Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Converting DVDs To VCDs Under Unix?

Posted by Cliff on from the this-still-counts-as-fair-use-right? dept.

This Curious Anonymous Coward asks: "There are many great apps running under others-buggy-OS to rip DVDs and to automatically convert the resulting MPEG to a less space-hungry resolution/bandwidth. These apps basically read the VOBs from the DVD, decrypt them, split audio and video and resample the resulting MPEG to a SVCD compliant resolution. Under Linux I found everything I need to do the same, except for the resampling step. Of course, I don't want to rip DVD I don't own, I just want to be able to burn SVCD to see my favourite movies on my laptop (with no DVD reader), and to delete the HD partition dedicated to the other-buggy-OS."

8 comments

  1. Doesn't matter, you don't "own" anything ... by BitMan · · Score: 1

    The DMCA removed any legal right you have to do this despite consumer protections in the Copyright Law of 1976 and subsequent common law. To due such is a criminal act thanks to the hard lobbying efforts of big business. You don't "own" anything. You have no "right" to anything. Welcome to the "new world."

    Fuck you very much MPAA and RIAA. You just nixed our rights as well as a good segment of your market and profit potential at the same time.

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

    --
    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
    Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
    1. Re:Doesn't matter, you don't "own" anything ... by inburito · · Score: 1

      Where did he say that he was from the fucked up US of A? Besides no one is going to come after a single dmca violation(circumventing a copy protection method) and since it is being done constantly on windows why not linux too..

  2. DVD - VCD in winders by usagiyojimbo · · Score: 1

    I have a Dazzle USB device ($250 US) and it sure does the trick. Here's what I did:

    Plug DVD svideo, audio into dazzle
    Plug Dazzle into PC
    Plug svideo out from dazzle into TV
    Fire up software...play DVD...hit record and we're good to go.

    I thought DVD's were supposed to be a lot harder to copy >=)

    Now if they just had software that let me use my wonderful dazzle in Linux!!

  3. Re:Tools for Buggy OS's? by daved321 · · Score: 1

    Check out the link on tom's hardware, /. linked to this a few days (weeks maybe, time is a blurred concept to me lately) the link is HERE

  4. Tools for Buggy OS's? by jelwell · · Score: 2

    Where can these tools be found for "Other Buggy Os's"? I'd be interested in finding out about said tools for any OS.

    Joseph Elwell.

  5. Re:"Convert"? by BJH · · Score: 3

    convert just calls mpeg2decode (however, you should be able to find more information in the DVD HOWTO).

  6. "Convert"? by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 4

    Under Linux I found everything I need to do the same, except for the resampling step.

    "man convert" lists "MPEG" as a supported file extension. Have you tried using "convert" to rescale it?

    "convert" is part of the ImageMagick utility package, and is included with most Linux distributions.

  7. Some links by bbk · · Score: 4

    I haven't done DVD -> SVCD under linux, but I have made VCD's and SVCD's from video files I captured with my BUZ card.

    The VCD tools (for making VCD images) are availible from here:
    http://www.munich-vision.de/vcd/index.html

    As for the conversion and DVD issues, anyone else have suggestions?

    You may just want to stick with Windows for this - the best encoders are there (Tsunami is great!), and the process is quite a bit more streamlined on that side.

    BBK