Creating a DVD

This article mainly concerns using mjpegtools from the command line. It is also worth looking at tovid and related packages.

If you are starting from an analogue source -

you will need a capture card. Examples of ones based on the Zoran ZR36067 mjpeg codec chip are

- Buz, MiroPinnacle DC10, DC10+, LML33, Matrox Marvel.

- There is a link to the zoran driver on http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net, and the Matrox driver can be found from http://marvel.sourceforge.net.

Most if not all of these are now obsolete, but are available on Ebay. More modern analogue to DV converter cards can also be used.

Kernel modules to talk to the board -

zr36060 zr36067 adv7175 saa7110
zoran i2c-algo-bit i2c-core videocodec

Some of these are included in recent versions of the kernel (post 2005?).

Everybody needs -

- Video4linux (v4l) installed and running

- Cables -

svideo or composite from camcorder to capture card
audio from camcorder to soundcard line-in

- A toolkit to handle the conversion

mjpegtools

- An application to handle the conversion

dvdauthor

- A TV application - optional but useful while capturing

xawtv was fine for me in the past, but has been a problem recently. I now simply monitor the camcorder's screen.

- Oodles of disk space

at least 15GB for a single DVD

Captured .avi files are huge. Intermediate stage files are less big, bu there are many of them. It may be necessary to move some files to temporary storage (DVD-RW?) if space is tight.

Putting it all together -

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