This is in a bit of a hodgepodge state, but if you read it carefully,
it should help. I'll try to make it a little more orderly, as time
permits.

=====================================================================

Ripping the DVD

mkdir /home/hjr/dvd1

NOTE: Be sure to check the dvd tracks thoroughly. That's how I had so
much trouble with the one dvd. I just assumed there was only track 1.
So, use:

streamanalyze -i /dev/rcd0c -t 2 & more if you want. Make damned
sure which track you need!

NOTE: lsdvd seems to give a lot more thorough information without
any extra work. That's how I found out I was analysing and ripping
the wrong track.

dvdauthor -t -o /home/hjr/dvd1 -f 'streamdvd -i /dev/rcd0c -t 1 \
-s 0xe0,0x80 -f 1.131 |'

NOTE: In the above example, the -s switch is telling it to just
rip the 1st video track, i.e. 0xe0 & the 1st audio track, i.e. 0x80.
The -f switch is telling it to use a shrink factor of 1.131 but is
only needed if the total files exceed the single-layer dvd's size.

=====================================================================

1. Change to the directory containing the VIDEO_TS subdirectory.
   If you do not have a VIDEO_TS subdirectory, create one, and move
   the DVD VOB, BUP, and IFO files into this subdirectory.

2. Create an empty AUDIO_TS subdirectory if it does not already exist
   may be required by some standalone DVD players)

3. Change user and group ownership of the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS
   subdirectories and files to root.
   chown -R root:root AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS

4. Change permissions on the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subdirectories to
   "500" chmod 500 AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS

5. Change permissions on the files within VIDEO_TS to "400"
chmod 400 VIDEO_TS/*

6. Create the video DVD with growisofs. In this example, /dev/dvd
   (in my case, /dev/rcd0c) is a symbolic link to my DVD recorder.
   growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video .

NOTE: I recommend using the -dvd-compat flag. Video DVDs created
without this flag will not play on some standalone DVD players.

You may also create a burn_video_dvd script to automate the process.
Simply run this script from the directory containing the VIDEO_TS and
AUDIO_TS subdirectories.

#!/bin/sh

# Create an AUDIO_TS subdirectory if it does not exist
[ ! -d AUDIO_TS ] && mkdir AUDIO_TS

chown -R root:root AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS
chmod 500 AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS
chmod 400 VIDEO_TS/*

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video .

=====================================================================

To blank a dvd-rw that already has been written to, do:

dvd+rw-format -blank=full /dev/rcd0c

for a full blanking. This will take about one hour on 1x media. A fast
blanking can be done by:

dvd+rw-format -blank /dev/rcd0c

=====================================================================

Useful links that helped me:

http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Burning_Video_DVDs_in_Linux.html
http://www.dizwell.com/prod/node/47
http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/creating-dvds.html

=====================================================================

Here are some thoughts on creating a script for the rip & burn, with
the assumption no shrinking is needed:

#!/bin/sh
# First, rip & burn the dvd into /data2/dvd1
cd /data2/ && dvdauthor -t -o /data2/dvd1 -f 'streamdvd -i /dev/rcd0c -t 1 |'
# Second, concatenate all VOB files into 1 file & then move all VOB files
# into another directory for safe keeping in case something goes wrong
cd /data2/dvd1/VIDEO_TS && cat *.VOB > movie && mv *.VOB /data2/dvd3/
# Third, dvdauthor creates IFO & BUP files for dvd structure
dvdauthor -o /data2/dvd2 movie.vob && dvdauthor -o /data2/dvd2 -T
# Fourth, set ownerships on files
cd /data2/dvd2 && chmod 500 AUDIO_TS VIDEO_TS && chmod 400 VIDEO_TS/*
# Fifth, use growisofs to burn the movie to the dvd
growisofs speed=2 -dvd-compat -Z -Z /dev/rcd0c -dvd-video .

Only problem here is what happens with the dvd that was ripped, since
there's going to have to be an empty dvd in the tray by the end of the
script. No way to totally automate it, I guess. Possibly while the cat
command is combining the VOB files is a good time to make the change.

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