recent versions have been crashing before the conversion is finished. There is also gtranscode, but it has never worked for me.

I am going to work on transcode some more today, and will post some command line syntax when I get it down. Although it may require some tweaking to get it to work for your situation. You should do some reading up on dvd video formats (NTSC, pal, and all that stuff).

Just downgraded to an older version of avidemux (2.0.42-0), and it finished the transcode. The A/V sync is still not good. Maybe because the avi is variable bitrate or because I am transcoding to variable bitrate mpeg2. I am going to try again with constant bitrate mpeg2.

At any rate, your best bet is to use avidemux to convert to dvd format and then dvdstyler to prepare and burn the dvd.

Ok, thanks very much for your help guys, I'll get my hands on the software and give it ago.

I got it working with avidemux and dvdstyler. Very easy. Here is what I did.
1) Open the avi in avidemux
2) Select DVD codec
3) Configure 2 pass, desired size, interlace BFF, 16:9
4) Video filter DVD res
5) Audio codec Toolame
6) Configure 160 kbits, stereo
7) Select video process and audio process
8) Select output format mpeg a+V (PS)
9) Save video as filename.VOB

If you need more info check in the avidemux forum and the dvdstyler documentation.