HOWTO_Master_a_DVD_from_DVB_transport_stream

Digital television streams are transmitted as MPEG2-TS in which the TS stands for Transport Stream. This means that extra information, such as multiple audio streams, could be transferred along with the actual video. Quite fortunately, the video stream is already suitable for DVD without re-encoding.

Recording

Kaffeine is a great and simple tool for making DVB recordings. Just remember to save as TS, not MPEG.

If you want to use the command line, there are several ways. You may use czap for tuning into some channel:

$ czap -r -n 3

This tunes the DVB card to channel number 3. Now, record some data by typing:

$ cat /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 > stream.ts

This simply writes raw data from the first tuner card into a file. After a while press CTRL-C to stop recording. There's also dvbstream, which is more sophisticated and saves the teletext too. (see Links)

Preparing

Grab the tsformer script from the tsformer homepage. ts2vob is the main script.

Let's start from scatch. You should have an mpeg-2 data stream with dvb subtitles. Next you'll demultiplex the stream to its components: video, audio and subpicture. Basically you have many tools to use:

projectx

replex

mpeg_demux

lvedemux

possibly others

All of them are found in portage. ts2vob does this for you, but you'll have to grab to dependencies. ts2vob favours ProjectX.

ProjectX requires some configuration. You should at least tell it how find the subpictures. This is a sample X.ini, where the PIDs for subtitles are 1027, 2027, 3027 and 4027. (YLE in Finland).

# Project-X INI
# ProjectX 0.90.3.01 / 31.01.2006

# Application
Application.ActiveDirectory=/video/process
Application.Agreement=1
Application.Language=en

# CollectionPanel
CollectionPanel.CutMode=0

# SpecialPanel
SpecialPanel.Input.getEnclosedPackets=0
SpecialPanel.Video.ignoreErrors=1

# SubtitlePanel
SubtitlePanel.SubpictureColorModel=YLE
SubtitlePanel.SubtitleExportFormat=SUP
SubtitlePanel.SubtitleExportFormat_2=SRT
SubtitlePanel.SubtitleFont=Bitstream Charter
SubtitlePanel.TtxPage1=4027
SubtitlePanel.TtxPage2=3027
SubtitlePanel.TtxPage3=1027
SubtitlePanel.TtxPage4=2027
SubtitlePanel.decodeHiddenRows=1

This should make some oddly-named files to its working directory. Now,

$ ts2vob -i /path/to/recording.m2t -o "/video/My Title"

After a moment a file called "/video/My Title.vob" should be generated. Now just process more streams and follow the instructions from the next chapter onwards to burn them on a DVD.

These instructions are tested in Finland using DVB-T type recording. And in Belgium using DVB-T transmission of VRT.