Create Video DVD with Other Files
Creating a Video DVD with other files (pictures in my case) then you can have a DVD that works like a normal DVD in normal players and stuff... also you can have a few files on it ;-).
How to create a DVD-Video image under Linux with
mkisofs.
Prerequisite is that you have a valid VIDEO_TS/AUDIO_TS structure with valid VOB, BUP and IFO files. If any of those files are not up to the spec of the DVD-Video specification the burned video will not play in a stand alone player. This document is not how to rip a DVD or author a DVD it's about the image and burning part of the DVD-Video making.
If you want that then I recommend that you have a look at
dvdauthor and devede. Learning about the
structure and how these things actually work is important... otherwise
it is just "magic" and we all know how useless that is ;-).
The VIDEO_TS/AUDIO_TS can look something like this if you do a ls -lR in the top directory.
.: total 16 drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 22 18:45 . dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 22 19:08 .. dr-x------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 22 16:34 AUDIO_TS dr-x------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 22 18:58 VIDEO_TS ./AUDIO_TS: total 8 dr-x------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 22 16:34 . dr-x------ 4 root root 4096 Jan 22 18:45 .. ./VIDEO_TS: total 4051408 dr-x------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 22 18:58 . dr-x------ 4 root root 4096 Jan 22 18:45 .. -r-------- 1 root root 12288 Jan 22 16:47 VIDEO_TS.BUP -r-------- 1 root root 159744 Jan 22 16:34 VIDEO_TS.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 71680 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_0.BUP -r-------- 1 root root 71680 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_0.IFO -r-------- 1 root root 159744 Jan 22 16:34 VTS_01_0.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 1073565696 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_1.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 1073565696 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_2.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 1073565696 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_3.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 1073565696 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_4.VOB -r-------- 1 root root 923359232 Jan 22 16:47 VTS_01_5.VOB
It's important that you have both the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directory even if shouldn't make a difference if the AUDIO_TS one is missing. Some player simply refuse to play the disk if there is no AUDIO_TS directory. You must have all file names in UPPER CASE, all files should have the 400 permission and directories should have 500 permission. I don't know how important the latter once are but it's always nice to be on the safe side.
DVD-Video physical layout
In order to make a valid DVD-Video image the files in the image has to ordered in a specific physical order. It's important the the first file on the disk is the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. The DVD player will seek the VIDEO_TS.IFO and from it get the information on which sectors the other files start and end.
The physical layout must follow the roules in the VIDEO_TS.IFO, and the VTS_XX_0.IFO files. E.g if the VIDEO_TS.IFO specifies that VTS_01_0.IFO starts at sector 345 (offset from VIDEO_TS.IFO) it must do so. There are similar "rules" in all the IFO files.
It's also imperative that VTS_XX_1.VOB comes before
VTS_XX_2.VOB sector
wise. A stand alone DVD player doesn't have a clue about individual VOB
files and plays them in one chunk starting at sector X and end at sector
Y.
The file order is as follows in our case:
VIDEO_TS.IFO VIDEO_TS.BUP VTS_01_0.IFO VTS_01_0.VOB VTS_01_1.VOB VTS_01_2.VOB VTS_01_3.VOB VTS_01_4.VOB VTS_01_5.VOB VTS_01_0.BUP
If your DVD-Video would contain more than one "vob" set it could
looks like this (In this case we had a VIDEO_TS.VOB menu
VOBS are optional hence you may not have a
VTS_XX_0.VOB)
VIDEO_TS.IFO VIDEO_TS.VOB VIDEO_TS.BUP VTS_01_0.IFO VTS_01_0.VOB VTS_01_1.VOB VTS_01_2.VOB VTS_01_3.VOB VTS_01_4.VOB VTS_01_0.BUP VTS_02_0.IFO VTS_02_0.VOB VTS_02_1.VOB VTS_02_2.VOB VTS_02_3.VOB VTS_02_4.VOB VTS_02_0.BUP
Controlling the physical layout of the iso/udf image
To be able to control the physical layout of the iso/udf DVD-Video image you will need the 1.11a27 alpha/beta of mkisofs it includes the latest patches that enables mkisofs to parse the IFO files and extract the information how to layout the DVD-Video file structure. Mkisofs - allready has capability to sort the files so you don't need to do anything besides using the right switch.
Making the image with mkisofs
Now when we have made the sort file we are ready to burn the image. Let say that we have the top of our AUDIO_TS/VIDEO_TS structure under /DVD_PROJECTS/HOMEDVD/ an example session of mkisofs would be like this.
$ cd /DVD_PROJECTS/HOMEDVD/ $ ls -R .: . .. AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS ./AUDIO_TS: . .. ./VIDEO_TS: . VIDEO_TS.BUP VIDEO_TS.VOB VTS_01_0.IFO VTS_01_1.VOB VTS_01_3.VOB .. VIDEO_TS.IFO VTS_01_0.BUP VTS_01_0.VOB VTS_01_2.VOB VTS_01_4.VOB ################################################## ##################### # Now we know that every thing is correct and we can make the image! ################################################## ##################### Code: $ cd / $ mkisofs -dvd-video -o /DVD_PROJECTS/homedvd.img /DVD_PROJECTS/HOMEDVD/ 0.25% done, estimate finish Tue Jan 22 19:14:54 2002 0.49% done, estimate finish Tue Jan 22 19:11:33 2002 [SNIP] 99.80% done, estimate finish Tue Jan 22 19:12:21 2002 Total translation table size: 0 Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0 Total directory bytes: 4096 Path table size(bytes): 42 Max brk space used 4000 2024016 extents written (3953 Mb) $
Verifying the image with isoinfo
It's always a good idea to verify the image before we burn it.
$ isoinfo -i homedvd.img -l Directory listing of / d--------- 0 0 0 2048 Feb 9 2002 [ 277] . d--------- 0 0 0 2048 Feb 9 2002 [ 277] .. d--------- 0 0 0 2048 Feb 9 2002 [ 278] VIDEO_TS Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/ d--------- 0 0 0 2048 Feb 9 2002 [ 278] . d--------- 0 0 0 2048 Feb 9 2002 [ 277] .. ---------- 0 0 0 8192 Feb 9 2002 [ 311] VIDEO_TS.BUP;1 ---------- 0 0 0 8192 Feb 9 2002 [ 279] VIDEO_TS.IFO;1 ---------- 0 0 0 86016 Feb 9 2002 [2136055] VTS_01_0.BUP;1 ---------- 0 0 0 86016 Feb 9 2002 [ 343] VTS_01_0.IFO;1 ---------- 0 0 0 4345856 Feb 9 2002 [ 407] VTS_01_0.VOB;1 ---------- 0 0 0 1073739776 Feb 9 2002 [ 2551] VTS_01_1.VOB;1 ---------- 0 0 0 1073739776 Feb 9 2002 [ 526838] VTS_01_2.VOB;1 ---------- 0 0 0 1073739776 Feb 9 2002 [1051125] VTS_01_3.VOB;1 ---------- 0 0 0 1073739776 Feb 9 2002 [1575412] VTS_01_4.VOB;1 ---------- 0 0 0 74405888 Feb 9 2002 [2099699] VTS_01_5.VOB;1
It's the numbers between the brackets that we are interested in. It
tells us the
start sector of each file. VIDEO_TS.IFO must have the
lowest sector number of all files!
[ 279] VIDEO_TS.IFO [ 311] VIDEO_TS.BUP [ 343] VTS_01_0.IFO [ 407] VTS_01_0.VOB [ 2551] VTS_01_1.VOB [ 526838] VTS_01_2.VOB [1051125] VTS_01_3.VOB [1575412] VTS_01_4.VOB [2099699] VTS_01_5.VOB [2136055] VTS_01_0.BUP
Now do the same on your original DVD-Video (I'm asuming that you are doing a backup). The important thing here is to do a "original-VIDEO_TS.IFO-startsector - copy-VIDEO_TS.IFO-startsector" and note down the diff between the files. Now repete the same calculation for each of the files. The diff should be the same for all file pairs.
Now you can burn your image with your favourite software.
References
References is a bit of a stretch, I just copied it...