July, 2006

Making DVDs of your home videos or those borrowed from you neighbour is child’s play. Here’s what you do assuming you have Fedora Core Linux installed:

1. If you don’t have one of the unofficial RPM sites on your yum repo list, install Livna like this:
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

2. Yum these packages: vcdimager dvdauthor mplayer mencoder mkisofs

3. Install any external codes required from MPlayer

4. Download DeVeDe by the one man shop Raster Software Vigo. Unpack and apply his simple Python install script.

5. Start up the the application by typing devede in the shell. The simple but brilliant GUI will guide you through the rest.

6. Burn the finished ISO with you favourite CD/DVD burner application.

With some video streaming services, it can be a bit cumbersome to save a local copy of the movie. Streams offered by mpegnation.com is an example of this. The following will however do the trick:

0. If you have Windows installed, removed your harddisk, mix garlic with Holy water and apply liberally to the disk. Then bury it in your garden under a full-moon. Get a new disk and install Linux, e.g. Fedora Core

1. On your Linux box, install these packages, e.g. with Yum:
(You’ll need access to one of the unofficial RPM repositories, e.g. Livna)
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm
yum mplayer mencoder

2. Download the link to the movie you want to save. In this example, we’ll use the Windows Media Player WM9 file. The text file you get will contain something like this:
REF HREF="mms://wmstream3.mpegnation.com/...

3. Copy that link, replace the mms with http and download using Wget:
wget http://wmstream3.mpegnation.com/...

4. The new file will contain a link to the actual movie, like this:
Ref1=http://wmstream3.mpegnation.com/...

5. Use this link to save the file using MEncoder:
mencoder http://wmstream3.mpegnation.com/... -o movie.asf -oac copy -ovc copy