How to use DeVeDe

Another video tutorial by TheDuke

DeVeDe is a program that allows you to create a video DVD from an MPEG, AVI, MOV… video file, suitable for home DVD players. DeVeDe uses Mplayer, Mencoder, DVDAuthor and VCDimager, so you can use any video playable with Mplayer.

Microsoft Windows

To install DeVeDe on Windows all you will need is a DeVeDe installer. This documentation will use devede3.6.1-setup.exe as its example. devede3.6.1-setup.exe is an installer that has all the needed parts of DeVeDe, and is all that is needed.

To start the install of DeVeDe double click devede3.6.1-setup.exe. A window will appear asking you to choose a language for the installer to use.

Once an install language has been picked the process of installing DeVeDe will begin. All that you need to do is follow the installers instructions.

Once the installation is complete, you will have the option to run DeVeDe. You will be able to find DeVeDe in your Start Menu under DeVeDe (Start Menu -> All Programs -> DeVeDe -> DeVeDe).
Description of the interface
The selection window

When you launch DeVeDe, it will show you this window, asking what kind of disk you want to create. You can choose between:

* Video DVD: a classic video DVD, like the ones you rent in your videoclub or buy in your video shop.
* VideoCD: a CD with CBR MPEG-1 video at a resolution of 352×240 pixels (352×288 with PAL), a fixed bitrate of 1152 kbits/second for video and 224 kbits/second for audio. The quality is comparable to analog VHS, and a CD can contain as much compressed audio/video than uncompressed audio (this is, a 80-minutes CD can contain about 80 minutes of compressed video/audio). Is compatible with all DVD players, but video quality is medium-bad.
* Super VideoCD: a CD with VBR MPEG-2 video at a resolution of 480×480 pixels (480×576 with PAL) and video bitrates between 500 and 2600 kbits/second. The quality is comparable to LaserDisc, and a 80-minutes CD can contain about 60 minutes con compressed video/audio (more if you reduce the bitrate, but with less quality). Is compatible with a lot of DVD players, but maybe there is one very cheap which doesn’t support it. Video quality is good.
* CVD (China Video Disk): identical to Super VideoCD, but with a resolution of 352×480 pixels (352×576 with PAL). Offers less artifacts with same bitrate, but image is a bit less sharper than Super VideoCD. Is compatible with a lot of DVD players, but maybe there is one very cheap which doesn’t support it.
* DIVX/MPEG4: creates one-pass DIVX files, ready to be played in DIVX-compliant players.

Of course you aren’t limited to theses options, since you can choose, if you want, another resolution for your CD/DVD. This allows you to create Super VideoCDs with a resolution of 352×240 (or 352×288 for PAL), which is a very good compromise if you want to store a lot of video in a single CD. I don’t recomend to use other resolutions with VideoCDs, because CBR MPEG-1 is very limited. Choose the Super VideoCD or CVD option (which uses VBR MPEG-2) and use there the resolution you want.
The main interface

After choosing the kind of disk you want, you will see the main interface:

Main interface for DVD discs

A DVD is divided in Titles and Chapters. Each title is a film on its own, and, when played, you have to choose the one you want to see. Into each title you can add as many files you want, and cut them in chapters to allow an easy search.

Main interface for VCD/SVCD/CVD discs

In VideoCDs, Super VideoCDs and CVDs there’s no title concept, so that frame won’t be visible when you choose to create one of them.

In the DVD window screenshot we can see that there are two titles, and that title two has two files. The files in a title will be played one after another, like a single film. So if you only want to create a DVD with one single film from multiple files, you have to put all of them in a single title. Your player will merge all in a single film.

The File info box contains all the information about the selected file: desired audio an video rate, original size, FPS and length in seconds. It has the estimated size in Mbytes, but have in mind that is an estimation, so the final size can be lower.

The Disk usage shows the percentage of the DVD currently used. You can occupy more than the 100% because it’s based in an estimation, so the final size can (and probably will) be lower than the expected, but never higher (see the FAQ for details). You can choose the CD/DVD size too. Have in mind another thing: a 700MB CD can contain 80 minutes of compressed audio/video, which, at 1152 kbps are about 800MB. This means that, when the media is a CD, you MUST use the bar to know how many disc space you are using, and no the estimated size of the files, because you can put up to 800MB of compressed video in a 700MB CD, or about 720MB in a 650MB CD.

Now, the Action block allows you to choose what do you want to create. The first option,Only convert film files to compliant MPEG files takes each file and converts it to a DVD-compliant MPEG-PS file, or to VCD, SVCD or CVD-compliant MPEG-PS. You can choose a generic name, being the default name “movie”, so the files will have names like movie_XX_YY.mpg, being XX the title, and YY the file position into the title. An example: if you have two titles, and two files in the first title and three files at the second title, you will get five files: movie_01_01.mpg, movie_01_02.mpg, movie_02_01.mpg, movie_02_02.mpg and movie_02_03.mpg. This option is specially usefull when you want to create DVD menus with other program like DVD Styler, Q DVD Author or PoliDori. Of course, with VCD, SVCD or CVD, the title number will be always “01″.

The second option, Create disk structure, is visible only when you create a DVD. It creates the MPEG files and then uses DVDAuthor to create the DVD tree structure. After that, it erases the MPEG files. You can use this option to create the folder and files for a DVD and use your own DVD recording program to create the ISO image and burn it into a DVD.

The third option, (second if you are creating a VCD, SVCD or CVD), Create an ISO or BIN/CUE image, ready to burn to a disk, converts the files to MPEG, creates the DVD tree if needed and, using MKISOFS, creates the ISO file, erasing then the MPEG and DVD tree to free disk space. With CD media, it converts the files to MPEG and uses VCDImager to create a BIN/CUE image, ready to be burned to a CD. Use this option to create a disk image ready to be burned to a CD/DVD with a program like GnomeBaker or K3b.

The next block, options, starts with Erase temporary files, which allows to choose if you want DeVeDe to erase the temporary files as soon as they are needed no more. Selecting it, DeVeDe will need only about twice the final disk space, but if you don’t mark it, you will need about three times the final disk space, but you will have all the temporary files.
Menu options

Finally there is the Add a menu with the titles and its associated buttons. When you check it, DeVeDe will create a menu in the DVD, allowing you to jump to the title you want. Here is the menu that DeVeDe creates from the example, with the first title highlighted:

If you click the Menu options button, you will see this window:

The first block allows you to change the background picture. This way you can create a custom menu for your DVD. In the second block you can choose the format for your menu (PAL or NTSC). This determines the final resolution (720×576 for PAL or 720×480 for NTSC). The third block allows you to change the font style and size, but be careful: you can only change the font size, not the button size, so if you make it too big, you will have a menu like this:

You must be careful with the font size, or you will get incorrect results like this.

The optimal font size is 12 points, but maybe for some special fonts it can be different, so always use the Preview menu button to ensure that everything has the desired size.

These options will be unavailable when creating DIVX files, because there you will create only files, not disk images.
Adding a new title

If you press the button Add in the title group, DeVeDe will add a new title with a generic name. Now, if you click the button Properties, you will see the title’s properties window:

The first thing you can change here is the title’s name. This is important because this name is the one used in the menu.

The second thing you can choose is the action to perform when the player ends playing this title. These options allows to choose the new title which the player will play. This way you can do a title that loops forever, or you can do a disk which, after playing any title, plays the last title too and then jumps to the menu… the possibilities are infinite. Of course, these options works both when the disk has a menu and when it doesn’t have it, but in the last case you are limited because you don’t have a menu to jump to a specific title (this means that you must set a “lineal” order”, or you will be unable to access some titles).

With the arrow keys you can reorder the titles.

Currently you can create DVD discs with up to 12 titles.
Adding movie files to a title

To add a new file you have two options: first, you can drag and drop one or more files into the main window, so DeVeDe will give them some fine default values; or you can choose the “Add” button, so you will see this window:

First you choose the file you want to add (you can do it by drag and drop in this window too). After doing it, you can see its properties at the File info block. You can then choose the new audio an video rate, unless you are creating a VCD (theses have a fixed data rate). Remember that bigger rates will give you more quality, but bigger file size too.

By default, if the video will be rescaled to a width of 720 pixels, DeVeDe will put 5001Mbps; but if the final width is 352, DeVeDe will put 2001Mbps by default if final height is 288 (PAL) or 240 (NTSC), or 3001Mbps if final height is 576 (PAL) or 480 (NTSC). Of course you can change this value to the one you want in order to have more quality or more playing time.

Then, you can choose if you want to put the whole file, or only the first or the second half. This is specially useful when creating VCDs: you can cut a long film in two disks if it’s too long to fit in a single disk. But if the length of the film is less than 60 seconds, you won’t be able to choose them.

Remember that this option is applied to each file, so if you put two files in a xCD and choose in both the first half, you will have a xCD with the first half of the first file followed by the first half of the second file.

Finally, you can choose if you want to create a PAL/SECAM or a NTSC DVD. DeVeDe will remember the last option you used, even between sessions, so you can choose it once and forget it.

Maybe you ask why I put this option here and not in the main window. The answer is: because this way you can create hybrid DVDs, with some films in PAL/SECAM format and others in NTSC. What is the utility of this? Simply: modern TV sets and DVD players can play both formats, so if you manually choose the one that fits better the original framerate of the file, you will have an smoother video. This is: if the original file has 24 or 25 fps, select PAL, and if it has 30 fps, select NTSC. Of course you can force one of them and DeVeDe will adjust the framerate to 25 or 30 fps, ensuring that the DVD will have the right framerate and will play fine in all TV sets, but maybe the motion is not as smooth as it could be.

There’s a Preview button that converts some seconds (you can choose how many), allowing you to check the audio/video quality and the audio sync. It will create the temporary file by default at /var/tmp, but you can choose other place if you prefer.

Finally there’s an expansor named Advanced options. If you expand it, you will see that there are four tabs with new options, not needed normally but which can give much more control to advanced users:

In the Video options tab you have:

* Final size: allows you to change the final resolution. A bigger resolution will give you sharper pictures, but will need more bitrate to avoid the horrible MPEG artifacs. If you choose Default, DeVeDe will choose automagically the best resolution, based in the original video resolution and the disk format you wanted. For Video DVD, DeVeDe will use resolutions of 352×288 for PAL/SECAM, or 352×240 for NTSC, if the video’s resolution is smaller or equal than that. If not, it will jump to 352×480 (NTSC) or 352×576 (PAL) if this way the video fits. If not, it will use 720×576 for PAL/SECAM or 720×480 for NTSC. For VCD, SuperVCD or CVD, DeVeDe will use, as default, the standard resolution of each format. If the video rate is 5001, 3001 or 2001, it will choose a new videorate automatically too.
* Scaling mode: here you can choose the expand method to use when the aspect ratio of the original file is not 4/3. The first method is the preferred, and consists in adding the classic black bars up and down. It has the advantage of maintain the aspect ratio, so the faces will look natural. The alternative method consists in expand the film, so the faces will look enlarged. Of course, if you have a 16:9 TV you can put it to Full Screen, and enjoy a full-resolution panoramic film.
* Use 16:9 aspect ratio for output: if this option is marked, the video will be adjusted to an aspect ratio of 16:9 instead the classic 4:3. If you have a television with widescreen, this option will allow you to enjoy more your videos thanks to the extra vertical resolution. This option is marked automatically when the source file has an aspect ratio of 1.777777 or bigger, but you can change it in the case you want pure 4:3 output or if DeVeDe fails to detect a widescreen video.
* Have in mind that the DVD standard only allows to create a 16:9 DVD with a width of 720 pixels, so if you activate this option, DeVeDe will ensure that the final width will be 720. For the same reason, if you choose a different width, the 16:9 option will be deactivated.
* You can create 16:9 DVDs, but not 16:9 VCDs, SVCDs or CVDs.

In the Quality options tab you have:

* Trellis Searched Quantization: this option makes Mencoder to find the optimal encoding for each 8×8 block, giving more video quality at the cost of a little slower conversion.
* MacroBlock decision algorithm: allows to choose the MBD algorithm, so you can choose to have better quality at the cost of slower conversion.
* Deinterlacing: allows to apply a deinterlace algorithm to the video. Useful when creating a DVD from a TV program or TV camera. You have three different algoritms to choose.

In the Audio options tab you will find:

Audio delay: is used to adjust the audio/video sync, allowing to fix videos with audio out of sync. You can set positive or negative values.

Create DVD with 5.1 channel sound: checking this will send to MENCODER the parameter -channels 6, so, if the source file has 5.1 sound, it will be preserved. But depending on the Mencoder version, is possible that the audio channels will be misordered.

This file already has AC3 sound: checking this will copy the audio tracks instead of recompressing them. This way, if the source file has a 5.1 sound track, it will be copied “as is”, maintaining all the quality and the channel order (of course, if the original movie has 5.1 sound, the converted movie will have it too). If your file has AC3 sound is better to use this option instead of Create DVD with 5.1 channel sound.

In the Subtitles tab you can choose a file with external subtitles, which will be added to the current video. These subtitles will be stored as true DVD subtitles, so you will be able to activate or remove them while playing. If you are using subtitle files coded with a codepage different than ISO-8859-1 (or pure ASCII) you will have to choose the right Codepage (UTF-8 is twice to make it easier to find).

The option “Put subtitles upper” makes DeVeDe to render the subtitles a little upper that normally. This is fine when you have a 16:9 film in 3:4 format (with black bars up and down) and want to use the ZOOM option in your TV without loosing the subtitles, or when your TV is old and misses too many lines in bottom and cuts the ordinary subtitles.

Have in mind that if you preview a video from DeVeDe with subtitles, they will be shown in order to allow you to ensure that the synchronization is fine (needs MPlayer 1.0rc1 or later, and not always works ).

If you want to remove the file, just use the Clear button.

Currently you can’t add subtitles when creating DIVX files, so this tab will be unavailable in that mode. But if you put the subtitles in the same directory than your DIVX file, usually the player should show them.

In the Misc tab you have:

* Division in chapters: available only with Video DVDs, allows you to divide the file in chapters each X minutes, so if you choose 5 minutes, you will have a chapter each 5 minutes. You can choose different intervals for each file. Is a good practice to divide files in chapters, because that allows you to easily jump to the desired part of the DVD. I hope to add this feature to CD media soon.
* This file is already a DVD/xCD-suitable MPEG-PS file option. When active, nearly all options will became insensitive because DeVeDe will not recompress that file, but will use it directly when creating the DVD/xCD structure. This option is usefull when you have some already-compressed files (Eg. when you capture a TV signal and store it directly in MPEG2-PS format), because you will not need to wait the conversion time. Of course, you can mix MPEG-PS and non-MPEG-PS files in the same disc, because DeVeDe will re-compress the non-MPEG-PS files, and use directly the MPEG-PS ones.
* Use a GOP of 12 frames: if this check box is active, DeVeDe will use 12-frame GOPs. Althoug the standard allows for up to 15-frame GOPs for PAL or up to 18-frame GOPs for NTSC, some DVD players dislikes GOPs bigger than 12. If you have problems to play DVDs created with the default option, check this.
* Extra parameters for Mencoder: allows you to add extra parameters to Mencoder, allowing you to add hardcoded subtitles, set picture quality, and much more. Remember to use ‘ ‘ to put blank spaces. An example: -sub /home/raster/holidays at galicia.sub will hard render the subtitles in the file “holidays at galicia.sub”. The blank spaces at the filename are put as ‘ ‘.

Creating the disk

After adding all the files you want, you will be prompted for a directory where DeVeDe will create all the files, and a generic name for them. The directory must have sufficient free space to hold all the temporary files (aprox. the double of the final CD/DVD size). The generic name will be used to name all the temporary files, so the MPEG files will be named as GENERICNAME_XX_YY.MPG, the DVD tree directory will be named GENERICNAME, the ISO image will be named GENERICNAME.ISO, and the BIN/CUE files will be GENERICNAME.BIN and GENERICNAME.CUE. You can’t use blank spaces for this name (if you put them, will be changed to underscores).

Finally, the program will start to create the files. Remember that this is a very slow process, and can need more than two hours to be completed.
Storing and restoring the disc structure

The options Load, Save and Save as in the File menu allow you to save the current disk structure, in the case that you want continue your work later, or reuse it for another, slightly different, disk. DeVeDe stores the disk format adding the extension .devede.

When you load a disk structure, DeVeDe checks that every file is still in its place. If there is a missing, it will show an error message listing all the missing files (the complete path) and will refuse to load the structure, to avoid incorrect results. There’s a trick to still load it: just copy another movie to the right directory and rename it with the right name, and after loading the structure, remove it from DeVeDe.

If the missing file is the menu background, DeVeDe will load the structure anyway, but showing a warning message and using the default background instead.

And it has a nice theme to.

Download ( devede3.11.0-setup.exe) here for free >http://www.majorsilence.com/deve/

In the new version ( devede3.11.0)

There are some changes, for example new screen resolution settings

that’s all.

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