[one-liner]: How to Burn an m4v or mp4 File to a DVD under Linux (Fedora/CentOS/RHEL & Debian/Ubuntu)

Posted on December 24, 2010 by News

Background

Occasionally I’ve needed to burn an mp4 or m4v file to a DVD. No need for any DVD menus, just a disc that would start playing immediately when inserted. Here’s a quick run down of how you can accomplish this via the command line.

Solution

Here’s how I do it for a single video DVD without a menu.

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# 1. first convert the video with ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i input.m4v -target ntsc-dvd output.mpg
 
# 2. now do the authoring
dvdauthor --title -o dvd -f output.mpg
dvdauthor -o dvd -T
 
# NOTE: --title sets the title of the DVD, -T sets the table of contents. In both 
#       above commands the -o switch is referencing a directory, NOT the actual dvd.
 
# 3. roll the .mpg file into an ISO file
mkisofs -dvd-video -o dvdimage.iso dvd
 
# NOTE: mkisofs is making an actual DVD video ISO file using the directory, dvd.
 
# 4. burn the ISO to DVD disc
growisofs -speed=1 -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=dvdimage.iso
 
NOTE: -speed=1 is for use with lower quality discs, increase as necessary

NOTE: This approach can be used to convert basically any format (m4v, mp4, etc.) to a DVD. Simply change the input file accordingly.

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# m4v
ffmpeg -i input.m4v -target ntsc-dvd output.mpg
 
# mp4
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd output.mpg
 
# etc
...

Useful Links

NOTE: For further details regarding my one-liner blog posts, check out my one-liner style guide primer.

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