Install dvdauthor with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• dvdauthor
• dvddirdel
• dvdunauthor
• mpeg2desc
• spumux
• spuunmux

Project history

The upstream ChangeLog records version 0.1.0 on 2002-07-30 as an initial release that could write roughly a four-minute video clip to a playable DVD, with significant limitations. Through late 2002 and 2003 it added larger clips, multiple chapters, stream autodetection, multiple titlesets, subtitle support, multiple audio and subpicture channels, Mac OS X compilation, large-file support, and autoconf.

The SourceForge homepage describes DVDAuthor as a set of tools for authoring the file and directory structure of a DVD-Video disc, driven by command lines and XML control files. The same page explicitly says it does not make disc images or burn discs, pointing that work to tools such as mkisofs and dvd+rw-tools.

The project later moved active alpha development and commit history to GitHub while keeping SourceForge documentation and release pages. The ChangeLog shows later maintenance milestones such as version 0.7.0 in 2010 with subtitle encoding and interaction improvements, version 0.7.1 in 2012, and version 0.7.2 in 2016.

Adoption history

dvdauthor became a standard component of Linux DVD authoring workflows because it occupied the low-level authoring slot between encoders/multiplexers and burners. GUI tools and scripts could wrap it, while command-line users could generate XML directly.

Its package-manager spread across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, MacPorts, Nix, and openSUSE reflects long-lived utility rather than novelty. Even as optical media declined, distributions kept it because legacy DVD-Video production, archival migration, and reproducible authoring scripts still needed the binaries.

How it is used

A typical dvdauthor workflow prepares MPEG-2-compatible material with tools such as FFmpeg or mjpegtools, optionally uses `spumux` for subtitles or menu subpictures, runs `dvdauthor` to assemble titlesets and tables of contents, tests the VIDEO_TS structure in a software player, and then burns or images the result with other tools.

The suite includes related commands such as `spumux`, `spuunmux`, `dvdunauthor`, `dvddirdel`, and `mpeg2desc`, which makes it useful both for creation and for inspecting or deconstructing DVD-Video assets.

Why package nerds care

dvdauthor is package-nerd significant because it is the small Unix piece that turns DVD-Video from a GUI-only consumer task into a scriptable build artifact. It also cleanly shows Unix pipeline boundaries: FFmpeg or mjpegtools create compliant streams, dvdauthor builds DVD structure, mkisofs/genisoimage builds an image, and dvd+rw-tools burns it.

For maintainers, it is also a compatibility museum: XML command files, DVD VM behavior, subtitle palettes, PAL/NTSC assumptions, libdvdread integration, and old optical-media workflows all meet in one package.

Timeline

• 2002-07-30: Version 0.1.0 initial release.
• 2002-11-16: Version 0.3.0 added multiple titlesets.
• 2003-02-13: Version 0.4.0 added Mac OS X compilation, large-file support, multiple audio tracks, and subpicture tracks.
• 2007-01-13: Version 0.6.13 included Debian manpages and many DVD-Video structure fixes.
• 2010-10-23: Version 0.7.0 reworked subtitle reading and interaction behavior.
• 2016-12-31: Version 0.7.2 delivered build, interaction, dvdunauthor, and metadata improvements.

Related projects

• dvdauthor is commonly used with FFmpeg, mjpegtools, mkisofs or genisoimage, dvd+rw-tools, Ogle, VLC, MPlayer, and GUI front ends such as DVD Styler, Q DVD Author, DeVeDe, and Bombono.

Sources

• https://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/
• https://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc
• https://github.com/ldo/dvdauthor
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ldo/dvdauthor/master/ChangeLog
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ldo/dvdauthor/master/README