3:40 p.m.
IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048 Gig
and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around this,
a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the right
program to format a "dvd".
Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
B
3:47 p.m.
On 12/18/22 13:40, Bill Cunningham wrote:
IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048
Gig
and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around this,
a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the right
program to format a "dvd".
Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
No, that doesn't make any sense. The formatting is a physical thing.
For a disk image, you just make an .iso file. You can later write that
to a physical disk.
What are you trying to do?
4:03 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 4:47 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 12/18/22 13:40, Bill Cunningham wrote:
> IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048
> Gig and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
>
> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
>
> And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
>
> Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around
> this, a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the
> right program to format a "dvd".
>
> Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
No, that doesn't make any sense. The formatting is a physical thing.
For a disk image, you just make an .iso file. You can later write
that to a physical disk.
What are you trying to do?
I thought I would make the format, observe the detail then copy. For
example, I can format a loopback and observe the data with a hexdump
like xxd. This seems to work and thre is no physical device,
I use dd to create a 2.048 Gb zero'd file, for example.
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE to mount the loopback,
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
and detach and xxd -g1 FILE.
There is a formatted FAT32 filesystem. Why can't this be done with a DVD
format UDF file?
Hope that makes sense.
B
4:07 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 5:03 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE to mount the loopback,
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
and detach and xxd -g1 FILE.
Use mkiso to create FILE, and then you can hexdump FILE directly. You
can also then "mount FILE /mt" (or similar) if you want to examine the
data as a mounted file system.
4:08 p.m.
On 12/18/22 14:03, Bill Cunningham wrote:
On 12/18/2022 4:47 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
> On 12/18/22 13:40, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>> IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048
>> Gig and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
>>
>> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
>>
>> And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
>>
>> Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around
>> this, a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the
>> right program to format a "dvd".
>>
>> Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
>
> No, that doesn't make any sense. The formatting is a physical thing.
> For a disk image, you just make an .iso file. You can later write
> that to a physical disk.
>
> What are you trying to do?
>
I thought I would make the format, observe the detail then copy. For
example, I can format a loopback and observe the data with a hexdump
like xxd. This seems to work and thre is no physical device,
I use dd to create a 2.048 Gb zero'd file, for example.
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE to mount the loopback,
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
and detach and xxd -g1 FILE.
There is a formatted FAT32 filesystem. Why can't this be done with a DVD
format UDF file?
Because the format doesn't work like that. It's designed for sequential
writing, you don't random access write to optical media. (At least for
CD and DVD.) The format command just writes the initialization
information to the optical media, it's data for the drive, not part of
the filesystem.
You use one of the iso tools to create UDF files, you don't need a
loopback for it.
4:22 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 5:08 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 12/18/22 14:03, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>
> On 12/18/2022 4:47 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
>> On 12/18/22 13:40, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>>> IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048
>>> Gig and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
>>>
>>> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
>>>
>>> And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
>>>
>>> Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around
>>> this, a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the
>>> right program to format a "dvd".
>>>
>>> Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
>>
>> No, that doesn't make any sense. The formatting is a physical
>> thing. For a disk image, you just make an .iso file. You can later
>> write that to a physical disk.
>>
>> What are you trying to do?
>>
> I thought I would make the format, observe the detail then copy. For
> example, I can format a loopback and observe the data with a hexdump
> like xxd. This seems to work and thre is no physical device,
>
> I use dd to create a 2.048 Gb zero'd file, for example.
>
> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE to mount the loopback,
>
> mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
>
> and detach and xxd -g1 FILE.
>
> There is a formatted FAT32 filesystem. Why can't this be done with a
> DVD format UDF file?
Because the format doesn't work like that. It's designed for
sequential writing, you don't random access write to optical media.
(At least for CD and DVD.) The format command just writes the
initialization information to the optical media, it's data for the
drive, not part of the filesystem.
You use one of the iso tools to create UDF files, you don't need a
loopback for it.
OK I think I see, thanks for your insight.
B
4:44 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 5:08 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 12/18/22 14:03, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>
> On 12/18/2022 4:47 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
>> On 12/18/22 13:40, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>>> IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048
>>> Gig and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
>>>
>>> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
>>>
>>> And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
>>>
>>> Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around
>>> this, a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the
>>> right program to format a "dvd".
>>>
>>> Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
>>
>> No, that doesn't make any sense. The formatting is a physical
>> thing. For a disk image, you just make an .iso file. You can later
>> write that to a physical disk.
>>
>> What are you trying to do?
>>
> I thought I would make the format, observe the detail then copy. For
> example, I can format a loopback and observe the data with a hexdump
> like xxd. This seems to work and thre is no physical device,
>
> I use dd to create a 2.048 Gb zero'd file, for example.
>
> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE to mount the loopback,
>
> mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/loop0
>
> and detach and xxd -g1 FILE.
>
> There is a formatted FAT32 filesystem. Why can't this be done with a
> DVD format UDF file?
Because the format doesn't work like that. It's designed for
sequential writing, you don't random access write to optical media.
(At least for CD and DVD.) The format command just writes the
initialization information to the optical media, it's data for the
drive, not part of the filesystem.
You use one of the iso tools to create UDF files, you don't need a
loopback for it.
OK so how exactly do I create an "empty" ISO file? I will try to explain
by example.
As above say I have an "empty" vfat format.
mount /dev/loop /mnt which is attached to a FILE.
copy files manually into the /mnt directory. Be they VOBs IFOs or such.
wold I have to turn to mkfs.udf for this? IDK if that is a ISO.
B
5:23 p.m.
On 12/18/22 14:44, Bill Cunningham wrote:
OK so how exactly do I create an "empty" ISO file? I will
try to explain
by example.
The simple answer is you don't. They are not designed for that.
However, there is a multi-session extension that lets you add another
chunk of files to an existing iso. But you can't just add files one by
one to the image.
wold I have to turn to mkfs.udf for this? IDK if that is a ISO.
I learned something. Yes, you can use udf for this.
But what is your use case? What are you trying to do?
5:55 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 5:45 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
OK so how exactly do I create an "empty" ISO file? I will
try to explain
by example.
Why do you want to create an empty ISO file?
The way I do it is:
- create a normal directory
- put the contents of the DVD in said directory; i.e., if creating a
DVD, create the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS directories,copy the VOBs, etc.
in
- run the mkiso command - you'll need to look at man pages and/or
google for specifics, but the basic idea is you specify the "source"
directory and the name of the ISO file
There may be other ways to accomplish the same end result - it all
depends on what you are trying to accomplish; i.e. what is the end
result?
5:59 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 17:44 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
OK so how exactly do I create an "empty" ISO file? I will
try to explain
by example.
As above say I have an "empty" vfat format.
mount /dev/loop /mnt which is attached to a FILE.
copy files manually into the /mnt directory. Be they VOBs IFOs or such.
wold I have to turn to mkfs.udf for this? IDK if that is a ISO.
To create a playable DVD, the files have to be put into the master
image (the ISO file, in your example), in order. DVD players are very
simple, and expect the first file at the start of the disc, and the
rest in sequence. They can do a bit of hunting around to play
different files, but each file is contiguous in itself. There's also a
bootblock kind of structure to the disc, with headers identifying the
type of disc.
These are just a few reasons why you use video-DVD creation tools to
create DVDs, rather than try to do it all by hand.
--
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.80.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 8 15:48:59 UTC 2022 x86_64
Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.
6:05 p.m.
On Mon, 2022-12-19 at 10:29 +1030, Tim wrote:
To create a playable DVD, the files have to be put into the master
image (the ISO file, in your example), in order. DVD players are very
simple, and expect the first file at the start of the disc, and the
rest in sequence. They can do a bit of hunting around to play
different files, but each file is contiguous in itself. There's also a
bootblock kind of structure to the disc, with headers identifying the
type of disc.
These are just a few reasons why you use video-DVD creation tools to
create DVDs, rather than try to do it all by hand.
Supplemental:
The creation tools just directly make an ISO file, they don't have to
loop mount anything. You only need to horse around with loop mounting
if *you* want to see the finished ISO file as if it were a disc that
you'd put into a drive. There are various software players that will
just play the ISO file directly as if you'd loaded a disc, too.
--
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.80.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 8 15:48:59 UTC 2022 x86_64
Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.
6:19 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 7:05 PM, Tim via users wrote:
On Mon, 2022-12-19 at 10:29 +1030, Tim wrote:
> To create a playable DVD, the files have to be put into the master
> image (the ISO file, in your example), in order. DVD players are very
> simple, and expect the first file at the start of the disc, and the
> rest in sequence. They can do a bit of hunting around to play
> different files, but each file is contiguous in itself. There's also a
> bootblock kind of structure to the disc, with headers identifying the
> type of disc.
>
> These are just a few reasons why you use video-DVD creation tools to
> create DVDs, rather than try to do it all by hand.
Supplemental:
The creation tools just directly make an ISO file, they don't have to
loop mount anything. You only need to horse around with loop mounting
if *you* want to see the finished ISO file as if it were a disc that
you'd put into a drive. There are various software players that will
just play the ISO file directly as if you'd loaded a disc, too.
What tools would they be? That sounds interesting.
B
6:18 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 6:59 PM, Tim via users wrote:
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 17:44 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
> OK so how exactly do I create an "empty" ISO file? I will try to explain
> by example.
>
> As above say I have an "empty" vfat format.
>
> mount /dev/loop /mnt which is attached to a FILE.
>
> copy files manually into the /mnt directory. Be they VOBs IFOs or such.
>
> wold I have to turn to mkfs.udf for this? IDK if that is a ISO.
To create a playable DVD, the files have to be put into the master
image (the ISO file, in your example), in order. DVD players are very
simple, and expect the first file at the start of the disc, and the
rest in sequence. They can do a bit of hunting around to play
different files, but each file is contiguous in itself. There's also a
bootblock kind of structure to the disc, with headers identifying the
type of disc.
These are just a few reasons why you use video-DVD creation tools to
create DVDs, rather than try to do it all by hand.
Too answer many people's questions here, as to what I want to
accomplish; is there some way to make these huge 7 GB ISOs smaller?
Converting to an mp4 would be the simple answer, but not a simple task
as I am finding. There is some manual way I came across having something
to do with cat'ing a VOB and that somehow shrinks it. This is manual and
I can't remember the steps, there would have to be much more to it than
that as using cat is usually for text files. I am even having trouble
with handbrake now.
I also would like to understand this ISO and dvd format much more,
as you seem to.
B
6:52 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 7:18 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Too answer many people's questions here, as to what I want to
accomplish; is there some way to make these huge 7 GB ISOs smaller?
Converting to an mp4 would be the simple answer, but not a simple task
as I am finding.
Assuming you have a DVD that is not encrypted.....
- mount the DVD
- in the VIDEO_TS folder there will be several files names
VTS_xx_y.VOB, where "xx" and "y" are numbers
- cat all of the VTS_xx_*.VOB files together with something like "cat
VTS_01_*.VOB > title_01.mpg". cat does not care if the files are text
or binary - it just concatenates them together.
- use the video player of your choice to play the *.mpg files and
determine which you wish to keep (I like many others prefer vlc).
- you can also use dvdbackup to extract the title set(s) if you don't
want to deal with the file structure yourself
- if you wish to convert the *.mpg file to mp4, you can use any of
several tools. ffmpeg is one that many people favor. The command
would be something like "ffmpeg -i title_01.mpg title_01.mp4" - note
that you might need to add other options to get a higher compression
rate (with corresponding loss of quality) to significantly reduce the
file size. google "ffmpeg convert DVD to mp4" and you should find
several "cheat sheets".
- alternatively you can use one of the OSS linear video editors to do
the conversion; i.e. if you use KDE you can install kdenlive, import
the *.mpg file, and have it do the conversion.
- note that pretty much all of the tools that can do the conversion
will have a certain amount of "learning curve".
Re: DVD structure - there is an AUDIO_TS directory that has to be
present for the structure to be compliant, but unless the DVD provides
DVD-Audio (basically a super-CD), it will be empty. All of the video
(and associated audio tracks) will be in the VIDEO_TS directory.
The files in the VIDEO_TS directory are broken into "title sets" -
each file is named *_xx_y.*, where "xx" is the title set number.
Each title set will have *.IFO, *.VOB, and *.BUP files. The IFO files
contain information such as chapter times, menu items, etc. *.BUP
files are backup files - I think they protect against disc damage to
the sectors in the corresponding *.IFO files. The VOBs are the actual
"video objects" - i.e. the mpg encoded video. Each VOB is split into
multiple files such that no file is larger than 2GB.
That is my non-expert understanding of DVD structure. I'm sure if I
got anything horribly wrong someone else will correct me. You can
probably also find this info via googling.
7:42 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 7:52 PM, Go Canes wrote:
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 7:18 PM Bill Cunningham
<bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Too answer many people's questions here, as to what I want to
> accomplish; is there some way to make these huge 7 GB ISOs smaller?
> Converting to an mp4 would be the simple answer, but not a simple task
> as I am finding.
Assuming you have a DVD that is not encrypted.....
- mount the DVD
- in the VIDEO_TS folder there will be several files names
VTS_xx_y.VOB, where "xx" and "y" are numbers
- cat all of the VTS_xx_*.VOB files together with something like "cat
VTS_01_*.VOB > title_01.mpg". cat does not care if the files are text
or binary - it just concatenates them together.
- use the video player of your choice to play the *.mpg files and
determine which you wish to keep (I like many others prefer vlc).
The thing is I can't get vlc to convert a DVD a decrypted mirror image
of that dvd nor an ISO created from those decrypted files. IDK what it
is with vlc. I use it all the time to view. But the convert options with
vlc. I get a short feature that plays a song of the movie's release
company, then all ends. It's about 1-2 minutes long.
B
8:07 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 20:42 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
The thing is I can't get vlc to convert a DVD a decrypted mirror
image
of that dvd nor an ISO created from those decrypted files. IDK what it
is with vlc. I use it all the time to view. But the convert options with
vlc. I get a short feature that plays a song of the movie's release
company, then all ends. It's about 1-2 minutes long.
Harking back to my prior email... these are some of the video files on
a DVD-Video disc (ignoring the other files):
VIDEO_TS.VOB an intro or video menu for the whole disc
VTS_01_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this video clip
VTS_01.1.VOB part 1 of the main feature
VTS_01.2.VOB part 2 of the main feature
VTS_01.3.VOB part 3 of the main feature, etc.
VTS_02_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this clip
VTS_02_1.VOB part 1 of the second video clip
VTS_02_2.VOB part 2 of the second video clip
VTS_02_3.VOB part 3 of the second video clip, etc.
So, just add the VTS_01*.VOB files into VLC, and work on them by
themselves.
Again, it's rare that I horse around with using VLC to convert things,
each time I have to experiment with it, so I can't just offer a recipe
to follow.
--
NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list.
The following system info data is generated fresh for each post:
uname -rsvp
Linux 6.0.10-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 26 16:53:11
UTC 2022 x86_64
8:13 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 9:08 PM Tim via users
<users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
VTS_01_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this video clip
VTS_01.1.VOB part 1 of the main feature
VTS_01.2.VOB part 2 of the main feature
VTS_01.3.VOB part 3 of the main feature, etc.
I have seen many DVDs where Title Set 1 was *not* the main feature; I
don't think Title Set 1 = main feature is a safe assumption. If the
DVD is a movie, you can look for the largest Title Set. But
generally, you have to look at each Title Set to see what they are and
determine which Title Set corresponds to which "title" on the DVD.
8:38 p.m.
Tim:
> VTS_01_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this video clip
> VTS_01.1.VOB part 1 of the main feature
> VTS_01.2.VOB part 2 of the main feature
> VTS_01.3.VOB part 3 of the main feature, etc.
Go Canes:
I have seen many DVDs where Title Set 1 was *not* the main feature;
I
don't think Title Set 1 = main feature is a safe assumption. If the
DVD is a movie, you can look for the largest Title Set. But
generally, you have to look at each Title Set to see what they are and
determine which Title Set corresponds to which "title" on the DVD.
I haven't seen any where it wasn't, but fair enough. Check you have
the right ones.
VTS_01 is supposed to be the *main& title. Some of the early DVD
players even had a button to go straight to the main title, and that's
how they did it.
I had a home DVD recorder which worked very oddly. For every new
recording, it just tacked onto the end of the previous one, it didn't
start a new title set (like it ought to).
--
NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list.
The following system info data is generated fresh for each post:
uname -rsvp
Linux 6.0.10-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 26 16:53:11
UTC 2022 x86_64
9:42 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 9:38 PM, Tim via users wrote:
Tim:
>> VTS_01_0.VOB an intro or video menu for playing this video clip
>> VTS_01.1.VOB part 1 of the main feature
>> VTS_01.2.VOB part 2 of the main feature
>> VTS_01.3.VOB part 3 of the main feature, etc.
Go Canes:
> I have seen many DVDs where Title Set 1 was *not* the main feature; I
> don't think Title Set 1 = main feature is a safe assumption. If the
> DVD is a movie, you can look for the largest Title Set. But
> generally, you have to look at each Title Set to see what they are and
> determine which Title Set corresponds to which "title" on the DVD.
I haven't seen any where it wasn't, but fair enough. Check you have
the right ones.
VTS_01 is supposed to be the *main& title. Some of the early DVD
players even had a button to go straight to the main title, and that's
how they did it.
I had a home DVD recorder which worked very oddly. For every new
recording, it just tacked onto the end of the previous one, it didn't
start a new title set (like it ought to).
I am dealing with one right now that is always copying VTS_03_X.VOBs as
the main feature. That is what dvdbackup chooses every time when only
copying the main feature, not the entire DVD. I too, have seen features
when VTS_1_ was not particularly the feature. IDK about the old days and
things have changed.
B
8:09 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 8:44 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The thing is I can't get vlc to convert a DVD a decrypted mirror
image
of that dvd nor an ISO created from those decrypted files. IDK what it
is with vlc. I use it all the time to view. But the convert options with
vlc. I get a short feature that plays a song of the movie's release
company, then all ends. It's about 1-2 minutes long.
That sounds like it is converting the title set that has the studio
"splash" video. I don't use vlc to convert, so I can really provide
much help, but you might look to see if there is an option to select
the title set.
[ If you were to convert all the VTS_nn_*.VOB files to their
corresponding title_nn.VOB file, you would likely find that there are
several short videos that you don't care about. ]
Following-on to my earlier post, another way you can think of the
VTS*.VOB file is to "translate" VTS_nn_p.VOB" into "Video Title Set
nn, part p - video object".
8:18 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 9:09 PM, Go Canes wrote:
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 8:44 PM Bill Cunningham
<bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The thing is I can't get vlc to convert a DVD a decrypted mirror image
> of that dvd nor an ISO created from those decrypted files. IDK what it
> is with vlc. I use it all the time to view. But the convert options with
> vlc. I get a short feature that plays a song of the movie's release
> company, then all ends. It's about 1-2 minutes long.
That sounds like it is converting the title set that has the studio
"splash" video. I don't use vlc to convert, so I can really provide
much help, but you might look to see if there is an option to select
the title set.
[ If you were to convert all the VTS_nn_*.VOB files to their
corresponding title_nn.VOB file, you would likely find that there are
several short videos that you don't care about. ]
Following-on to my earlier post, another way you can think of the
VTS*.VOB file is to "translate" VTS_nn_p.VOB" into "Video Title Set
nn, part p - video object".
How do you get it to convert a directory of VOBs and such into a mp4?
8:50 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 9:18 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
How do you get it to convert a directory of VOBs and such into a mp4?
For all I know there may be a tool somewhere that will do an entire
disk, but I've always done it one title set at a time using steps as
indicated in prior posts. Example:
n=01
cat VIDEO_TS/VTS_${n}_*.VOB > title_${n}.mpg
# repeat with n=02, 03, etc. until you have all the title sets you want
# sometimes you need to omit VTS_*_0.VOB as it will be an animated
menu or some other bit you don't really want
I've played around with converting mpg to mp4, but generally wasn't
happy with the quality/size tradeoff and just kept the mpg version.
9:39 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 21:50 -0500, Go Canes wrote:
I've played around with converting mpg to mp4, but generally
wasn't
happy with the quality/size tradeoff and just kept the mpg version.
I haven't, but that's what I'd expect. DVD video is already *heavily*
compressed. I consider it terrible as a source medium for doing
anything else to it.
--
NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list.
The following system info data is generated fresh for each post:
uname -rsvp
Linux 6.0.10-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 26 16:53:11
UTC 2022 x86_64
7:58 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 19:18 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
Too answer many people's questions here, as to what I want to
accomplish; is there some way to make these huge 7 GB ISOs smaller?
Are you trying to squish a double-sided DVD onto a single-sided DVD and
play it in a DVD player?
Are you trying to do something like turn a movie from a DVD into a MP4
file that you're not going to play from a DVD disc? (Files on your
hard drive, on a USB flash drive, etc.)
Converting to an mp4 would be the simple answer, but not a simple
task
as I am finding.
Handbrake for a GUI tool, ffmpeg for a command line, those are two that
spring to mind. Not that I'm familiar with either of them, it's such a
rarity that I'd have to figure it out each time.
In the dim and distant past, I'd used Nero (disc burning software) to
create a DVD disc from files meant to go on them. Just start a DVD
project, drop in your source files, and it'd do all the hard work for
you.
In recent times, I'd shoot video, import the clips into FCP (Final Cut
Pro) on a Mac, edit things together with FCP (that's it's actual
purpose, video editing), and export a file ready to burn to a DVD. FCP
did all the hard work for me.
There is some manual way I came across having something
to do with cat'ing a VOB and that somehow shrinks it.
Cat will just join files together, the program name comes from
concatenate. Sure, we often just use it to read a text file, but it's
really just dumping the text file to the screen (file[s] in, something
out in one big chunk).
cat file1 file2 file3 > joinedfile
or
cat files* > joinedfile
You'd have done some double process: Join all the source files
together, re-encode and compress them. But even that's probably not
necessary, the encoder could probably just be given a list of files to
use as an input.
Similar to the cat example, above.
I also would like to understand this ISO and dvd format much more,
as you seem to.
We've explained the files on a DVD disc, what each one is. There's
plenty of articles describing the same thing.
An ISO file is just a dump of the disc contents. If you took a DVD
disc and used dd to dump everything on it to a file, that's an ISO
file. It's an image of the contents of the disc. Virtually the same
thing as stamping vinyl records.
dd if=/dev/dvdrom of=image.iso
If you were to analyse the ISO file, you'd get the headers at the start
that define the disc, then the file system that was on the disc.
It's the same as dumping an image of a hard drive to a file. But what
makes an ISO file different is that it's the structure of an optical
disc's filesystem (CD or DVD) rather than some other medium. That
structure is ISO 9660 (the 9660 specification from the International
Organization for Standardization).
If you dumped the structure of a hard drive, it might be the partition
headers and filing system of ext3.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_disc_image
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9660
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format
DVDs were supposed to be UDF, which is essentially more features added
to the old CDROM way of doing things. Mostly unneeded (considering all
the do is play video), so most DVDs aren't really UDF. You'll notice
that DVDs are all upper case filenames, short length filenames, like
FAT. If they'd always used UDF they wouldn't have to constrained
themselves to those limitations. But a DVD player doesn't need human-
friendly filenames. And commercially pressed discs didn't need the
other features UDF could offer, either (multi-session, being able to
add more things to a disc, etc).
It's a bit like ASCII still living on in 7-bit plaintext emails. Most
of what we type can be covered by it, so the email client uses the
lowest common denominator, rather than always using UTF-8, only
switching over to the higher ability UTF-8 when you type something that
needs it.
--
NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list.
The following system info data is generated fresh for each post:
uname -rsvp
Linux 6.0.10-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 26 16:53:11
UTC 2022 x86_64
8:16 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 8:58 PM, Tim via users wrote:
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 19:18 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
> Too answer many people's questions here, as to what I want to
> accomplish; is there some way to make these huge 7 GB ISOs smaller?
Are you trying to squish a double-sided DVD onto a single-sided DVD and
play it in a DVD player?
Are you trying to do something like turn a movie from a DVD into a MP4
file that you're not going to play from a DVD disc? (Files on your
hard drive, on a USB flash drive, etc.)
Yeah. The horsing around might be fun. But I do want a dvd converted
into a mp4. Or an ISO into a mp4. It seems a hard time doing it.
Handbrake seems to be the easiest. vlc does indeed need tinkering
constantly, it quickly becomes not worth the effort.
8:59 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 21:16 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
But I do want a dvd converted into a mp4. Or an ISO into a mp4. It
seems a hard time doing it.
If you did the whole disc/iso, you'd get the studio promos, the
copyright warnings, the adverts, the main feature, the shorts, all
compiled into one huge video file. It'd be like playing video tape,
with no way to jump to particular sections, you'd have to spool
through.
There are some file formats which support index markers, but you also
need a player that knows to look for them (I don't which, if any, do).
If you want just the main feature, you pretty much have to hand select
the right VOB files to use. Or, use a tool which lets you select which
title to use, and you'd have to figure out which title it was.
VLC has a convert/save thing in the menu which brings up various
options for batch conversion (I don't know if it'll take four input
files and produce one output file). There's a whole disc option. You
may be constrained by (a) needing pre-decrypted files, and (b)
installing extra codecs.
I used to use mplayer (command line) to play a particular title set and
stream dump it to one output file. But I was doing things like copying
my own DVD recorded video to a single file to put on a file server.
That was *something* like:
mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile dumped.mpg
That read the DVD drive, the first title on the disc, told it to dump
the stream to a file, and told it what file to dump it to.
If you needed to pick a particular DVD drive:
e.g. mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /dev/dvd2 -dumpstream -dumpfile
dumped.mpg
If you wanted to work from a directory of VOB files:
e.g. mplayer dvd://1 -dvd-device /path/to/directory/ -dumpstream -
dumpfile dumped.mpg
I guess you could point to an ISO file, instead.
The VOB files are mpegs that can often be directly played as they are.
Some players might choke on a .vob named file, but be perfectly happy
with simply renaming the file.
mencoder (mplayer encoder) can be re-encode files.
But look at the man file for actual instructions.
--
NB: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the list.
The following system info data is generated fresh for each post:
uname -rsvp
Linux 6.0.10-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 26 16:53:11
UTC 2022 x86_64
9:35 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 9:59 PM, Tim via users wrote:
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 21:16 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
> But I do want a dvd converted into a mp4. Or an ISO into a mp4. It
> seems a hard time doing it.
If you did the whole disc/iso, you'd get the studio promos, the
copyright warnings, the adverts, the main feature, the shorts, all
compiled into one huge video file. It'd be like playing video tape,
with no way to jump to particular sections, you'd have to spool
through.
There are some file formats which support index markers, but you also
need a player that knows to look for them (I don't which, if any, do).
If you want just the main feature, you pretty much have to hand select
the right VOB files to use. Or, use a tool which lets you select which
title to use, and you'd have to figure out which title it was.
VLC has a convert/save thing in the menu which brings up various
options for batch conversion (I don't know if it'll take four input
files and produce one output file). There's a whole disc option. You
may be constrained by (a) needing pre-decrypted files, and (b)
installing extra codecs.
...
I know anytime I have created an mp4 file I only got a title screen and
the feature. I didn't have to make any adjustments. Now the ISO is
different, this is my experience. But I want the ISO when there is
special features on the dvd like director's cuts, interviews with cast
and such. All mp4 I have made have been 700 MB or so. Far better for a
film that has no added features other than the main feature.
On linux's modern tools. I have always had to use loopback with
dvdbackup. It seems to want a device not directory to copy from. I can
attach a ISO or just copy from the dvd. For example,
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE.iso
dvdbackup -F( or M)vpi /dev/loop0 -o OUTPUT
I have no idea how so far, to use dvdauthor. Unless there a switch IDK
about, dvdbackup doesn't read a file or directory, only device files.
What does it mean to "encode" a dvd? I am not familiar with that. Is
that what dvdauthor does. I will try to find mplayer and mencode, They
it seems to me too, older.
B
6:35 a.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 10:36 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On linux's modern tools. I have always had to use loopback with
dvdbackup. It seems to want a device not directory to copy from. I can
attach a ISO or just copy from the dvd. For example,
dvdbackup -i /dev/sr0 ...
or whatever your DVD device name happens to be.
6:15 p.m.
On Sun, 2022-12-18 at 22:35 -0500, Bill Cunningham wrote:
I know anytime I have created an mp4 file I only got a title screen
and
the feature. I didn't have to make any adjustments. Now the ISO is
different, this is my experience. But I want the ISO when there is
special features on the dvd like director's cuts, interviews with cast
and such. All mp4 I have made have been 700 MB or so. Far better for a
film that has no added features other than the main feature.
Whatever backup tool you use, you have to select what parts of the disc
it reads and converts. In the absence of making a selection, it may do
everything, it may pick the main feature, that's going to depend on the
tool. It may spool the whole lot together into one long video, it may
split each title into separate files (movie.mp4, interview.mp4, etc).
That's something you'd have to work out by studying the instructions
for the particular tool that you're using.
What does it mean to "encode" a dvd? I am not familiar with
that.
Well anything that you can't represent directly is encoded. This email
isn't actually full of letters, it's a series of codes (numbers) for
each letter. That code is understood, by many things, and they can
read and write it. Encryption is a different matter. That requires a
key to code and decode.
So, as far as DVDs are concerned. You take some video file, and if
it's not already in the format required by the players (which only
support a small number of methods), it has to be re-encoded to type of
video file that it does need.
e.g. An AVI source could be re-encoded to MPEG1 or MPEG2. Or the wrong
kind of MPEG to the right kind (there's a plethora of variations). Or
en encrypted file decrypted, re-written as that decrypted version.
--
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.80.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 8 15:48:59 UTC 2022 x86_64
Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.
4:02 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 4:41 PM Bill Cunningham <bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048 Gig
and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around this,
a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the right
program to format a "dvd".
Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
If you are trying to create the DVD file system, you want to use
something like mkiso.
I've never used cdrwtool, but based on the name I would think it is
used to send the commands to a disc burner to actually burn the disk -
but it would need the data to burn, such as an iso file created by
something like mkiso.
4:05 p.m.
On 12/18/2022 5:02 PM, Go Canes wrote:
On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 4:41 PM Bill Cunningham
<bill.cu1234(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> IDK if you can do this or not. Say if you have a file that is 2.048 Gig
> and it is attached to a loopback device, say /dev/loop0,
>
> losetup /dev/loop0 FILE_NAME,
>
> And you tried cdrwtool -d /dev/loop0 -q;
>
> Now I have tried this and get errors. IDK if there's a way around this,
> a safety issue that is built in, or maybe I am not using the right
> program to format a "dvd".
>
> Can you dvdformat a loopback device?
If you are trying to create the DVD file system, you want to use
something like mkiso.
I've never used cdrwtool, but based on the name I would think it is
used to send the commands to a disc burner to actually burn the disk -
but it would need the data to burn, such as an iso file created by
something like mkiso.
Hmm. That makes sense. It uses libburnia libraries I believe. xorrecord
and dvd+rw-format don't work either.
B
495
days inactive
497
days old
30 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Bill Cunningham -
Go Canes -
Samuel Sieb -
Tim