Back to DeVeDe documentation.

Current version: 3.8c

Before sending a bug, please read the FAQ. (thanks).

Contents:
Install on Linux
Install on Windows
The User Interface
The main window
Menu Options
Adding a title
Add a file
Creating the disk
History

What is it?

DeVeDe is a program that allows you to create a video DVD from an MPEG, AVI, MOV... video file, suitable for home DVD players. DeVeDe uses Mplayer, Mencoder, DVDAuthor and VCDimager, so you can use any video playable with Mplayer.

DISCLAIMER

This software is distributed as is, under the GPL license (version 3 or later), and without warranty of any kind. Use it at your own risk. Press here to read the GPLv3 license.

Installing DeVeDe

Linux and Unix Systems

To install DeVeDe, first you must ensure you have Mplayer, Mencoder, DVDAuthor, VCDimager, mkisofs and ImageMagic in your system. You need Python 2.4 or later, PyGTK and PyGlade too. Then, just run the install.sh script as root:

It will copy all the files at the right place. It should even create an entry in your Gnome/KDE/freedesktop-compatible-windowmanager menu.

For advanced users, there are some extra paremeters that you can pass to the install.sh script (thanks to Patrick Monnerat). These are the --targeted=(yes/no), --uninstall=(yes/no), and the more common ones (--DESTDIR=..., --prefix=...).

The --targeted parameter means that you want to install DeVeDe in a directory different than /usr/local. If you put it to yes you must use --DESTDIR= and --prefix= at least to specify where to store the files.

The --uninstall parameter was a ned due to a mistake in the first versions of DeVeDe. Up to version 2.8, the install.sh script installed DeVeDe in /usr, but starting from version 2.9 it used /usr/local. To avoid problems when an user updates from a version lower than 2.9 to a higher one, by default the install.sh script first uninstall DeVeDe from all possible locations (/usr and /usr/local), and then proceed with the installation itself. This is a good effect until you want to create a .deb or .rpm package. In this case, just add the --uninstall=no parameter and the install.sh script will only do the install process, skipping the previous uninstall.

So if you are a package developer, you should use a command line like:

Microsoft Windows

To install DeVeDe on Windows all you will need is a DeVeDe installer. This documentation will use devede3.8c-setup.exe as its example. devede3.8c-setup.exe is an installer that has all the needed parts of DeVeDe, and is all that is needed.

To start the install of DeVeDe double click devede3.8c-setup.exe. A window will appear asking you to choose a language for the installer to use.

Once an install language has been picked the process of installing DeVeDe will begin. All that you need to do is follow the installers instructions.

Once the installation is complete, you will have the option to run DeVeDe. You will be able to find DeVeDe in your Start Menu under DeVeDe (Start Menu -> All Programs -> DeVeDe -> DeVeDe).

Creating a disk: fast instructions

Before explaining all the options in DeVeDe, I'll give you the common sequence to create a disk.

First, you choose the disk type you want to create (DVD, VCD, sVCD, CVD or DivX). Then, you drag&drop the files you want in the main window, creating (if is a DVD) the titles you want, or add them one-each-time with the Add file button. If you want to add subtitles or fine-tune the properties of a file, you should use the Properties button. Then you should click the Adjust disk usage button to set the video bitrate for each file (which depends on the final size of the file, if it have one or more subtitles, if it's already a converted file...), and finally go ahead and create the disk image.

Description of the interface

The selection window

When you launch DeVeDe, it will show you this window, asking what kind of disk you want to create. You can choose between:

• Video DVD: a classic video DVD, like the ones you rent in your videoclub or buy in your video shop.
• VideoCD: a CD with CBR MPEG-1 video at a resolution of 352x240 pixels (352x288 with PAL), a fixed bitrate of 1152 kbits/second for video and 224 kbits/second for audio. The quality is comparable to analog VHS, and a CD can contain as much compressed audio/video than uncompressed audio (this is, a 80-minutes CD can contain about 80 minutes of compressed video/audio). Is compatible with all DVD players, but video quality is medium-bad.
• Super VideoCD: a CD with VBR MPEG-2 video at a resolution of 480x480 pixels (480x576 with PAL) and video bitrates between 500 and 2600 kbits/second. The quality is comparable to LaserDisc, and a 80-minutes CD can contain about 60 minutes con compressed video/audio (more if you reduce the bitrate, but with less quality). Is compatible with a lot of DVD players, but maybe there is one very cheap which doesn't support it. Video quality is good.
• CVD (China Video Disk): identical to Super VideoCD, but with a resolution of 352x480 pixels (352x576 with PAL). Offers less artifacts with same bitrate, but image is a bit less sharper than Super VideoCD. Is compatible with a lot of DVD players, but maybe there is one very cheap which doesn't support it.
• DIVX/MPEG4: creates one-pass DIVX files, ready to be played in DIVX-compliant players.

Of course you aren't limited to theses options, since you can choose, if you want, another resolution for your CD/DVD. This allows you to create Super VideoCDs with a resolution of 352x240 (or 352x288 for PAL), which is a very good compromise if you want to store a lot of video in a single CD. I don't recomend to use other resolutions with VideoCDs, because CBR MPEG-1 is very limited. Choose the Super VideoCD or CVD option (which uses VBR MPEG-2) and use there the resolution you want.

The main interface

After choosing the kind of disk you want, you will see the main interface:

A DVD is divided in Titles and Files. Each title is a film on its own, and, when played, you have to choose the one you want to see. Into each title you can add as many files as you want, and cut them in chapters to allow an easy search.

In VideoCDs, Super VideoCDs and CVDs there's no title concept, so that frame won't be visible when you choose to create one of them.

Main window properties

In the DVD window screenshot we can see that there are two titles, and title two has two files. The files in a title will be played one after another, like a single film. So if you only want to create a DVD with one single film from multiple files, you have to put all of them in a single title. Your player will merge all in a single film.

The File info box contains all the information about the selected file: the final audio an video rate, original and final size, FPS and length in seconds. It has the estimated size in Mbytes, but have in mind that is an estimation, so the final size can be lower (but never higher).

The Disk usage bar shows the percentage of the disk currently used. You can occupy more than the 100% because it's based in an estimation, so the final size can (and probably will) be lower than the espected, but never higher (see the FAQ for details). You can choose the CD/DVD size too. Have in mind another thing: a 700MB CD can contain 80 minutes of compressed audio/video, which, at 1152 kbps are about 800MB. This means that, when the media is a CD, you MUST use the bar to know how many disc space you are using, and no the estimated size of the files, because you can put up to 800MB of compressed video in a 700MB CD, or about 720MB in a 650MB CD.

Under the bar is the Adjust disk usage button. Clicking on it will adjust the video rate in each video in order to use the 100% of the disk. To do so, DeVeDe takes in account the final resolution and the length, giving more bits per second to the videos with a higher resolution, but always in a proportional way. Remember that you should always click again the Adjust disk usage button after changing the final resolution, adding or removing subtitles or, in general, after doing any modification in any video's parameters, in order to assign a good video bit rate to each film

Now, the Action block allows you to choose what do you want to create. The first option,Only convert film files to compliant MPEG files takes each file and converts it to a DVD-compliant MPEG-PS file, or to VCD, SVCD or CVD-compliant MPEG-PS. You can choose a generic name, being the default name "movie", so the files will have names like movie_XX_YY.mpg, being XX the title, and YY the file position into the title. An example: if you have two titles, and two files in the first title and three files at the second title, you will get five files: movie_01_01.mpg, movie_01_02.mpg, movie_02_01.mpg, movie_02_02.mpg and movie_02_03.mpg. This option is specially usefull when you want to create DVD menus with other program like DVD Styler, Q DVD Author or PoliDori. Of course, with VCD, SVCD or CVD, the title number will be always "01".

The second option, Create disk structure, is visible only when you create a DVD. It creates the MPEG files and then uses DVDAuthor to create the DVD tree structure. After that, it erases the MPEG files (unless you unckeck the Erase temporary files button). You can use this option to create the folder and files for a DVD and use your own DVD recording program to create the ISO image and burn it into a DVD.

The third option, (second if you are creating a VCD, SVCD or CVD), Create an ISO or BIN/CUE image, ready to burn to a disk, converts the files to MPEG, creates the DVD tree if needed and, using MKISOFS, creates the ISO file, erasing then the MPEG and DVD tree to free disk space. With CD media, it converts the files to MPEG and uses VCDImager to create a BIN/CUE image, ready to be burned to a CD. Use this option to create a disk image ready to be burned to a CD/DVD with a program like GnomeBaker or K3b, or directly from the Gnome Desktop.

These options will be unavailable when creating DIVX files, because there you will create only files, not disk images.

The next block, options, starts with Erase temporary files, which allows to choose if you want DeVeDe to erase the temporary files as soon as they are needed no more. Selecting it, DeVeDe will need only about twice the final disk space, but if you don't mark it, you will need about three times the final disk space, but you will have all the temporary files.

The next option, Use optimizations for multicore CPUs, when marked, makes Mencoder to use several threads to convert the videos, thus getting advantage of multicore CPUs to run faster.

Menu options

Finally there is the Add a menu with the titles and its asociated buttons. When you check it, DeVeDe will create a menu in the DVD, allowing you to jump to the title you want. Here is the menu that DeVeDe creates from the example, with the first title highlighted:

If you click the Menu options button, you will see this window:

The first block allows you to change the background picture. This way you can create a custom menu for your DVD. In the second block you can choose the format for your menu (PAL or NTSC). This determines the final resolution (720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC). The third block allows you to choose the possition where you want to put the menu: in the top of the screen, centered, or in the bottom. Finally, the last block allows you to change the font style and size, and the colors used to render the inactive text, the active text and the text background (the inactive and the background colors can have transparency, so you can even remove the background if you want); but be carefull: you can only change the font size, not the button size, so if you make it too big, you will have a menu like this:

The optimal font size is 12 points, but maybe for some special fonts it can be different, so always use the Preview menu button to ensure that everything has the desired size.

Adding a new title

If you press the button Add in the title group, DeVeDe will add a new title with a generic name. Now, if you click the button Properties, you will see the title's properties window:

The first thing you can change here is the title's name. This is important because this name is the one used in the menu.

The second thing you can choose is the action to perform when the player ends playing this title. These options allows to choose the new title which the player will play. This way you can do a title that loops forever, or you can do a disk which, after playing any title, plays the last title too and then jumps to the menu... the possibilites are infinite. Of course, these options works both when the disk has a menu and when it doesn't have it, but in the last case you are limited because you don't have a menu to jump to a specific title (this means that you must set a "lineal" order", or you will be unable to access some titles).

With the arrow keys you can reorder the titles.

Currently you can create DVD discs with up to 12 titles.

Adding movie files to a title

To add a new file you have two options: first, you can drag and drop one or more files into the main window, so DeVeDe will give them some fine default values; or you can choose the "Add" button, so you will see this window:

First you choose the file you want to add (you can do it by drag and drop in this window too). After doing it, you can see its properties at the File info block. You can then choose the format (PAL or NTSC) and, if the movie has more than one audio track (like several languages), you can choose which one you want to use.

Maybe you ask why I put the PAL/NTSC option here and not in the main window. The answer is: because this way you can create hybrid DVDs, with some films in PAL/SECAM format and others in NTSC. What is the utility of this? Simply: modern TV sets and DVD players can play both formats, so if you manually choose the one that fits better the original framerate of the file, you will have an smoother video. This is: if the original file has 24 or 25 fps, select PAL, and if it has 30 fps, select NTSC. Of course you can force one of them and DeVeDe will adjust the framerate to 25 or 30 fps, ensuring that the DVD will have the rigth framerate and will play fine in all TV sets, but maybe the motion won't be not as smooth as it could be.

If you are creating a VCD, sVCD or CVD, you can choose if you want to put the whole file, or only the first or the second half. This is specially usefull when creating VCDs: you can cut a long film in two disks if it's too long to fit in a single disk. But if the length of the film is less than 60 seconds, you won't be able to choose them.

Remember that this option is applied to each file, so if you put two files in a xCD and choose in both the first half, you will have a xCD with the first half of the first file followed by the first half of the second file.

Finally, you can add up to 32 subtitle files, each one with one language. You can use the Add button or just drag&drop a file with subtitles (DeVeDe will check if the extension is .sub, .srt, .ssa, .smi, .txt, .aqt, .jss or .ass). These will be true DVD subtitles, in the sense that you can enable or disable them, and choose the language you want. When you do that, DeVeDe will show you this window:

In File you can choose the file with the subtitles. If you are using subtitle files coded with a codepage different than ISO-8859-1 (or pure ASCII) you will have to choose the right Codepage (UTF-8 is twice in the list to make it easier to find).

You must choose the language too. This allows the DVD player to show the language code when you enable the subtitles.

Finally, the option "Put subtitles upper" makes DeVeDe to render the subtitles a little upper that normally. This is fine when you have a 16:9 film in 3:4 format (with black bars up and down) and want to use the ZOOM option in your TV without loosing the subtitles, or when your TV is old and misses too many lines in bottom and cuts the ordinary subtitles.

Have in mind that if you preview a video from DeVeDe with subtitles, they will be shown in order to allow you to ensure that the sincronization is fine (needs MPlayer 1.0rc1 or later, and not always works :( ).

Currently you can't add subtitles when creating DIVX files, so this block will be unavailable in that mode. But if you put the subtitles in the same directory than your DIVX file, usually the player should show them. Read the FAQ for details.

There's a Preview button that converts some seconds (you can choose how many), allowing you to check the audio/video quality and the audio sync. It will create the temporary file by default at /var/tmp, but you can choose other place if you preffer.

Finally there's an expansor named Advanced options. If you expand it, you will see that there are four tabs with new options, not needed normally but which can give much more control to advanced users:

In the General tab you can manually adjust the audio and video bitrate, if you are unhappy with the values assigned by the Adjust disk usage button. You can choose if you want to split each file in several chapters and its lenght too. This allows to jump forward in the movie and select scenes.

In the Video (1) tab you can choose the final resolution for this video and the aspect ratio (this is, if you want a classic, or a widescreen video). A bigger resolution will give you sharper pictures, but will need more bitrate to avoid the horrible MPEG artifacs. If you choose Default, DeVeDe will choose automagically the best resolution, based in the original video resolution and the disk format you wanted. For Video DVD, DeVeDe will use resolutions of 352x288 for PAL/SECAM, or 352x240 for NTSC, if the video's resolution is smaller or equal than that. If not, it will jump to 352x480 (NTSC) or 352x576 (PAL) if this way the video fits. If not, it will use 720x576 for PAL/SECAM or 720x480 for NTSC. For VCD, SuperVCD or CVD, DeVeDe will use, as default, the standard resolution of each format. Remember that you should click again the Adjust disk usage button after changing the final resolution, adding or removing subtitles or, in general, after doing any modification in these parameters, in order to assign a good video bit rate to each film.

Have in mind that the DVD standard only allows to create a 16:9 DVD with a width of 720 pixels, so if you activate this option, DeVeDe will ensure that the final width will be 720. For the same reason, if you choose a different width, the 16:9 option will be deactivated. This is not true for DivX files.

You can create 16:9 DVDs and DivX, but not 16:9 VCDs, SVCDs or CVDs because the formats don't allow it.

If you are creating a DivX file, you will be able to choose High Definition resolutions too (1920x1080 and 1280x720) as you can see in the above picture, but you must do it manually.

In the Video (2) tab you have:

• Rotation: allows you to rotate the video before converting. Useful when you filmed something with the camera rotated (example: movies filmed with the movil phone).
• Mirror: allows to flip horizontally or vertically the video.
• Scaling mode: here you can choose the expand method to use when the aspect ratio of the original file is not 4/3. The first method is the preferred, and consists in adding the classic black bars up and down. It has the advantage of maintain the aspect ratio, so the faces will look natural. The alternative method consists in expand the film, so the faces will look enlarged. Of course, if you have a 16:9 TV you can put it to Full Screen, and enjoy a full-resolution panoramic film.

In the Quality options tab you have:

• Trellis Searched Quantization: this option makes Mencoder to find the optimal encoding for each 8x8 block, giving more video quality at the cost of a little slower conversion.
• MacroBlock decision algorithm: allows to choose the MBD algorithm, so you can choose to have better quality at the cost of slower conversion.
• Deinterlacing: allows to apply a deinterlace algorithm to the video. Useful when creating a DVD from a TV program or TV camera. You have four different algoritms to choose.

In the Audio options tab you will find:

Audio delay: it's used to adjust the audio/video sync, allowing to fix videos with audio out of sync. You can set positive or negative values.

Create DVD with 5.1 channel sound: checking this will send to MENCODER the parameter -channels 6, so, if the source file has 5.1 sound, it will be preserved. But depending on the Mencoder version, is possible that the audio channels will be misordered.

This file already has AC3 sound: checking this will copy the audio tracks instead of recompressing them. This way, if the source file has a 5.1 sound track, it will be copied "as is", maintaining all the quality and the channel order (of course, if the original movie has 5.1 sound, the converted movie will have it too). If your file has AC3 sound is better to use this option instead of Create DVD with 5.1 channel sound.

In the Misc tab you have:

• This file is already a DVD/xCD-suitable MPEG-PS file option. When active, nearly all options will became insensitive because DeVeDe will not recompress that file, but will use it directly when creating the DVD/xCD structure. This option is usefull when you have some already-compressed files (Eg. when you capture a TV signal and store it directly in MPEG2-PS format), because you will not need to wait the conversion time. Of course, you can mix MPEG-PS and non-MPEG-PS files in the same disc, because DeVeDe will recompress the non-MPEG-PS files, and use directly the MPEG-PS ones.
• Use a GOP of 12 frames: if thischeckbox is active, DeVeDe will use 12-frame GOPs. Althoug the standard allows for up to 15-frame GOPs for PAL or up to 18-frame GOPs for NTSC, some DVD players dislikes GOPs bigger than 12. If you have problems to play DVDs created with the default option, check this.
• Extra parameters for Mencoder: allows you to add extra parameters to Mencoder, allowing you to add hardcoded subtitles, set picture quality, and much more. Is divided in three parts:
• • Main: here you can add "classic" parameters to Mencoder, like -sub (to hard-render subtitles in the file). Each parameter is prepended with a dash, and uses blank space as separator. Remember to use '\ ' to put blank spaces. An example: -sub /home/raster/holidays\ at\ galicia.sub will hard render the subtitles from the file "holidays at galicia.sub".
  • -VF: allows to add extra sub-parameters in the -vf parameter. Parameters uses comma as separator.
  • -LAVCOPTS: allows to add extra sub-parameters in the -lavcopts parameter. Parameters uses colon as separator.

Creating the disk

After adding all the files you want and clicking in the Forward button, you will be prompted for a directory where DeVeDe will create all the files, and a generic name for them. The directory must have enought free space to hold all the temporary files (aprox. the double of the final CD/DVD size if you delete temporary files, or the triple if you don't). The generic name will be used to name all the temporary files, so the MPEG files will be named as GENERICNAME_XX_YY.MPG, the DVD tree directory will be named GENERICNAME, the ISO image will be named GENERICNAME.ISO, and the BIN/CUE files will be GENERICNAME.BIN and GENERICNAME.CUE.

Finally, the program will start to create the files. Remember that this is a very slow process, and can need more than two hours to be completed, depending on the files.

Storing and restoring the disc structure

The options Load, Save and Save as in the File menu allow you to save the current disk structure, in the case that you want continue your work later, or reuse it for another, slightly different, disk. DeVeDe stores the disk format adding the extension .devede.

When you load a disk structure, DeVeDe checks that every file is still in its place. If there is a missing, it will show an error message listing all the missing files (the complete path) and will refuse to load the structure, to avoid incorrect results. There's a trick to still load it: just copy another movie to the right directory and rename it with the right name, and after loading the structure, remove it from DeVeDe.

If the missing file is the menu background, DeVeDe will load the structure anyway, but showing a warning message and using the default background instead.

Installing DeVeDe in your Home

DeVeDe 1.1 and later can be installed in other directories, like your own home directory. This allows to use DeVeDe in machines where you don't have root access. To do so, just copy the files:

• devede_bincue.py
• devede_video_convert.py
• devede_convert.py
• devede_loadsave.py
• devede_xml_menu.py
• devede_delete.py
• devede_main.py
• devede_newfiles.py
• devede_dialogs.py
• devede_other.py
• devede_disctype.py
• devede.py
• devede_dvdmenu.py
• devedesans.ttf
• devede_dvd.py
• devede_subtitles.py
• devede_executor.py
• devede.svg
• win32_helper.py
• devede.glade
• devede_title_properties.py

into a folder, and run devede.py from that directory ("barras.png" and "estira.png" are in the "pixmaps" directory).

History of versions

Version 3.8c

• Now are really fixed the translation bugs.

Version 3.8b

• Fixed a bug in the italian translation.
• Fixed a bug in the poland translation.

Version 3.8

• Automatic video bitrate adjust, to ensure that the ISO or BIN/CUE image occupies the maximum size in the disk.
• Support for up to 32 subtitles tracks.
• Allows to specify the subtitle's language.
• Allows to choose the language to use when the original video contains several audio tracks.
• Added the L5 deinterlacing filter.
• Support for rotating and flipping the video.
• Muticore support.
• Allows to mix classic and widescreen videos in the same disk.
• High Definition support in DivX.
• Allows to Drag&Drop subtitles in the properties window, or to load a configuration file by Dragging&Dropping.
• Uses a GOP of 12 frames to ensure maximum compatibility.
• Uses the Telecine parameter to improve quality in 24fps films.
• Adjusted the maximum bitrate for DivX.
• Allows to add extra parameters in -lavcopts, -vf and -lameopts.
• Now stores the status of the buttons for delete temporary files and to choose the action to do.
• Added an icon to all windows.
• Fixed a bug when Mplayer is compiled with --enable-color-console.
• Allows to choose the colors and the position of the menus.
• More elegant menu system (based on code from Mojoholder)

Version 3.7

• Fixed a bug when runing in a system configured with Catalan language
• Now asks for confirmation when closing the disk type selection window
• The final size of the ISO image is now much more accurate
• Fixed some Win32 bugs (thanks to Peter Gill)

Version 3.6

• Added a safe margin 5% in the occupied size, to have in mind the size needed by disk structures (like directories, file info and so on).
• Fixed a some bugs in poland translation.
• Fixed some windows compatibility bugs.

Version 3.5

• Improved compatibility by using CGOP and SC_THRESOLD.
• Now uses a GOP of 15 frames instead of 18 when creating a NTSC, 24fps disc, as dictates the standard.
• Fixed a bug in italian translation which prevented the "Not enought disk space" message to be shown.
• Added translation to russian and greek.

Version 3.4

• Allows to create DVDs with 5.1 sound
• Allows to use a GOP of 12 frames to improve compatibility with some broken DVD players
• Fixes a bug when creating VCD disks
• Fixed a bug which prevented to previsualizate in DIVX mode.
• Final code refactorization: finally the code is clean and maintenable.

Version 3.3

• The EXPAND parameter in Mencoder now uses always an even offset to avoid some artifacts when the offset was odd.
• Fixed a bug when draging&dropping video files.

Version 3.2

• Fixed a bug when using extra parameters with Mencoder
• Fixed pt_PT translation
• Fixed a bug with pl translation

Version 3.1b

• Fixed a little bug which prevented version 3.1 to work with Python 2.4

Version 3.1

• Fixed some problems under windows.
• Now returns to the main window after creating the disk.
• When opening the file selector, it filters the files by type, showing only the videos.
• When using the NEW menu option to clean the disk structure and start again, it asks the disk type again.
• Now, when loading a disk structure, if the disk type is different than the current selected, automatically changes to the new type.
• Added new translations.
• Added new icon (thanks to Jonah Naylor).
• Second major code refactorization to improve maintenability.
• License changed to GPL version 3.

Version 3.01

• Added new patches for windows version.
• Removed the use of lower priority, because it made the conversion slower.
• Fixed a little bug when the final directory contains blank spaces.
• Added translation to Catala, and fixed the French one.

Version 3.0

• Allows to add a menu to the DVD with a list of the titles and a custom background picture.
• Allows to save the current disc structure, in order to reutilize it, or continue working in other moment.
• Allows to choose up to 448kbit/sec for audio.
• Now asks before canceling a job.
• A little bigger font size for subtitles.
• When creating a DivX file, now it uses .AVI extension.
• Fixed a bug with non-UTF8 locales.
• Fixed a bug in the "Insuficient free space..." message. Now is shown translated.
• Fixed a bug when erasing conflicting files and directories.
• Fixed a bug when trying to create a DivX from a file with an original size equal to the final size.
• Now, when the conversion fails, it doesn't show a "Success" message.

Version 2.13d

• Fixed the german translation
• Changed the Mplayer/Mencoder version to the one from Ubuntu Edgy, due to some bugs when creating PAL videos.

Version 2.13c

• Changed the MPlayer/Mencoder files, using version 0.99Pre8.

Version 2.13b

• Added a MPlayer/Mencoder package for Ubuntu Feisty users.

Version 2.13

• Added creation of MPEG4/DIVX files.
• Added swedish and slovak translations.
• Fixed some issues with translations (thanks to Marco de Freitas).

Version 2.12

• New and more flexibles install and uninstall scripts (thanks to Patrick Monnerat).
• Added french translation.
• Fixed some issues with non-UTF8 systems (thanks to Marco de Freitas).

Version 2.11

• Allows to specify the codepage for subtitles, allowing to use UTF-8 coded files (or with other codepages).
• Allows to put the subtitles a little upper, fine when using the ZOOM option in 16:9 TVs or with old CRT receivers
• Now can add subtitles with horizontal resolutions of 480 and 352 pixels without using too big fonts, nor crashing SPUMUX.
• When the original video has 24 fps and the destination is a NTSC DVD, DeVeDe will use 24000/1001 fps instead of 30000/1001.
• Fixed some little bugs when erasing temporary files.
• Fixed some bugs in the main loop that sometimes hanged up the conversion process.
• Now shows a kind of progress numbers during subtitle adding and while creating the DVD structure.
• Now translates fine all the sentences in the interface.
• Now detects if DeVeDe has permissions to write in the destination directory when doing a preview.
• Now uses MP2 instead of AC3 to ensure full compatibility.
• Now detects again when mencoder or spumux fails and shows an error message.
• Now really allows to abort the process while adding subtitles.
• Now supplies all the needed data to SPUMUX, so subtitles in NTSC format will be full visible.
• Fixed some issues in Windows code (thanks again to Peter Gill).
• Added new translations into German and norwegian, and completed the old ones.

Version 2.10

• Added italian translation
• The INSTALL script didn't create the GNOME/KDE menu entry. Fixed.

Version 2.9

• Now DeVeDe can work under Windows, thanks to Peter Gill (see the FAQ for details).
• Fixed some little bugs that prevented to use DeVeDe with some files taken from video capture cards.
• Fixed a bug with the Drag&Drop in the main window.
• Fixed a bug that prevented DeVeDe to detect errors in the execution of MKISOFS.
• Added a warning about VFAT/FAT32 partitions.

Version 2.8

• Now only allows to create 16:9 DVDs when the final width is 720 pixels, and don't allow to create 16:9 VCDs, SVCDs or CVDs.

Version 2.7

• Support for true DVD subtitles
• Can create 16:9 DVDs from widescreen videos
• Default MBD changed to 2 (slower but greater quality)
• Now installs in /urs/local

Version 2.6

• When the video wasn't subdivided in chapters, the XML file was incorrect and DVDAuthor complained. Fixed.
• Fixed a bug when the output directory was no writable.
• Added translation for Portugues do Brasil
• Added a FAQ.

Version 2.5

• Fixed another bug with directories and/or filenames with blank spaces
• Added a workaround for a bug found in very old DVD Players, that can't play fast forward between the last chapter and the end of a file.

Version 2.4A

• Added translation for Czech

Version 2.4

• Allows to specify that a file is already a DVD-compliant MPEG-PS file, so it won't be recompresed, but stored "as is" into the disc (usefull when you capture video from a TV capturer of other sources).
• Alows to deinterlace the video.
• Allows to choose the MacroBlock algorithm and use Trellis, to enhace the final picture quality.
• Allows to choose the directory for the temporary file used during preview, and remembers it.
• Before creating a new disc it erases the files with conflicting names in the destination directory.
• Allows to cancel the process during the creation of the BIN/CUE image of a VCD, SVCD or CVD.
• Added a VRC_MINRATE parameter when creating VCDs, SVCDs and CVDs, to ensure full compatibility.
• Changed the video bitrate for VCDs from 1150 to 1152, and the minimum video bitrate for SVCDs and CVD from 500 to 600.
• Ensures that the progress bar while converting a file is refreshed at least each two senconds.
• First major code refactorization to enhace the maintenability.

Version 2.3

• Removed the use of B-frames (which was added in version 2.1) because it produces problems with some DVD players.

Version 2.2

• In some very inusual cases mencoder could trigger a bug with an undeclared variable. Fixed.

Version 2.1

• Optimized some loops. Now DeVeDe is about 30% faster during video conversion.
• Now checks that you have enought free disk space.
• Allows to maintain the temporary files instead of deleting them.
• Fixed a little bug with the erasing of temporary files.

Version 2.0

• Now can create VideoCD, SuperVideoCD and China VideoDisks.
• Allows the user to override the default resolution and use the one he wants.
• Allows to pass custom commands to Mencoder, allowing to render subtitles, cut the file in chunks, select an audio stream when the file has two or more...
• Allows to change the order of the files and titles.
• Changed the position of some elements, making the interface a little more intuitive.
• The advanced features have been grouped, so novices will see only the most important options while advanced users can have access to a lot of extra functions with just a single click.
• Fixed a litle bug when a video header tells that it has an aspect ratio of 0 or 1.
• Installation more compliant with FreeDesktop and Debian normatives.

Version 1.6

• Added support for resolutions 352x480 (in NTSC) and 352x576 (in PAL).
• Fully support for movies with aspect ratios different than 4:3 (now, with 16:9 movies it adds the right black bars to ensure that a circle IS a circle).
• Fixed a bug with audio/video sync when converting a PAL video to NTSC or vice-versa.

Version 1.5

• Now works with video files without audio track.
• Transforms blank spaces in the generic filename to underscores (in previous versions, DeVeDe failed if a blank space was inserted).
• Fixed the translation to Galego.
• Added an uninstall script.

Version 1.4

• Added Drag&Drop support.
• Translatable strings (currently supports english, spanish and galego).
• Set a default video rate based on the final resolution.
• Shows the elapsed time used to create de DVD.

Version 1.3

• Added fully support for PAL/SECAM and NTSC. Now the user can choose the kind of disc to create.
• Added support for more resolutions (352x288/352x240), so DVDs made from low-resolution videos will have better quality.
• Now DeVeDe scales the video or resamples the audio if needed, so the conversion is a litle faster (not much faster, but faster anyway).
• Some minor bugfixes.

Version 1.2

• Now DeVeDe REALLY creates a NTSC DVD when the framerate is 30fps (that was the original intention, but due to a litle bug it didn't work before).

Version 1.1

• Allows to adjust the audio delay, to ensure perfect audio/video sync.
• Added a Preview button, to check the video quality and the audio sync without converting all the files.
• Now DeVeDe reduces a litle its priority when launched, allowing to continue working with the computer without speed penalties.
• Now checks if you have write permissions at the destination directory.
• Fixed the install script; now doesn't supposes that install is at /usr/bin.
• Interface much more compliant with the Gnome HIG.

Version 1.02b

• Due to the hurry to fix an error, I packed an incorrect version in the .tar.bz2. Fixed here.

Version 1.02

• With some specific files DeVeDe failed. Fixed in this version.
• Now DeVeDe can be installed in the home directory.

Version 1.01

• Fixed a little problem with MPlayer and pipes

Version 1.0

• First public version

Contacting the authors

This program has been created by Sergio Costas (Raster Software Vigo).
http://www.rastersoft.com
e-mail: raster@rastersoft.com

Windows port done by Peter Gill.
e-mail: peter.m.gill@gmail.com