Here
(http://maketecheasier.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-manage-your-audiovideo-files-in-linux/2009/03/03) is a nice review of some of the applications that enables conversion and handling of these types of files. Some specific examples and suggestions are here.
Mencoder
Mencoder (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/mencoder.html) is part of the MPlayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/index.html) set of libraries (that also uses several of the FFMPEG libraries) for audio/visual conversion, including from DVD (.vob) format to other video formats. Some examples of usage are here.
There are many front-ends (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7
/projects.html#mencoder_frontends) for mencoder, including k9copy.
FFMPEG video / audio conversion
FFMPEG (http://ffmpeg.org/) is the swiss-army knife of video and audio format conversion. It succeeds when no other program can. It is free and open source. If it not yet installed on your system as part of another package (it is used by many video/audio editors), then install it:
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
To convert many different formats, read the FFMPEG documentation
(http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html) . Also see this tutorial (http://howto-pages.org/ffmpeg/) .
For examples and further information, see this section.
FFMpeg requires that multiple restricted extra codecs be installed. This can be done in a single easy step from the command-line Terminal:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
FFMPEG GUI
WinFF (http://winff.org) is a free, GPL-licensed open source GUI frontend for FFMPEG.
Install:
sudo apt-get install winff xterm
Run:
Menu -> Applications -> Sound & Video -> WinFF
Join video segments
Individual video segments (MPEG-2, for example) can easily be joined:
cat samplevideo1.mpg samplevideo2.mpg samplevideo3.mpg > samplevideo123.mpg
You can then write the resulting MPEG-2 file to a DVD and play it in most DVD players.
Split a file into segments
Any file can be split (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_%28Unix%29) into segments using the Linux command:
split -b 1440k my_big_file
which will split my_big_file into equal segments of size 1440 kb.
Save any streaming Flash video
An easy way is to install the Video Download Helper plug-in for Firefox.
Otherwise, most Flash videos download to the /tmp directory while you watch the video, creating a randomly-named video file there (such as Flashuh4G6s). When you close the webpage, this file in the /tmp directory will be erased. After the entire video has
downloaded, but before you close the webpage, copy that file (such as Flashuh4G6s) to your home directory (where it will not be erased). Of course, for this to work, you must change your Flash (or Gnash) settings to allow an unlimited buffer. While watching your Flash
video, right click to bring up the Flash -> Settings window. Set the Buffer to "Unlimited."
Once you have copied the file, rename it appropriately with the .flv added to the filename.
You can then watch it using VLC or Mplayer.
Here (http://ihatehate.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/how-to-download-save-streaming-video-from-the-internet-using-linux/) is another method that involves making a symbolic link.
Save rtmp / flv streams
flvstreamer (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/flvstreamer) is a command-line application to dump rtmp streams. Install:
sudo apt-get install flvstreamer
Example (http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1390764) of usage:
flvstreamer -r "rtmp://host/dir/file.flv" -o filename.flv
If you see the following the "WARNING: Download may be incomplete, try --resume!"
message, try to use the --resume option:
flvstreamer -r "rtmp://host/dir/file.flv" -o filename.flv --resume
Convert Flash video audio to mp3
Once you have downloaded flash video content (.flv) from the Internet (using the Video Download Helper plug-in for Firefox, for example), the audio component can be converted to an .mp3 file. (This will work for any type of video file, not just Flash.) For details, see this section.
2ManDVD
2ManDVD (http://2mandvd.tuxfamily.org/) is a GUI utility for creating DVD videos. It is the successor of ManDVD. Choose the version for your architecture and install it from the 2ManDVD website (http://www.getdeb.net/app/2ManDVD) . Click on the download link and select to open it with the GDebi Package Installer (default). (If you have previously installed ManDVD you must uninstall it first.) For a usage tutorial, read this 2ManDVD guide
(http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/170/26/) . Run:
Menu -> Applications -> Sound & Video -> 2ManDVD DeVeDe
DeVeDe (http://www.rastersoft.com/programas/devede.html) is a program to create video DVDs and CDs suitable for home players (i.e. VCD, sVCD or CVD) from any source video file that is supported by MPlayer. Choose the version for your architecture and install it from the DeVeDe website (http://www.getdeb.net/app/DeVeDe) . Click on the download link and select to open it with the GDebi Package Installer (default). For a usage tutorial, read this DeVeDe guide (http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/75/26/) .
Run:
Menu -> Applications -> Sound & Video -> DeVeDe ManDVD
ManDVD (http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/ManDVD?content=83906) is a QT-based DVD authoring tool which accepts several different file types as input. Install:
sudo apt-get install mandvd xine-ui
DVD Author
For more details on creating a "commercial" (.vob (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOB) ) format DVD-video, see this section.
DVD author (http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/) allows you to create menus and format your MPEG-2 videos onto a DVD disc so that you can play it in a commercial DVD
player. DVD Author is a command line tool, but several GUI's exist. Install:
sudo apt-get install dvdauthor
To prepare an audiovideo file (e.g. an .avi file) for conversion to DVD (.vob) format authoring (using a tool like dvdauthor), it is best to convert the file to a format with MPEG-2 (avcodec) video, AC3 (lav) audio, and the MPEG-PS (A+V) container as an intermediate first. This can be done using the GUI utility Avidemux, for example. Here (http://avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=tutorial:converting_to_dvd) is the
Avidemux tutorial for doing this. Details are also found here.
QDVDAuthor
QDVDAuthor (http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/) is a Qt-based GUI for DVD Author. A package for Trusty does not exist, but the Maverick package can be used.
Enable the Maverick multiverse repository temporarily by adding it to the Synaptic Package Manager Origin of Packages ("Other" software):
Menu -> System -> Synaptic -> Settings -> Edit Origins -> Software Sources: Other Software -> Add...
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick multiverse
From the Get and Remove Software menu (of Synaptic), install the qdvdauthor package (and the qdvdauthor-common package if it is not automatically installed as a
dependency).
Once the download/installation is complete, disable the Maverick multiverse repository (to prevent conflict with other Trusty packages).
Download and install the addons:
cd /tmp
wget http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/data/masks.tar.bz2 -O masks.tar.bz2 wget http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/data/buttons.tar.bz2 -O buttons.tar.bz2
wget http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net/data/alpha_trans.tar.bz2 -O alpha_trans.tar.bz2 cd /usr/share/qdvdauthor/
sudo tar -xjf /tmp/masks.tar.bz2 sudo tar -xjf /tmp/buttons.tar.bz2 sudo tar -xjf /tmp/alpha_trans.tar.bz2
Run:
Menu -> Multimedia -> QDVDAuthor Follow instructions in the Quick-Start Guide:
QDVDAuthor -> Help -> Quick-Start Guide
For a tutorial on authoring DVDs, see this guide (http://womble.decadent.org.uk/talks /dvd-ukuug06/dvd-talk-ukuug06-paper.html) .
Other DVD authoring programs
There are several other DVD authoring programs. For additional information see the Ubuntu Community (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DVDAuthoring) pages. Packages include:
Bombono (http://www.bombono.org) , a GTK-based, GUI DVD authoring program. Install (requires multiverse repositories to be enabled):
sudo apt-get install bombono-dvd
DVDStyler (http://dvdstyler.org) is a full-featured, cross-platform DVD-authoring frontend. Install:
sudo apt-get install dvdstyler
KMediaFactory (http://code.google.com/p/kmediafactory/) is a fast and simple KDE-based DVD authoring frontend for dvdauthor. (The DVD folders can then be burned to disc using
K3b.) Install (requires multiverse repositories to be enabled):
sudo apt-get install kmediafactory
ToVid
ToVid (http://tovid.wikia.com/wiki/Tovid_Wiki) is a collection of tools to create a DVD from a number of different video formats. A GUI is available. Install:
sudo apt-get install tovidgui tovid