Burning a DVD in Linux using K3b

[musca]

Well, this issue has me pretty stumped. I dl'ed the AudExp U2 show in Brooklyn. Was there myself so I wanted to compile a keepsake for myself and some folks I met up there.

I can play it just fine in Apple's DVD player by opening the VIDEO_TS file. Works like a charm. I can also play it with the Mac VLC, but with no audio. Though I'm not super familliar with VLC, so I could be doing something wrong there.

The trick is, I dont have a DVD burner on my Powerbook. I do have one on my Dell Server runing Red Hat Fedora Core 2. I hadn't burned any DVD's in that yet so this is my first project. I'm using K3b to do the burning.

I copied over the whole contents of the torrent and dropped the VIDEO_TS folder to the root of a data DVD project. It burned fine. However, my DVD players (samsung and a no-name I forget at the moment) wouldn't play the disc. So I put the disc in my Powerbook and the files were there. I tried opening the VIDEO_TS folder in the Mac DVD player to verify. I got a system error:
"Could not detect a valid media file. [-700001]"

I then reburned the DVD adding an empty AUDIO_TS folder, just to see if that would help. No dice.

I don't yet have a DVD player installed on the Linux box (brand new install, I'm keeping it pretty clean), so I mounted the directory containing the files t my Powerbook and tried to play the file with the Mac DVD player over the network. Naturally, it was choppy, but it PLAYED!

Any thoughts as to why the file is no good when it's written to a DVD? I'm about three hours from getting the MTV show and I'd like to be able to burn that one as well.

I've looked at the archives and didn't see anything that sounded like this. As far as I could tell, burning the VIDEO_TS to the root of a DVD should just work.

Thanks! And what an awesome community you guys have here.

[jaguaracer]

Does your DVD player read the format you are burning on? ie Does it read DVD+r and/or DVD-r discs?
Check here for the compatability of your dvd player: www.videohelp.com
edit: I reread your post and saw that the disc itself won't play in your computer. Hmmm...

[U2Lynne]

What program are you using to burn the DVD? You don't just burn a data disc on a PC.

Here's (http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1039) a thread for you about burning DVDs.

[musca]

These are DVD+RW discs. I actually did burn off another project which I'd authored a while ago but created it from scratch and used an .iso to burn it. That one plays fine in all of my devices.

The Linux program I'm using is called K3b. (http://k3b.org) It only gives "burn data DVD project" as a wizard option. I don't see video DVD.

Here's a rundown of what happens when I try to play the DVD in my standalone player:

- insert disc
- screen displays "loading" message and animation like normal.
- screen briefly flashes to black and then back to the "wallpaper" (for lack of a better term) At this time, the screen displays an overlay of "DVD" which I would assume means it's recognized the disc format. When I play a VCD, it says "VCD"
- Hitting menu or stop, etc. presents the "you can't do that at this point" icon. When I do it in the Apple DVD player, it says "operation not permitted" or something like that.
- Bang head on entertainment center
- rinse
- repeat

When I put it in my Powerbook, it mounts and immediately pulls up the Apple DVD player. I would assume this means it's recognized it as a playable DVD-video disc. Wouldn't ya think?

Is it something like a filesystem format or header that I'm missing by just copying the VIDEO_TS folder to the root and burning it? Maybe it's not identifying itself as a proper DVD?I suppose I could try using Toast to create an iso, move it over to the Linux box and try it from there?

[U2Lynne]

I think it's the way you are burning it. On my Mac, when I burn a DVD, I actually *do* go to the Data tab on Toast and burn a DVD-ROM. The first thing I have to do before I drag the VIDEO_TS folder into the window, however, is hit the New Disc tab and give the disc a Name. Then I drag the VIDEO_TS folder onto the disc and burn it. If I don't do that, then I end up with just a regular data disc that acts like yours does.

If you don't see something like that (a way to hit New Disc first before dragging the VIDEO_TS folder onto it), you may create a Disc Image using Toast as you suggested. Follow steps 1-6 on this guide (http://u2lynne.sandsmuseum.com/burning.html#anchor9) (take a look at the picture there to make sure you did it right), but then go up to File / Save as Disc Image and it should create a Disc Image for you.

I hope that helps!

[musca]

Bingo. I got it to work.

It was in the burning. Even though the opening wizard for K3b didn't include DVD video project, I was able to find it in some sub-menus of the New Project menu. There's a lot in there that's not listed in the opening dialogs.

This is why I hate wizards. :lol

So, for future reference:

In K3b, don't use the wizard. Go to "File" > "New Project" and select "New DVD Video Project."

It will lay out the DVD project for you with the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. You just drop the corresponding contents into them. You must already have the vob's and stuff created by another program.

More than likely, what I was missing was some filesystem header or something.

Thanks a mil'!

[U2Lynne]

I'm going to change the thread title to "Burning a DVD in linux using K3b" so other people can easily find it.

I'm glad you got it to work.

[musca]

I'm going to change the thread title to "Burning a DVD in linux using K3b" so other people can easily find it.

I'm glad you got it to work.

Yeah. Good idea. If you want, I'll whip up a better step by step later on.

[readicculus]

K3b works well in general, although I've had a few problems. For another option I would suggest using this script in a folder with a compliant VIDEO_TS folder (only VOB menu) inside it. Run it as root and it creates a properly formatted burning directory with AUDIO_TS, gives it proper permissions, and runs it through your burning program.

#!/bin/sh

# Burn a video DVD with growisofs

# Create an AUDIO_TS subdirectory if it does not exist
[ ! -d AUDIO_TS ] && mkdir AUDIO_TS

chown -R root:root AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS
chmod 500 AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS
chmod 400 VIDEO_TS/*

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/sr0 -dvd-video .

Change "dev/sr0" to the location of your burner.