I have just finished burning my wedding DVD. Looks like very few people have attempted to do this on Linux. Anyway, I wrote a small guide for anyone new to this :

Of course, you will have to deal with your hardware compatibility problems and differences with your linux distribution, which is out of the scope of this guide.

0. What I wanted :
1. Create a DVD of my wedding video shot with a digital camcorder.
2. Use maximal power and flexibility with minimal cost : Linux seemed to be the good choice.

1. What I had :
1. Old computer : Athlon XP 1800/1.5GHz/512Mb RAM/120GB HDD.
2. Sony HDCR-HC40 NTSC miniDV digital camcorder.
3. Debian Linux/2.6 kernel.

2. What I bought :
1. Adaptec Firewire IEEE1394 PCI card: $30
2. Firewire IEEE1394 cable: $30 (rip-off …)
3. Sony DVD burner DRU-710A: $110.
Total = $170.

3. Install the new hardware :
Firewire card :

starvinh@saturn:~$dmesg | grep 1394
ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394'
ohci1394: $Rev: 1203 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[5]  MMIO=[ea001000-ea0017ff]  Max Packet=[2048]        
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0000d100803f5c72]
ip1394: $Rev: 1198 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
ip1394: eth0: IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)
ieee1394: Current remote IRM is not 1394a-2000 compliant, resetting...
ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[0800460103496d75]
ieee1394: Node changed: 0-00:1023 -> 0-01:1023
ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized


2. DVD burner :

hdc: SONY DVD RW DRU-710A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15


4. Install the software :
1. Kino : This is what I used to grab a DV file from the digital camcorder and do some basic frame editing.

starvinh@saturn:/home/starvinh# apt-get update
starvinh@saturn:/home/starvinh# apt-get install kino

2. audacity : I used this to edit the audio stream.

starvinh@saturn:/home/starvinh# apt-get install audacity

3. mjpegtools : I used this to encode the sound and video for the DVD and multiplex the two into MPEG-2 DVD compatible files.

starvinh@saturn:~/pkg/install$tar -zxvf mjpegtools-1.6.2.tar.gz
starvinh@saturn:~/pkg/install$cd mjpegtools-1.6.2/
starvinh@saturn:~/pkg/install/mjpegtools-1.6.2$./configure
starvinh@saturn:~/pkg/install/mjpegtools-1.6.2$make
starvinh@saturn:~/pkg/install/mjpegtools-1.6.2$su root
root@saturn:/home/starvinh/pkg/install/mjpegtools-1.6.2$make install


4. smilutils : This is optional. I used this to pipe SMIL files
produced by Kino to different encoders. This is the most flexible
way to encode the edited video.

starvinh@ saturn:/mnt/hdb1# apt-get install smilutils

5. dvdauthor : I used this to create the DVD file structure from a XML file describing the MPEG files and chapters.

starvinh@saturn:/home/starvinh# apt-get install dvdauthor

6. dvdrecord : I used this to burn the final DVD ISO image.

starvinh@saturn:/home/starvinh# apt-get install dvdrecord


5. Acquire the DV file :
Configure the type of video that you want to use when acquiring. You can use the raw DV format. I chose to use the AVI to contain the DV as it is easier for me to play them directly.

6. Frame editing
I did all my frame editing by splitting and joining scenes and removing what was too dark or unnecessary.

7. Scene transitions
There are some pretty good video editors out there like Cinerella but my computer was too slow. I decided to use Kino directly and install some FX plugins :

starvinh@saturn:# apt-get install kino-dvtitler
starvinh@saturn:# apt-get install kino-timfx


8 . Encode the MPEG-2 video :
1. Use either Kino’s pipe to the MPJPEG tools, making sure the MPEG-2 DVD format is selected. Read the MAN page for the tools options :

mpeg2enc -v 0 -f 8 -I 1 -n n -a 2
mp2enc -v 0 -r 48000 -b 192
mplex -v 0 -f 8


2.Or use them separately(for example to edit the audio stream then multiplex it later with the video stream). That is done by reading the Kino SMIL file (using the smilutils package) and pipe it to an encoder :

smil2yuv church.smil | mpeg2enc -v 0 -f 8 -I 1 -n n -a 2 -o church_test.mpv


This part is very CPU intensive. It took me around six or seven hours to render
an hour and half of above average compresion video.


top - 00:46:26 up 1 day,  5:23,  2 users,  load average: 1.47, 1.28, 1.15
Tasks:  75 total,   2 running,  73 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 91.7% us,  5.0% sy,  0.0% ni,  0.0% id,  2.6% wa,  0.3% hi,  0.3% si
Mem:    515556k total,   512020k used,     3536k free,    23740k buffers
Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,   315820k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
30136 root      25   0 48016  36m 2480 R 62.2  7.2  35:30.90 mpeg2enc
  
  
starvinh@saturn:/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg$ acpi -V
     Thermal 1: ok, 54.0 degrees C
  
>>> ExportMJPEG::startExport
>>> Generated video pipe ' mpeg2enc -v 0 -f 8 -I 1 -n p -a 2 -o '/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg/reception'.mpv'
>>> Generated audio pipe '|mp2enc -v 0 -r 48000 -b 192 -o '/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg/reception'.mp2'
  
    Executing 'mplex -v 0 -f 8 -o '/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg/reception'%03d.mpeg '/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg/reception'.mpv '/mnt/hdb1/wedding_mpg/reception'.mp2'


9. Create the DVD file structure.
1. Create a XML file to describe where the MPEG files are and to add the chapters :
wedding.xml

2. Use the XML file as input to dvdauthor:

starvinh@saturn:~$ mkdir dvdauthor_wedding
starvinh@saturn:~$ cd dvdauthor_wedding/
starvinh@saturn:~/dvdauthor_wedding$ dvdauthor -o wedding -x wedding.xml
DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
Build options: gnugetopt magick iconv freetype fribidi
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

STAT: fixed 9046 VOBUS
INFO: dvdauthor creating table of contents
INFO: Scanning wedding/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO


10. Create ISO image.

starvinh@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso$
mkisofs -o imagedvd.iso -dvd-video /home/starvinh/dvdauthor_wedding/wedding/
  0.26% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:26:17 2004
  0.51% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:23:02 2004
  0.77% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:21:57 2004
  1.03% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:21:25 2004
  1.28% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:22:23 2004
  ...
99.77% done, estimate finish Wed Nov 10 19:24:29 2004
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 4096
Path table size(bytes): 42
Max brk space used 21000
1949570 extents written (3807 MB)


11. Verify ISO image

root@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso# ll
total 3902952
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root     3992719360 Nov 10 19:24 imagedvd.iso
root@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso# isoinfo -i imagedvd.iso -l

Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 10 2004 [    278 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Nov 10 2004 [    277 02]  ..
----------   0    0    0            6144 Nov 10 2004 [    283 00]  VIDEO_TS.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            6144 Nov 10 2004 [    280 00]  VIDEO_TS.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0           61440 Nov 10 2004 [1949389 00]  VTS_01_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           61440 Nov 10 2004 [    286 00]  VTS_01_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0      1073709056 Nov 10 2004 [    316 00]  VTS_01_1.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0      1073709056 Nov 10 2004 [ 524588 00]  VTS_01_2.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0      1073709056 Nov 10 2004 [1048860 00]  VTS_01_3.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0       770574336 Nov 10 2004 [1573132 00]  VTS_01_4.VOB;1


12. Burn the ISO image onto DVD

root@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso# ll
total 3902936
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root     3992702976 Nov 10 21:43 imagedvd.iso
root@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso# dvdrecord -scanbus
dvdrtools v0.1.4
Portions (c) 2002-2003 Ark Linux <bero@arklinux.org>
Based on:
Cdrecord 1.11a15 (i386-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 Jörg Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.30
Using libscg version 'bero-0.5a'
dvdrecord: Warning: using inofficial version of libscg (bero-0.5a '@(#)scsitransp.c     1.81 01/04/20 Copyright 1988,1995,2000 J. Schilling').
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'SONY    ' 'DVD RW DRU-710A ' 'BY01' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *
root@saturn:/mnt/hda2/wedding_dvd_iso# dvdrecord speed=4 -dao dev=0,0,0 imagedvd.iso
dvdrtools v0.1.4
Portions (c) 2002-2003 Ark Linux <bero@arklinux.org>
Based on:
Cdrecord 1.11a15 (i386-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 J?rg Schilling
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.30
Using libscg version 'bero-0.5a'
dvdrecord: Warning: using inofficial version of libscg (bero-0.5a '@(#)scsitrans
p.c     1.81 01/04/20 Copyright 1988,1995,2000 J. Schilling').
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 2
Response Format: 2
Capabilities   :
Vendor_info    : 'SONY    '
Identifikation : 'DVD RW DRU-710A '
Revision       : 'BY01'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd).
Driver flags   : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: PACKET SAO
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 4 in write mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write in 0 seconds. Operation starts.
trackno=0
dvdrecord: WARNING: Drive returns wrong startsec (0) using -150
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 3992702976/3992702976 (1949562 sectors).