It might seem like DVDs have gone the way of the dinosaur, but they’re still a popular way to share data and videos. You can easily send them, and you don’t need a whole ton of bandwidth or complicated file sharing strategies to get them out to friends and family.
On Linux, DevedeNG is a great way to make your own video DVDs, complete with interactive menus. DevedeNG allows you to easily combine your video files into a burnable DVD image.
Install DevedeNG
Before you can get started making your DVD images, you’re going to need to install DevedeNG. It’s an open-source program that’s been around a while. Because of this, it’s readily available for most major distributions.
Ubuntu/Debian
DevedeNG is available in the main Debian and Ubuntu repositories. Install it with Apt.
sudo apt intstall devede
Fedora
Somewhat oddly, Fedora doesn’t package Devede. It is, however, in the RPM Fusion repository. If you don’t already have it, add RPM Fusion to your system.
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
Then, simply install DevedeNG.
dnf install devedeng
Arch Linux
DevedeNG is available in the default Arch repositories. Simply install it.
sudo pacman -S devede
Create a DVD
DevedeNG is a multimedia program and will be located under that category on your desktop. Find and open it.
The first thing that you’ll see is a small window that allows you to select which type of disk you want to create. Select the first option “Video DVD.” This will generate a burnable ISO file that you can use to create a DVD that’s compatible with most DVD players, including game consoles.
The main DevedeNG screen is fairly no-nonsense and to the point. There’s a large main area for you to locate and import files to burn. At the bottom of the window you’ll find most of your controls, including the option to create and edit a DVD menu.
Import a File
Click on the “Add” button just below the “Files” box. A new window will open for you to browse to the location of your video file.
After you add one file, you’ll notice that the bar indicating disk usage will have filled up. Depending on the size of your file, it either filled partly or all the way. You can keep adding files until the disk is full. When you arrive at a situation where the disk usage is just over 100%, you can click “Adjust disk usage” to the right of the bar to automatically scale back when converting the files.
Set Up the Menu
Directly below the disk usage you’ll see a header for “Menus” with an associated checkbox to create a menu. To eliminate a DVD menu completely, uncheck the box, and your video will start playing immediately on the DVD. Otherwise, you can leave it checked and customize your menu. Click “Menu options” to do so.
The menu options screen allows you to add a title to your DVD, change the fonts used, set a background image, and customize the overall look and feel of the DVD menu. The menu will automatically list the titles you’ve added just as you’ve added them, so this is all additional styling. You can get really creative here if you plan on sending these to family and friends.
Making the Image
When everything is to your liking, you can press “Forward” in the lower-right of the screen. Devede will move on to the next and final step before creating your disk image.
Devede will open a new window for you to select a folder to write your project into. Select a name for the folder that will contain your image. When you’re done, press “OK” to begin creating the image file.
Depending on the size of the files, this can take some time. Devede will compile the videos and menu into an ISO that you can burn with just about any disk-burning software. You can make as many copies as you like with the same ISO image. Remember, these are real DVDs, so you can play them just about anywhere.