The rapid developments in consumer electronics and computer technology have made it easier for home users to venture into video production. To present your films, photos, and music on TV with your DVD player, you only need a Linux machine and the 2ManDVD [1] program, with which you can easily produce professional-looking multimedia DVDs.

Off We Go

2ManDVD used to be available for almost all Linux distributions. Unfortunately, many of the libraries it uses are now quite old. This has made it a problem to maintain in Ubuntu, so it was removed as of 13.10 – Raring Ringtail. For Trusty and Utopic, you'll have to compile 2ManDVD from source and modify some of the source code.

To begin, download the compressed file with the source [2]. Decompress it and cd into the directory.

Open the videowrapper.cpp and search for the line that says:

if (av_open_input_file(&pFormatCtx,\
  filename.toAscii().data(),NULL,0,NULL)!=0)

and change it to:

if (avformat_open_input(&pFormatCtx,\
  filename.toAscii().data(),NULL,0)!=0)

Because 2ManDVD uses Qt4, and Ubuntu now installs Qt5 by default, you'll have to download the correct Qt tools and environment:

$ sudo apt-get install qt4-qmake \
  qt4-default libavutil-dev

Finally, you have to install some extra development libraries so you can get a clean compile:

$ sudo apt-get install libavcodec-dev \
  libavformat-dev libswscale-dev libsdl-dev libx264-dev

Now, you can compile with:

$ qmake-qt4 2ManDVD.pro
$ make
$ sudo make install

2ManDVD relies heavily on ffmpeg , mplayer , and others, but the Ubuntu packagers have dropped some of these programs in favor of equivalent (but not identical) packages in more modern releases. It would be impossible to cover all the active Ubuntu releases out there, so if 2ManDVD does complain about "Missing Dependencies" when booting, you can visit the FAQ [3] for further information. This page contains very detailed and accurate instructions on how to compile and install the most common packages 2ManDVD needs.

Firing Up

After startup, 2ManDVD presents some setting options on an input screen for video standards and the working directory. It's advisable to have a separate directory put aside with enough GB of free space to work on projects without the risk of running out of memory. The program provides a choice between the PAL and NTSC video standards only, and in the 4:3 or 16:9 formats. Although these choices may not cover all form factors, they're likely sufficient for most applications. Once these settings are made, large buttons let you select the slideshow or DVD production option. You can also play the slideshow and open an existing project (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Starting the software requires setting only four options.

Video Production

The aim of 2ManDVD is to help you produce high-quality video DVDs. These usually have their own menus that show a selection of content. After clicking New DVD , you initially get a blank screen with a large editing area on the left and a separate context-sensitive design options area to the right. The menu bar at the top lets you set program options and render the project.

You first design the input window of the DVD. Right away, it provides professional design options: Buttons, backgrounds, submenus, and languages can easily be modified. To load a background, right-click the editing area and choose Background image . 2ManDVD opens a little file manager where you can choose the image. If the image has a different aspect ratio, as defined for your DVD production, the software provides thumbnails and two image-scaling options, which you can use to transfer the image to the editing area.

If you don't have your own image to integrate, the software provides several predefined backgrounds. To use them, click the Themes button on the lower left and select the desired theme. 2ManDVD groups the backgrounds thematically in subfolders (Figure 2).

Figure 2: 2ManDVD provides a variety of predefined backgrounds.

The backgrounds come in a variety of formats and most already have one or more buttons already integrated that can be used to create a menu structure. Of course, your own menu image still doesn't have any buttons; you'll add these in the next step. To do so, you can either click Insert | Add button in the menu bar or right-click in the editing area and choose the corresponding entry. If you want to add multiple buttons all at once, an option to do so is provided. The software opens a new window for a symmetrical design of up to six buttons in the DVD menu. Once you've added the background and buttons in the editing area, you can always move them around with the mouse.

After establishing the basic structure, you can click the Properties button in the lower right to open the properties dialog. To add text to a button, first click the respective radio button and enter text to the right, with formatting as desired. Note that a button can either contain or call up text, but not both.

The next step is to load the video content for the DVD. Click the Médias (some options are still not translated from French) button on the lower right, which opens a free area on the right for you to drag and drop the video from the file manager. You then need to link the buttons with the video. Click the Properties button and, in the Read media field, choose the video file to link with the button. To give the button a meaningful icon, click Load image or Video thumbnail to link an image with the button or a miniaturized short sequence from the video file.

Finally, it's a good idea to add a menu description to the button. Click Insert on the menu bar followed by Add label . You can then use the optional formatting to move the text box to the desired place in the menu. To make things a bit more colorful, you can use the color wheel to alter the text and its shadows (Figure 3).

Figure 3: You can customize the DVD menu as you like.

If you want to integrate freehand drawings on the menus, use Menu | Draw on the menu . 2ManDVD enlarges the DVD menu somewhat so that you can render the freehand item with some design elements. You can apply the symbols and drawing directly to the menu. Clicking Close at the bottom right returns you to the editing window that now includes your freehand drawings.

Having thus completed your video production, you need to render it in the correct format. 2ManDVD provides a few options for this. Use the Rendering | Create project option from the menu bar to save the project as a raw archive. Depending on the length and size of your video files and your computer's processing power, this step can take some time. 2ManDVD displays four progress bars during the process (Figure 4). Once completed, the software lets you burn the file to DVD or create an ISO image. To check how things look before editing further, you can use View result button. Return to editing lets you make further corrections.

Figure 4: 2ManDVD keeps you informed about the project status.

Further editing might be needed if you want to integrate the video with different form factors into a single project. The software recognizes any incompatible image formats and provides two modification alternatives. A single alternative should be used throughout to avoid unprofessional-looking "black borders" in the video.

Slideshows

In addition to applying menu structure to videos, you can also use 2ManDVD to archive and professionally prepare your photo collections. You can apply technically sophisticated slideshows and project them on a screen.

To create a slideshow, click the New slideshow button on the 2ManDVD start window. This opens an editing window similar to that of ffDiaporama . You'll see a preview window on the left and a variety of customizing options on the right. At the bottom of the window, you have two horizontal timelines showing the slide sequence and the length of the integrated soundtrack.

First, configure the settings on the right, including the total length and transition times of the slideshow. You can add image transition effects and backgrounds. Then, right-click at the bottom of the screen and pick Add Slide , upon which an empty image placeholder appears on the timeline for creating a home page with a background and text. To add text, right-click Add object | Text . You can also experiment with several other options, such as text colors. Once you enter the text with the Text parameters set on the right, the slideshow is completed. Next, you can launch the file manager and drag the desired image to the preview window (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Insert your images into the slideshow and add a soundtrack.

After entering all slides, you can customize them with optional settings individually or globally, and you can modify image transitions and durations. Among the more useful options is syncing the length of the slideshow with that of the soundtrack, which prevents the soundtrack from cutting off abruptly at the end. Use the Project menu to save the slideshow and then render it. 2ManDVD provides quite a few storage formats and converts the slideshow into the desired one.

Conclusion

2ManDVD is a powerful program for creating and designing customized video DVDs and slideshows. The software works quickly and is quite stable, although its function set involves somewhat of a learning curve. Shortcomings include the incomplete localization and lack of documentation, which often leave users to their own devices. To compensate for this, however, you get professional-looking results, which makes the software easily competitive with commercial products for the home user.