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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."

3 of 8 comments (clear)

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

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

  2. "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.

  3. 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