making dvd video iso image doesn't seem to work

[John McPherson]

Binary package hint: genisoimage

ii genisoimage 1.1.2-1 Creates ISO-9660 CD-ROM filesystem images
ii cdrkit-doc 1.1.2-1 Documentation for the cdrkit package suite
on feisty x86.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to create a dvd video ISO. Either the functionality isn't working as expected, or the program needs to give better debugging messages.

$ find image/
image/
image/VIDEO_TS
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_3.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB
image/AUDIO_TS

attempt 1:

$ genisoimage -v -v -input-charset utf-8 -dvd-video -o foo.iso image/VIDEO_TS image/AUDIO_TS
genisoimage 1.1.2 (Linux)
Scanning image/VIDEO_TS
Scanning image/AUDIO_TS
 274 500
Cache hit for '/..'
     275 281 image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
     282 288 image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
     289 363 image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
     364 381 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
     382 399 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
     400 6913 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB
    6914 531185 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
  531186 1055457 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB
 1055458 1492131 image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_3.VOB
genisoimage: Unable to make a DVD-Video image.
Possible reasons:
  - VIDEO_TS subdirectory was not found on specified location
  - VIDEO_TS has invalid contents

ok, presumably that doesn't work because it wants to put all the files into the / of the image, instead of a VIDEO_TS subdir.

attempt 2:

$ genisoimage -v -v -input-charset utf-8 -dvd-video -o foo.iso image
genisoimage 1.1.2 (Linux)
Scanning image
Scanning image/VIDEO_TS
Scanning image/AUDIO_TS
 278 152
 279 500 VIDEO_TS
 280 68 AUDIO_TS
Cache hit for '/..'
genisoimage: No such file or directory. Failed to open VIDEO_TS.IFO
genisoimage: Can't open VTS info.
genisoimage: Unable to parse DVD-Video structures.
Cache hit for 'VIDEO_TS/.'
Cache hit for 'VIDEO_TS/..'
Cache hit for 'AUDIO_TS/.'
Cache hit for 'AUDIO_TS/..'
genisoimage: Unable to make a DVD-Video image.
Possible reasons:
  - VIDEO_TS subdirectory was not found on specified location
  - VIDEO_TS has invalid contents

now it says it can't find VIDEO_TS.IFO ?? But if I run this again without -dvd-video, it puts the VIDEO_TS.IFO file into the VIDEO_TS directory....

attempt 3:

$ genisoimage -v -v -input-charset utf-8 -dvd-video -o foo.iso -graft-points VIDEO_TS/=image/VIDEO_TS AUDIO_TS/=image/AUDIO_TS
genisoimage 1.1.2 (Linux)
Scanning image/VIDEO_TS
Scanning image/AUDIO_TS
 278 152
 279 500 VIDEO_TS
 280 68 AUDIO_TS
Cache hit for '/..'
genisoimage: No such file or directory. Can't stat
genisoimage: Can't open device ''
genisoimage: Unable to parse DVD-Video structures.
genisoimage: Unable to make a DVD-Video image.
Possible reasons:
  - VIDEO_TS subdirectory was not found on specified location
  - VIDEO_TS has invalid contents

now it is trying to stat an empty file [strace shows stat64("", 0x...)], and it complains that it can't open a device?!! why is it trying to open a device?

Could the documentation please be updated to let users know exactly what is required to make a dvd video iso, or even better the error message from genisoimage should say exactly what the problem is instead of a generic "invalid contents" message.

[John McPherson (jrm+launchpadbugs)]

On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 02:23:53AM -0000, John McPherson wrote:
> Public bug reported:
>
> Binary package hint: genisoimage
>
> ii genisoimage 1.1.2-1 Creates ISO-9660 CD-ROM filesystem images
> ii cdrkit-doc 1.1.2-1 Documentation for the cdrkit package suite
> on feisty x86.

Sigh, it appears I was missing some of the VTS for the other titles that
should have been in the directory. The following method worked once I
re-created my VIDEO_TS directory:

> attempt 2:
>
> $ genisoimage -v -v -input-charset utf-8 -dvd-video -o foo.iso image
> genisoimage 1.1.2 (Linux)
> Scanning image
> Scanning image/VIDEO_TS
> Scanning image/AUDIO_TS
> 278 152
> 279 500 VIDEO_TS
> 280 68 AUDIO_TS
> Cache hit for '/..'
> genisoimage: No such file or directory. Failed to open VIDEO_TS.IFO
> genisoimage: Can't open VTS info.
> genisoimage: Unable to parse DVD-Video structures.
> Cache hit for 'VIDEO_TS/.'
> Cache hit for 'VIDEO_TS/..'
> Cache hit for 'AUDIO_TS/.'
> Cache hit for 'AUDIO_TS/..'
> genisoimage: Unable to make a DVD-Video image.
> Possible reasons:
> - VIDEO_TS subdirectory was not found on specified location
> - VIDEO_TS has invalid contents

So, I guess it was my fault... but still a better error message telling
me that it was expecting further VTS_nn.VOB files would have saved hours
of head-scratching :(

[Eric Buist (buisteric)]

I encountered a similar problem while creating a DVD-Video using genisoimage. I have first creatd the VIDEO_TS structure using dvdauthor. I could then burn the DVD using growisofs which calls genisoimae. However, the disk was only readable by the computer; my standalone DVD player pretended it was badly formatted.
I tried to recode the audio of the MPEG files, then the video too, using MEncoder, and recreated the DVD structure using dvdauthor: same results with growisofs/genisoimage.
Then, I tried to burn an existing DVD structure I created using DVDAuthor on Gutsy: same result. The bug was then located in growisofs/genisoimage, not dvdauthor.
I progressively came to the conclusion that I could never create DVD Video anymore with Ubuntu, unless I downgrade to Gutsy. Before switching to another distro, I tried to download and compile cdrtools (not cdrkit) which contains mkisofs, from which genisoimage was forked.
With mkisofs, I could create my DVD Video, and it was readable by my standalone player.
The bug seems to be genisoimage not creating the correct UDF structure for DVD Video. It creates UDF filesystems, because I can mount an iso image in loopback mode using the UDF filesystem, but it does not generate the appropriate information for (dumb) standalone players.

[del (delriojr)]

I encountered a similar problem with (K)Ubuntu 8.04

        genisoimage 9:1.1.6-1ubuntu6

I have a struct

$ find image/
image/
image/VIDEO_TS
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_3.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
image/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB
image/AUDIO_TS

And I create image with :

genisoimage -volid ImageLabel -dvd-video -udf -o image.iso image/

This image is created.

I create my dvd with

growisofs -dvd-compat -dvd-video -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

I put in my DVD player and does not work.

To resolve this problem, I have compiled and linked cdrik from http://www.cdrkit.org/ version 1.1.7 and works fine.

[Serhiy Kachaniuk (serzholino)]

Regarding last 2 comments, I've filed new bugreport https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cdrkit/+bug/233942 as this seems to be different problem, and in hardy.
Also there is debian bug http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=429244
Installing cdrkit 1.1.7 release from sources fixed this problem to me