(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

The latest version of dvdauthor is 0.6.14. Is that what you are asking?

Oh okay yes that was my question. Hey so I just tried ripping the movie Jumper and I checked "Check here if you want to shrink with vamps" and I checked "Check here if you want to author the file into a dvd" and I also checked "Check here if you want to burn the dvd after authoring". After all of this seemed to be successfully completed, I tried running the DVD with gxine and choosing "DVD". It says it could not be completed. So I tried running it on my PS2 and it says please insert a PS2 format game or a compatible DVD movie. I'm guessing it didn't work right? I've used something similar to this which is a Windows program called DVDShrink but I don't understand why it didn't work.

Can you mount the dvd that you burned? If you can then it should contain a directory named "video_ts" and inside that directory there should be some vob & other files.

Yes, it does burn the DVD with the files normally contained by the movie. The problem is, is that the image is no longer detected as a DVD movie, it is only a DVD with files that happen to be movie files. So I can manually open these files and watch them on my computer but it does not work in DVD players nor does it autorun on my computer.

Can you list all the files that are in the "video_ts" directory? I'm just curious if there are .ifo, .vob, & .bup files. Does it play on a standard standalone dvd player (besides your PS2)?

I tried it on my Xbox as well as a standalone DVD player in my living room. It says "No Disc". The files in my VIDEO_TS folder are: VIDEO_TS.BUP, VIDEO_TS.IFO, VTS_01_0.BUP, VTS_01_0.IFO, VTS_01_1.VOB, VTS_01_2.VOB, VTS_01_3.VOB, VTS_01_4.VOB.

FYI: The packages I installed in order for PDVDRSAB-01.PET is vamps, vobcopy, and dvdauthor-patched. Is that all I need?

Yeah, those are the programs you'll need. Maybe you just got a bad burn? I've also had issues with several dvd players if DVD-R is used. I always use DVD+R now. Of course it's hard for me to know for sure what the issue may be unless somehow I had the dvd to examine.

Yea I use DVD+Rs. I did another copy so maybe my DVD burner is being stupid. I've had problems with it before, maybe it finally gave out. Oh well, My hard drive is dead so I can't even test it on Windows. Haha.. Is there a dvd test utility for Puppy you know of? To test if the DVD burner works that is.

Well, I'd think if you can mount the dvd and watch the .vob files that the burn was okay. Does the last .vob file play all the way until the end of the movie?

Yes. Well I suppose the only problem is that it won't run as a normal DVD movie. =/

Right, I get that. I just wanted to make sure the entire video was burned and it didn't stop short making it unplayable. I'm not sure what the problem may be. I'll have to try to use it with all the options sometime in the next couple of days to see if it works for me.

Alright, I appreciate your work by the way. It's a really great program. You should look into DVDShrink which is a Windows program as said earlier in the thread. Try it using Wine or something it works very well and is quite similar to this program. Might help you in your work.

I've been attempting to get Puppy to rip and burn DVDs for a few days now.

Of all the things I've tried so far, I had the best luck with Wine (including cabextract) and DVDShrink.

Now I have DVD files on my HD, how can I burn em to make a single layer DVD that will play in a stand alone player? Last time I tried Pburn it made a data disk that does not work in a stand alone.

TIA

BTW

DVDShrink is a pretty darn cool program and is worth checking out, unfortunately development has been discontinued so it is hard to find. Of course I have a copy if you are interested ...

I haven't really messed with this program in quite some time but I do see a potential problem. I'm using the large file support option in vobcopy when ripping and if the partition your saving the ripped file to doesn't support files over 4 gigabytes the rip will abruptly stop with no explanation (well vobcopy explains the problem but my gui doesn't). I didn't realize this until I just tried to rip to an external FAT32 drive. It works fine on my internal EXT3 drive though. I'll probably do some modifications to check the format of the chosen partition and display a warning message. What type of partitions have large file support besides EXT3 & NTFS? I think I'll probably add an option for converting to AVI using ffmpeg too.

plinej, I seem to be having similar problems to others in the forum.

The ripping part seems to work, In fact it made a single mpg file that works perfectly when played in Gxine. I am not able to burn this to a DVD though as the file is 4.2Gb.

The file is currently sitting on an EXT2 partition. I though EXT2 partitions could handle files over 4Gb!

Also when the authoring process was occurring I noticed there were several error messages to do with sound. Can't remember the exact message but something to do with negative position or similar. Not sure if this makes any sense to you, doesn't to me.

When I put the DVD in a DVD player, not a computer, it will only play the first VOB file and there are five. Obviously the authoring part did not work properly.

On a positive note, the DVD I copied from was also a copy and a bad one at that. When I watched it on my DVD player it had frequent pixelation and often stopped although the counter continued. When viewed in Puppy and Gxine it worked perfectly. The reason I tried to copy this DVD was to see if Puppy could improve things and it did. My copy of the bad copy worked fine on the DVD player except it would only play that first chapter/file.

If I was to reformat the partition to EXT3 do you think the problem would disappear?

I have tried to use Pburn to copy the single file to a DVD and that failed also due to the >4Gb problem.

Any ideas

Thanks

Smokey

The error messages that are spit out by dvdauthor are rather cryptic but most of them don't cause any problems for playing back the dvds. I would say try to do your authoring on an ext3 partition to see if it works. I'm not sure why the dvd won't play for you. The ones I've authored seem to work fine using this program. If you mount the dvd could you list the sizes and filenames of the files in the video_ts directory? If you're ripping a copied dvd you should be able to just drag the files off of the dvd and burn a copy of the video_ts folder since the vob files will already be decrypted.

plinej wrote:If you mount the dvd could you list the sizes and filenames of the files in the video_ts directory? If you're ripping a copied dvd you should be able to just drag the files off of the dvd and burn a copy of the video_ts folder since the vob files will already be decrypted.

I haven't actually tried copying the files from the copied DVD to a new one. Although they have been decrypted I think it must have been a poor job due to the pixelation I mentioned earlier. At least after I used your decryption it seem to get rid of the pixelation.

Is there a way to get around this 4Gb file size problem?

Thanks

Smokey

You need to use a filesystem that supports large files for now. I'd suggest using EXT3.

plinej wrote:You need to use a filesystem that supports large files for now. I'd suggest using EXT3.

Using an EXT3 file system seem to work.

Are there any user guides available to using this program?

Do you need to copy both VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS even though AUDIO_TS directory is empty to make it play on a DVD player?

I didn't copy the AUDIO_TS directory and it plays on my home theater system but not as a DVD in Gxine.

Strange stuff these DVDs. No wonder I haven't had much interest in the past.

All you should need is the video_ts directory.