HOWTO: convert an AVI or to DVD (VOB) in Linux

[ and create a new file:

vi dvdauthor.xml

with the contents (NOTE: change all ( and )s to brackets, apparently neither the pre or code tag accepts brackets in them in wordpress - reminder to self, fix this):

(dvdauthor dest="DVD")
  (vmgm /)
   (titleset)
     (titles)
       (pgc)
         (vob file="movie.mpg" chapters="0,15:00,30:00,45:00,1:00:00"/)
       (/pgc)
      (/titles)
   (/titleset)

Now run dvdauthor referring to new XML file:

dvdauthor -x dvdauthor.xml

When it’s done you’ll have a new directory called DVD, with the contents VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. Open your favorite DVD burning app (I recommend GnomeBaker) and place those two direcotries in the root of the DVD and burn. Notice that in the XML file we called out chapters as 0, 15, 30, 45, 1 hour - obviously these can be further tweaked to be ‘real’ chapters, or left out all together. I’m sure there’s a GUI DVD authoring app that helps you do this, if you figure it out post below and let me know. HTH!