Kino allows you to export your movie, or parts of it, to various files and devices. This is useful if you wish to create e.g. a DVD movie from your project.
You can export to an IEEE 1394 device, render your movie to a DV/AVI file, export stills or sound, export to MPEG format or to any program that accepts RAW DV frames as input.
At the right hand side of the export page, there are a number of tabs, which are used to select how to export.
You select the frames of your video at the top of the Export page. There are 3 principal ways to select frames; which one you use is determined by the top drop-down box. The default choice is "All" which will export all frames in your project. Next choice is "Current" which will export the current frame (probably mostly useful when exporting stills) and finally there is "From" which allows you to numerically select the first and last frame to export. You can also select to not export every frame, but e.g. only every second or third frame. You do this by changing the number in the spinbox. The default is to export every frame.
Exporting to an IEEE 1394 device allows you to e.g. export your movie back to your camera. This page contains a number of parameters that can be tuned to optimize the export process to your camera. Experimentation with the values may be required to get the best result.
On this tab you can create a DV/AVI file from your project. You need to supply a basename, which will be the filename stem of any file exported. You also need to set various parameters that should be more or less self-explanatory.
This tab allows you to export still images. You need to supply a basename with extension. The extension will determine the format to export. A large number of formats is supported, including JPG and PNG.
If your source material is interlaced (as most is) the Extract option lets you specify if you want to export the raw frame, upper or lower field or a blend between them.
If you check the "Resample Pixel Aspect" checkbox, your stills will be resampled to adjust for the different pixel aspect ratio between DV frames and the square pixels of a computer screen.
The audio export page is pretty straightforward. Choose the sampling rate and the format from the dropdown boxes (making sure you have the required programs mentioned in parentheses). If you want a new audio file for each scene, check the "Scene Split" checkbox.
On this tab you can create MPEG files in various ways. You need to provide a basename to export to.
This page requires the package mjpegtools to function. The file format reflects options in this program, and you can select between a number of formats suitable for such final media as VCD or DVD.
Most of the options are pretty straightforward. The deinterlace option selects how the frames should be deinterlaced. If you are familiar with the mjpegtools, you can supply your own arguments to the different programs used during export.
As exporting to MPEG can be a very lengthy operation, you have the option of not cleaning up intermediary files in case some operation goes wrong. Uncheck the "Cleanup" checkbox if you want them to persist in case the multiplex operation goes wrong. The "Scene Split" checkbox creates a MPEG file for each scene.
The "Output dvdauthor XML" checkbox enables generation of an XML file suitable for input to the program dvdauthor. This will create a very simple DVD directory, which, if burned to a DVD, will play your movie in a standalone player. To illustrate this, we will present how to make a very simple, but usable, DVD movie. This requires the program dvdauthor, mkisofs and growisofs (part of dvd+rw-tools)
Start by selecting a frame range. Next, specify an output file name, say "/usr/tmp/mydvd". Now select the format "8 - DVD" from the format drop-down box. Check the "Output dvdauthor XML" checkbox. Click the Export button in the bottom of the Export page.
Your export should now start. When it is done (and this can take a very long time), you should have a file called "/usr/tmp/mydvd001.mpeg" and a file called "/usr/tmp/mydvd-dvdauthor.xml". Now, open a console, change to /usr/tmp/ and create a directory called mydvd:
$ cd /usr/tmp $ mkdir mydvd
Now you need to run dvdauthor:
$ dvdauthor -o mydvd -x mydvd-dvdauthor.xml
You can check the DVD directory with the program xine:
$ xine dvd:/usr/tmp/mydvd/VIDEO_TS/
(Note that it is important to use the full path.)
Now the directory /usr/tmp/mydvd contains a DVD directory that can be used to create an iso image from. You can make an iso image with the program mkisofs:
$ mkisofs -dvd-video -o mydvd.iso mydvd/
Finally, this program can be burned to a DVD with the program growisofs:
$ growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=mydvd.iso
And the result is a very simple DVD (without menus) that should play in most standalone players.
This tab allows you to export to a program that accepts raw DV input. You need to supply a base name.
The actual export is carried out by a number of scripts that are installed alongside kino. Please consult these for an explanation of their possibilities.
At the bottom of the export page, there are buttons to start, stop and pause the export.
During export, kino will try to estimate the time needed to complete the export, and display this time in the statusbar. This estimate is often a bit too optimistic in the beginning of the export process, but will get more accurate later in the process.
If you stop the export, kino will abort the export process. This can lead to temporary files not being deleted by the programs kino called to perform the export.
Pausing the export can be beneficial if you need to perform other computing and wish to free the system from the burden of the export process temporarily.