How do I burn a .mp4 track with PBurn?

[Mike Walsh]

Evening, boys & girls.

Got a wee query here for you.

I know I've done this before in Puppy, but cannot for the life of me remember how I did it. I'm attempting to burn some downloaded Westerns to DVD for an old mate of mine, so's he can watch them on his DVD player at home. Not on a computer.....just a bog-standard DVD player.

These are all in .mp4 format.

I've tried burning with the 'Burn Video' setting, but it keeps telling me it can't find a file-system with 'chapters' and all the rest of it. It won't; this is simply a single, 105 minute long .mp4 track.

I've tried burning it as a 'Data disc'; it'll play back fine on my new DVD drive on the big Compaq (had to replace the old one earlier today, 'cos the tray mechanism quit working), but trying to play it back on our DVD player, it says 'Unknown disc'. And won't go any further.

I remember making up a multi-track disc for him some time ago, with a number of short .mp4 tracks, but, like I said, I forget how I did it. I don't remember if I used pBurn, or whether I used something else. It certainly wasn't Windoze; we haven't had it in this house for nearly 4 years, and I did this multi-track disc less than two years ago...

(Might have been 'XFBurn'.....but I doubt it. I have it installed in a couple of Pups, but I quit using it in Ubuntu ages ago 'cos it would never detect the DVD drive..!)

Am I using pBurn wrong? I used the left-hand pane to select the track, then right-clicked to add to the right-hand pane. pBurn started doing its thing, then quit, saying it couldn't find a 'VIDEO_TS' file (whatever that is).

Any 'experts' out there who can set me on the right path, please? Any and all advice will, as always, be very much appreciated; this is not something I tend to do very often, and the old grey matter ain't what it used to be...


Mike.

[don570]

It's been a few years since I burnt a TV show.
I used pdvdsrab and pburn.
I explained it here...
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 660#599660
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[Flash]

I'm surprised to hear that a bog-standard DVD player can play mp4 DVDs.

[Mike Walsh]

@don570:-

I'll take a look at that link, and see what happens. Cheers!

@Flash:-

I've honestly no idea what format a DVD player uses. It's entirely possible I'll need to re-encode to a different format before I can actually use it. pBurn itself doesn't actually mention using .mp4s anyway, so you could well be right!


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

@don570:-

I'm in Xenial, which has pdvdsrab installed by default. Now, then; I tried filling it out the way you suggested, but although it creates the directory 'ThIsIsYoUrNeWmOvIe' under '/', with the 'Audio' and 'VIDEO_TS' directories/files inside it, there's no contents to 'em.

I can't select the 'single file' radio button; it seems to be 'greyed-out'. Is that normal.....or have I missed out a step?

---------------------------------------

I see where I'm going wrong with this. pdvdsrab is expecting that I'm wanting to use an existing file on a DVD. I want to use an .mp4 file in my 'DATA' directory.....which isn't on a DVD. Suggestions?


Mike.

[nic007]

Some DVD Players (not all) have support for multi-media playback, typical mp4 files. If that is the case, burning the mp4 files as data should work ( I have done so before with such a dvd player) for playing on the tv. The VIDEO-TS files are part of the video .mkv file (an mkv file is a sort of combination of mp4 and other stuff but it is a completely different file format). It's not common for DVD players to have the latter codec so burning in that file format will almost certainly not work with the DVD player. So the options are: convert the mkv files to mp4 and burn as data (in the case that your DVD player supports mp4 playback). This will be your best option as quality is concerned OR convert to DVD-video format and then burn (this should work on almost all DVD players but the quality is poor). PS. Many new tv's and newer dvd-payers have support for multi-media playback and most commonly have a usb input which can be used.

[Flash]

Yes, now that I think about it, I believe my newish LCD TV will play mp4 files, but I've never used it for that so I don't know how. Perhaps they have to be put on a USB stick or streamed over wifi.

[drunkjedi]

A branded TV or DVD player will only play according to his liking only.
While a non branded TV or DVD player will play whatever you throw at it.
But that's just my experience.

Writing the mp4 in a data disc will play it in most DVD players, I think.

[TyroBGinner]

Digital video is complicated.

This is tricky because of all the fragmentaion in data types and hardware. An old, basic DVD player can't play anything other than the narrow range of items that it was made to play. More recent disc playes likely can automatically detect - or detect with a bit of user guidance - a number of forms in which video occurs these days. It would be far more convenient if the target player is a present-day device.

If not, I am afraid the source mp4 will have to converted into the vob files used by regular DVDs. This will mean processing the audio and video streams in the mp4 by removing them and transcoding them into the mpeg2video and ac3 encodings then packaging them into the vob container. FFmpeg can do this in a single command.

Then ifo and bup files will have to be constructed for the vob files and video_ts files will be needed to contain chapter and title data as well as provide an on-screen video menu from which chapters can be selected. This sort of thing can be done with a dvd authoring program. One such proram that is at least somewhat free and open source is called "bombono".

All of this is not all that trivial, and I have never done it...having given up after seeing what was required. It would be a lot easier for the target device to have current codecs in it and a usb connection so you could put the mp4 on a flash drive. The player's on-screen interface will let you browse through the drive's files like a graphical file viewer on a computer.

[nic007]

Yes, now that I think about it, I believe my newish LCD TV will play mp4 files, but I've never used it for that so I don't know how. Perhaps they have to be put on a USB stick or streamed over wifi.

You are lucky. Simply copy your mp4's to the flash drive. It may or not be necessary to format the flashdrive in FAT (ext2,3 and 4 will probably not work) if it is not.

[nic007]

I use an extremely easy to use and powerful burning program called Burnaware Professional. It's a windows program (don't know if it will work with Wine and there's a portable version). I've just checked the create DVD option and the pop-up box says: Add the folder which contains the VOB, IFO and BUP files, called VIDEO_TS. It then does the burning. May be your best option if you have those files. A newer dvd player should play it. The other options as mentioned still stands.

[p310don]

To burn an mp4 to DVD PBurn converts the mp4 into DVD format mpeg, which is actually a .VOB file in the VIDEO_TS folder

DVD players basically only recognise one format and one bitrate, hence why they can only fit a certain number of minutes on a single layer dvd, from memory 74mins. Many newer DVD players also incorporate mp4 decoding, divx, xvid etc. A lot also have USB input now..

PBurn should work by adding the mp4, clicking the burn video setting, and then clicking the big burn icon and away it'll go.

I am not sure about Precise, but I know there was an issue with Tahr in that it didn't have ffmpeg included as standard, which PBurn uses to convert the video format. There is detail about creating a symlink from avconv to be named ffmpeg to trick PBurn into using that instead.

It is all a little complex if there are problems, but should work once set up right.

If in doubt, of course check with Zigbert here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=23881

[headfound]

I dual boot with knoppix so I can cheat and use everything there.

However, I've just had a play with Xenial and Pburn and here is how you do it -

1) Open pburn and choose the files you want to convert and burn
pburn will not create a menu so you will get one long continuous movie if you choose more than one file!
2) Go to the file options at the top and click 'Tools' then 'Author files in list' and choose either files or iso (iso can be burnt by anything).
3) Choose where you want to save and what video type you want wide/full etc
4) It will convert your files as requested (takes some time)
5) Burn it however you want

For a menu you need another program, something like devede which will give you that option. If you just want one movie per disc then Pburn will do.

Hope this helps

[Mike Walsh]

Well, I don't quite know what's going on here, I really don't.

I've tried authoring with both pBurn ( thanks headfound), and pdvdrsab (thanks don570). I've done this with both, in several different Pups.....and I cannot make it do whatever it is it's supposed to do.

Absolutely nothing happens. Period.

I don't know if it's my hardware, or the software; more likely, it's me. (I'm having a particularly 'dense' spell ATM. )

C'mon, boys & girls; what am I doing wrong here, please? I know I've done this before in Pup, so.....surely I can repeat whatever it was I did last time..!

(*Oh, what it is to get old; jeeez*) They say short-term memory's the first to go, don't they....? )


Mike.

[headfound]

That's strange, it worked first time for me.
Obvious first question (which I'm sure you have checked) -
Do you have enough room to render/save the dvd?
I'm using a frugal install so both the save directory for the final processed dvd files and pburns working directory (in preferences) are set to use a folder on my hard drive (actually the root of c: / sda )
I'm pretty sure it checks to see if there is enough room first and will not work otherwise

[norgo]

@Mike Walsh

for possible format's and codec's look here
in UK you will need a PAL DVD for your standalone DVD-Player.
MP4 container is not allowed for PAL DVD's.

Some years ago I created really a lot of DVD's and did many tests for "good" quality.
I created a profil for WinFF ( containing a very long command line ) to build DVD conform videos
What does it do ?

resize video to 720x576 pixels
insert black borders if needed
video codec mpeg2, bitrate variable 6000k, minrate 0k, maxrate 8000k
convert to 25 fps
audio codec mp2, 128kbps, rate 48.000 Hz, 2 channels

and so on ....

Important !
the only condition is: VIDEO WIDTH > VIDEO HIGHT

Use can use WinFF from here if you want
winff-1.5.4-i686.pet md5 = e227d1a38d184d2c3a6400407d15530a
select following profile:

Convert to: DVD
Preset: PAL - resize to 720x576 - add black borders - mpeg2 - 25 fps - maxrate 8000k - mp2 128k ...

you will get a PAL conform mpeg2 video

( tested under Slacko 6.3.0 )
norgo

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, headfound.

Oh, aye; space is ne'er a problem wi' mah Pups!

Although I run frugal, I'm doing this on an elderly, pre-HP Compaq desktop with a 64-bit dual-core Athlon, 3 GB of Ram and big storage drives. Consequently, each Pup has its own 25 GB partition to play with; in places, I have two Pups sharing a 40 GB kennel. They're not cramped, that's for sure.

In addition, the directory I'm using for all this, despite being in /root, is actually sym-linked to a 300 GB 'work' area on an external 3 TB Seagate 'Expansion' desktop USB 3.0 drive. So....(in a nutshell); no. I'm not short of working space.

I dunno. Somewhere along the line, something is missing (common to all Pups, 'twould seem). I would suspect this new DVD drive I fitted yesterday, except for the fact that I burnt one Western to a DVD+R as a data file, and it plays back perfectly in SMPlayer. But I need to burn these in such a way that they'll play back on a bog-standard DVD player.....one of those that you find built-in to modern TVs these days.

This side of multi-media work is not one I have very much to do with, TBH. Much of mine consists of doing screen-recordings, and uploading to YouTube, and stuff like that. Or burning ISO files to CD or DVD. Things of that nature I've never had any problems with.

Yet I know for a fact that I burnt a DVD with lots of short video clips on it for my mate around 18 months ago.....and I've been Puppy-exclusive for the last nearly 4 years. So I definitely burnt it here in Puppy.

I'm stumped, frankly.... Not a sensation I particularly enjoy!


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hallo, norgo.

Mm. Looks like what I need. Since I have great faith in your work, given that some of your SMPlayers will run in places where others refuse to (!!), I'll give this a look, mate. I'll let you know what happens.

As I said above, I have absolutely zero comprehension of the use of ffmpeg....indeed, of this whole side of multimedia usage. The biggest surprise, as stated in the previous post, was my managing to somehow burn a DVD which actually played back on my mate's DVD player. Even now, I'm not at all sure how the hell I did it!

Carry on regardless! I'll get there, sooner or later...

------------------------------

EDIT:-11 pm:- Well, WinFF is approximately 1/4 of the way through converting the first of about a dozen movies; the 1973 John Wayne film, 'Cahill : U.S Marshal'. This is around 800 megs in size, and 1 hr 43 mins runtime.

I'll tackle this with pdvdrsab either before retiring or in the morning, then burn with pBurn or whatever. I'll let you know what happens.

It's looking good, so far...and this is in Slacko 570. Runs flawlessly. Nice one!


Mike.

[headfound]

ok, very quick and dirty google site page here -

https://sites.google.com/view/letterbyletter/pburn

with step by step screen shots of what I do with pburn and what happens on my system (stock xenialpup64 7.5)

[Mike Walsh]

@headfound:-

Mm. Very nicely set out!

See, I'm with you, step-by-step, up as far as slide 4. Slide 5, however, never materialises; I don't get the usual box with yellow text on a black background, showing what's actually taking place. It simply doesn't appear.....and I can tell, just from watching gKrellM, that nothing's happening, 'cos the CPU remains at tick-over, and the temps don't rise by as much as one degree..!

It's a mystery, mate..... I assume your Xenial is the new 7.5, yes? I'm running the earlier 7.0.8.1, from before Phil B. took a 'sabbatical' for several months. (It's set-up just how I want it (and running perfectly, too), and I can't be arsed to re-install and re-set up another version of it..!)


Mike.