Quick DVD authoring, with subtitles

Let's say you have a DivX movie (movie.avi) and a subtitles file (subtitles.srt) and you want to burn this into a DVD, which any player (non divx-capable) can play.

This is called DVD authoring, and there are many tools to do the job (though I have not found one that I really like, yet). For such a simple task, a few commands on the console are the simplest option.

1. Transcode move to MPEG-2

See the mencoder documentation at the end - it contains examples for other formats.

mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf \
 -vf scale=720:576,harddup -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 \
 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:\
keyint=15:vstrict=0:acodec=ac3:abitrate=192:aspect=16/9 -ofps 25 \
 -o movie.mpg movie.avi

2. Render and multiplex subtitles into movie

Create a file like this one, and save it as sub.xml:

<subpictures>
  <stream>
    <textsub filename="subtitles.srt" characterset="ISO-8859-1"
         fontsize="22.0" font="devedesans.ttf"
horizontal-alignment="center"
         vertical-alignment="bottom" left-margin="60"
right-margin="60"
         top-margin="20" bottom-margin="40" subtitle-fps="25"
         movie-fps="25" movie-width="720" movie-height="574"/>
  </stream>
</subpictures>

Run spumux to create a new mpeg file with the subtitles stream:

spumux -s0 sub.xml < movie.mpg > m_subs.mpg

3. Author the DVD

Finally, we need to tell dvdauthor how to create a dvd. Create a file dvd.xml like this one:

<dvdauthor>
    <vmgm>
    <titleset>
        <titles>
            <subpicture lang="es">
            <pgc>
                <vob file="m_subs.mpg">
            </pgc>
        </titles>
    </titleset>
</dvdauthor>

And run dvdauthor:

dvdauthor -o thedvd -x dvd.xml

4. Round up

Voila! The directory thedvd will contain the DVD structure (not an ISO image). You can test the results with mplayer:
mplayer dvd:// -dvd-device thedvd

and if it looks ok, just burn it into a dvd - k3b can burn this (use new Project -> movie DVD)

At the end you can delete *.mpg files, and the thedvd directory.

References:

• mencoder on dvd authroing: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-vcd-dvd.html
  
• spumux: http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/spumux.html
  

thunderbird: very small fonts, and links not opening in browser

I recently installed and new kubuntu on my mother's PC (yes!! finally, wiped out Windows completely!!), and of course I am the help desk support since then...

A few days ago I had the chance to solve to curious issues she was having with thunderbird. I had to google a little for both solutions:

Very small fonts: Almost everything in thunderbird had a very, very small font size: menus, message list, etc. I tried changing DPI resolution in KDE, setting global font preferences por KDE and GTK applications, with no avail. Finally the solution was to tweak a property within thunderbird:

layout.css.cpi = 0

(the default value was unset, or -1, I can't remember). So simple! I don't know what is the meaning of the property, but solved the issue and now all fonts are just like in any other application.

Clicking links does not open a browser: When reading an email with a URL, clicking on them did just nothing. I browsed every possible option in the Preferences windows, but there was nothing that fixed it. The solution, again, was hidden in the advanced preferences. I had to set a few variables:

network.protocol-handler.app.http = /usr/bin/firefox
network.protocol-handler.app.https = /usr/bin/firefox

(that can be done for ftp as well -- and any other protocol if needed).

Note: To edit the "advanced" preferences, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Config Editor. Be aware that you can misconfigure it very easily from there!

Both are things far from what a regular end user could change. I wonder why the default install left things that way....