new authoring program, Bombono DVD

[ilya]

Hi all!

I've released first public version of my program, Bombono DVD v.0.5, see here -
http://www.bombono.org

Bombono DVD is easy to use program for making DVD-Video.
The main features of Bombono DVD are:
* excellent MPEG viewer: Timeline and Monitor
* real WYSIWYG Menu Editor with live thumbnails
* comfortable Drag-N-Drop support
* you can author to folder, make ISO-image or burn directly to DVD
* reauthoring: you can import video from DVD discs.

You can download sources or binaries for Ubuntu and openSUSE.
It would be nice if you give some feedback here, on this thread, about it

[lordsmurf]

That looks really good. I need to install Ubuntu in a VM.

[ilya]

That looks really good. I need to install Ubuntu in a VM.

Please install Ubuntu Hardy, I'done setup for it only.

[Lawbringer]

Does it re-encode the video?

For example, let's say I already have DVD-compliant video in MPEG2 format - will this tool be able to just take the video without re-encoding it?

[ilya]

Does it re-encode the video?

For example, let's say I already have DVD-compliant video in MPEG2 format - will this tool be able to just take the video without re-encoding it?

No. You have to input DVD-ready material now. On the one hand, it's plus obviosly, but on the other it's minus cause you need MPEG2 with NAV-packets already.
More about supported formats see here,-
http://www.bombono.org/What%20files%20are%20supported

[lordsmurf]

From what I know, authoring apps usually insert nav packets, so I think you need to reconsider this point. Making more steps in a person's workflow is not a good idea.

[ilya]

Yes, I see that. But there are two reasons why I just haven't added that feature:

1) I use DVD authoring myself for saving my and my family's favorite TV from DVD-recorder:
recorder -> temp DVD -> import to Bombono DVD -> final DVD with my style
In that chain I've already have NAV, so no need in remuxing. So, the question: what is your use case(s) when you need
just remuxing, and not reencoding? No joke, I need info

2) How to implement it right? Should I remux always (like TSUNAMI DVD Author) or not? If not (f.e. my use case) how to define that (check all bits of data or just beginning)? If you know how it's implemented in known programs like DVDit, Scenarist, Architect (place your favorite tool), write it here.

[ronnylov]

Can subtitles be imported?

[ilya]

No.
Write down please, how you want to import them. What format(s)?
From what?

[ronnylov]

When I record TV with my DVB card I can save the digital TV program as a transport stream. Then I demux the transport stream with projectX and can get teletext subtitles converted by projectx to srt format synched with the elementary audio and video streams.

So what I like to have is an authoring program that takes m2v elementary MPEG-2 video stream, mp2 audio (MPEG1 layer 2) or ac3 elemantary audio stream together with the subtitles as srt text file and author it to a DVD with selectable subtitles.

In Windows I use GUI for dvdauthor and use it with the muxman authoring engine and it works well for my purposes (although I must convert the srt files to sup format first, otherwise muxman does not work). The dvdauthor engine did not always produce DVD that worked without problems in my DVD player but muxman did work very well.

When I use Linux I would like something similar. I have used QDVDAuthor which works but then I must remux my elementary streams to mpg before importing and I also have some problems with swedish letters å ä ö in the subtitles if the srt file was created under windows.

So even if there are authoring programs that works I am still looking for one that have the features I want. I might test your program and see how it works for me compared to other alternatives. But without subtitle support it gets a little bit too limited for me.

[ilya]

Will this scenario fit you?
1) after demuxing in Projetx you mux video and audio to .mpg with mplex (console program, from mjpegtools)
2) import it in Bombono and 'visually' and srt file to timeline (you need viewing, editing them?)
3) finish with authoring

[ronnylov]

Yes it is acceptable even if I would prefer if the muxing was automatically done after importing. Normally I do not need to edit the subtitle but it is necessary to be able to adjust font size, colours and placement of the subtitles.

[fakk2]

Does this have 64bit support? I currently have 64bit and am going to try the source.

hmm.. a small update. I tried source and met all the dependency from what I gather and it terminates because of errors.

removed for the sake of space

[ilya]

I've not tested under 64bit yet. Users emailed me about that and some other errors (for 64bit) now, and I am going to polish the source in a day or two.
Stay tuned.

[fakk2]

thanks

[ilya]

to fakk2
Here http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/bombono/bombono-dvd-0.5.1.tar.bz2?download you can download new version.
I've checked Bombono on Ubuntu Jaunty 64bit - now it builds and runs flawlessly.

If you use Ubuntu you can install from repository now. See instructions here -
http://www.bombono.org/Install%20In%20Ubuntu

[fakk2]

Thanks! I just saw the repos and installed it. Looks beautiful.

Now I guess I'll be spending some time looking for a way to convert my mov to vob and ill post a solution here for the ones who are having a hard time.

ill donate to your effort when i get a little time working this next coming weekend. I'ts a good project. ill also be donating to openshot project. mlt is a pain for high def videos.

some problems!

in menu list inside menu, you have menulist and medialist. on menu list, you have 2 bottons on left side of edit. they have nothing on the button. So I did not know these buttons are to add or remove menus. I had a hard time figuring out how to add menus. But it works its just it has no text. edit says edit but the other 2 has nothing and only has buttons.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
video converting anytype to vob files is easy. you just need medibuntu installed if you have ubuntu and use winff to convert.
I created a ntsc wide screen high quality profile for you guys to try out. you can edit the line..its easy.

preset Name:ntscdvdvobhqWS
preset label:NTSC DVD-vob HQ (16:9)
preset command line:-target ntsc-dvd -r 29.97 -s 720x480 -aspect 16:9 -b 8000k -mbd rd -flags +trell -mv0 -cmp -subcmp 2
output file:VOB
categoryVD

after it creates the files, just drag the file and it says it has nav so no problem. This is the best DVD software I have used yet! devede is awesome too but I'm really starting to like this one.

[ilya]

1. About buttons - can you make a screenshot?
What Gnome theme do you use? Try to change it to some other theme and check if icons appears ("+" for add and "-" remove menu).

Also, check if you can search such files in /usr/share/icons: gtk-add.png, gtk-remove.png.

What Ubuntu version you have? 64bit?

2.

video converting anytype to vob files is easy. you just need medibuntu installed if you have ubuntu and use winff to convert.
I created a ntsc wide screen high quality profile for you guys to try out. you can edit the line..its easy.

I have plans to add converting to vob ... a little later

[fakk2]

okay! I found 2 issues with the software:
---------------------------------------------
1. Aspect ratio is 4:3 for menu's I think this is fine since my videos are 16:9 high definition converted to dvd standard. the widescreen starts up flawlessly. It is excellent. Is there a way to create a 16:9 aspect ratio menu system? and anamorphic quality?

2. DVD-video building bronken. The reason is "external command failure: exit code = 2" (SEE DETAILS)

err: cANNOT JUMP TO CHAPTER 12 OF TITLE I, ONLY II EXISTS

This problem occured if I use the whole video in menu one or button one and If I create a chapter at frame zero or the beginning of the video, it will cause this error. I deleted the chapter in frame 0 and it works fine. Maybee ill create a chapter at frame 2.

This problem took me 2 hours to figure out because I had no idea what I was doing but the chapter 1 set at frame 1 or 0 was the problem of this error.


wishlist:
---------------------------------------------
1. animated video and or background music for menu
2. chapter menu button should allow an image replacement option in place of the video image incase I put a marker on a dark spot for that specific chapter.
3. Save video region. Appearantly, my letters got cut off a but from the top. Like something you would see in vegas or cinerella. safe area grid! Make it allowable to toggle on and off too please!
4. autoadjust video to match dvd size like you see in devede. This is extremely usefull. I had to use a bitrate calculator to set my video bitrate for dvd authoring.

Other than that, ohh ya the jpeg. here is the screen shot and my pc spec
ubuntu hardy heron 8.04 64bit kernel version:2.6.24-34-generic

any theme i use or font or icon theme, its the same.

UDPATE!!!! the missing text in the button is related to the aurora engine and probably pixmap engine. gt brushed and aurora leopard bsm show this problem. I used one of the default ubuntu theme and I can now see plus and minus. So it is theme specific problem

you can probably replace the plus and minus with add and remove text but this really doesnt solve the theme problems.

[ilya]

okay! I found 2 issues with the software:
---------------------------------------------
1. Aspect ratio is 4:3 for menu's I think this is fine since my videos are 16:9 high definition converted to dvd standard. the widescreen starts up flawlessly. It is excellent. Is there a way to create a 16:9 aspect ratio menu system? and anamorphic quality?

Not now. What way user to choose when 4:3 or 16:9 menus? Is it good to set 16:9 if videos has 16:9 too?

2. DVD-video building bronken. The reason is "external command failure: exit code = 2" (SEE DETAILS)

err: cANNOT JUMP TO CHAPTER 12 OF TITLE I, ONLY II EXISTS

This problem occured if I use the whole video in menu one or button one and If I create a chapter at frame zero or the beginning of the video, it will cause this error. I deleted the chapter in frame 0 and it works fine. Maybee ill create a chapter at frame 2.

This problem took me 2 hours to figure out because I had no idea what I was doing but the chapter 1 set at frame 1 or 0 was the problem of this error.

Yes, it's a known feature of dvdauthor (one of main programs I use for authoring): chapter may not be too close to beginning of the video. I think I add info about that in FAQ (or will warn in the program just before authoring).

wishlist:
---------------------------------------------
1. animated video and or background music for menu

Yes, I've already get this feature request from user,- see this "ticket" http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/bombono/ticket/2. You can subscribe to it so when I resolve it the system emailed you. It's the system tracking all bugs and enchancements for the project.

2. chapter menu button should allow an image replacement option in place of the video image incase I put a marker on a dark spot for that specific chapter.

ok. Create ticket - http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/bombono/ticket/4

3. Save video region. Appearantly, my letters got cut off a but from the top. Like something you would see in vegas or cinerella. safe area grid! Make it allowable to toggle on and off too please!

same here - http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/bombono/ticket/5
Also, many programs have second type grid (matrix) for aligning objects. Is is useful for you?

4. autoadjust video to match dvd size like you see in devede. This is extremely usefull. I had to use a bitrate calculator to set my video bitrate for dvd authoring.

Is it about converting/reencoding?

Other than that, ohh ya the jpeg. here is the screen shot and my pc spec
ubuntu hardy heron 8.04 64bit kernel version:2.6.24-34-generic

any theme i use or font or icon theme, its the same.

UDPATE!!!! the missing text in the button is related to the aurora engine and probably pixmap engine. gt brushed and aurora leopard bsm show this problem. I used one of the default ubuntu theme and I can now see plus and minus. So it is theme specific problem

Ok, aurora's bug.

And how do you get so big toolbar icons? Is it a bug or your tweaking?
Mouse pointer icon and frame chooser looks too big.

[fakk2]

And how do you get so big toolbar icons? Is it a bug or your tweaking?
Mouse pointer icon and frame chooser looks too big.

Uhh! ya! i run 1920x1200 on a 24 inch monitor. I tweaked the theme on the gnome menu to use icons around 24 and my grounation cursor is default that size. it does not allow me to adjust size.

I use transparency on menus and blurr even in the terminal. my background animates with an xml file and changes depending on time so it is beautiful and i guess i had tons of time on my hands.

I also use conky and awn and cairo dock and screenlets but awn and cairo dock are buggy and not suited for a video editing or gaming environment or leaving on for weeks or months at a time because they crash desktop. I keep it simple and sometimes turn on conky since its crash proof from my perspective. Since the taskbar allowes for more applications to be on, you can see how they group together on the window list giving me alot of room. I removed the bottom bar since it was useless. I also kept the icons bit cuz i like the artwork from mattahan.

here is a screenshot croped showing my blurred terminal and menu. THe only problem i see here is xv. it also blurrs If i have games fullscreen and also becomes transparent so i created a script for each game that turns off compiz and turns it back on when i get out of fullscreen.


this image is croped and about 25% of my whole screen that you are looking at.

i think ill tweak the theme so the gnome white transparancy matches the terminal one.

[DV Jones]

Hi I just tried your program. Very nice looking and should be a very promising app for Linux. A few observations/requests:

- There doesn't seem to be a way to combine multiple video files into one title. Many times I want to make one title that is physically split over 2 or 3 mpg files. Apps like dvdstyler allow you to do this.
- There should be a way to do automatic chaptering, like every xx minutes or xx frames.
- Add functionality to put a background image in the menu.
- Add support for subtitles.
- I'm not sure I understand the purpose of having the timeline at the bottom. It probably requires lots of code and I don't see what value it adds. On the other hand, if you could drag videos to the time line and do some basic joining/cutting/splitting, then it would be really cool.

Thanks for this new app!

[fakk2]

You can already put background images. Also, the timeline creates chapters. when you throw the buttons into the menu, right click and for each button, you can assign a chapter.

I don't know about the rest of your questions. He posted where to add bugs and requests for features in this thread.

[ilya]

to DV Jones
I plan split/combine functionality and subtitle support. Current using of timeline is told by fakk2 and also you can save any frame from video.

How long should be default automatic chapter?

[ilya]

to put a background image in the menu: right-click on the menu -> Link -> choose what image you can.

[DV Jones]

to DV Jones
I plan split/combine functionality and subtitle support. Current using of timeline is told by fakk2 and also you can save any frame from video.

How long should be default automatic chapter?

Hello! I usually use 5 minutes, but maybe you can have a preference setting that allows the user to choose his own default chapter length. I didn't notice the background image method, thanks for pointing it out.