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Archiving DVD's with Linux?

Ramses0 asks: "Now that I've got my Linux box 100% functional with full DVD support, I want to archive all my media to it's 60gb hard drive. Since I don't have 60gb's of OGGable CD's, I started looking with a lustful eye at ripping and encoding my DVD collection to the hard drive as well. Most of the guides out today are targetted towards windows software, which is not an option for me. The only reference I could find to encoding under Linux is about ffmpeg on the DivX website. What is the best file format to target? DivX? VCD? What tools are available under Linux to encode DVDs? Why isn't there the equivalent of abcde for DVDs?"

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. DD? by ThorGod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What's wrong w/using dd? I know it'll result in some huge files, but you can use them, if with only loopback mounting of the images.

    --
    PS: I don't reply to ACs.
  2. Don't bother... by OneFix · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DVD is already encoded using MPEG2 compression. And anyone who has ever converted one lossy format to the other knows that the quality ends up being extremely poor (you get the worse of both formats). The other thing is, even at low quality, a 2 hour movie is going to take up at least 1/2GB...and when you're done, you only have a copy that is much worse than the origonal.

    Spend you money on a good hardware MPEG Decoder that works under linux. And as for a choice in format, OGG Tarkin will probably be the way to go in the future (once the format is defined).

    1. Re:Don't bother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Tarkin won't be finished for a while yet. Vp3 is LGPL and here now.

    2. Re:Don't bother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What he meant was that DVD video quality to start with is poor. A brand new VHS video will often have better picture quality than a DVD. You just have a quicker loss of quality with age with a VHS tape. This is the problem with any compression scheme, you will have loss of quality. The question is, how much loss of quality is acceptable? Those using lower end systems might not notice the difference. But as you improve your playback system quality, these faults become more evident. For me, I grudgingly accept what I agree to be poor compression on DVDs for their superior audio quality, which can by far make up for the blockiness and poor fading.

  3. qrpff-fast.pl? by the_greywolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    this was posted some months ago:

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
    # 531-byte qrpff-fast, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz
    # MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout
    # arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order
    $_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$ t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=(
    $m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])$t^ =(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16
    -2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271);if ((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h
    =5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$ h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$
    d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])>8^($f=$t&($d&g t;>12^$d>>4^
    $d^$d/8))>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8 ^$q (($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print +x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval

    --
    grey wolf
    LET FORTRAN DIE!
  4. Re:A Few Questions and Comments by Papineau · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And a few answers from me...

    Question 1: How long did it take you to get your linux box to play DVDs?
    Buy DVD-ROM, install it in computer, download xine+plugins, ./configure && make && make install, put DVD in and play. I'd say around 1 hour, with the longest time being buying the DVD-ROM and installing it in my computer.

    Question 2: How many times did you have to reboot?
    Once, when I installed the DVD-ROM in the computer.

    Question 3: How many kernels did you compile in the process?
    None. Why would I recompile it? The DVD-ROM was already recognized, I use iso9660 on the DVDs if I ever mount them.

    Question 4: How many CDs do you actually own?
    If you count audio CDs, around 4. Data CDs, OTOH, ... alot more.
    Don't think of that as if I have a shitload of MP3s: it's not my fault if I prefer TV to music!

    Question 5: How many DVDs do you actually own?
    One. Blockbuster is your friend. And your friends are your friends, too.

    Question 6: Who are you going to sell your DVDs to when you have copied them to your hard disk?
    Listen, I got my DVD in a cereal box. A Disney thing. Don't recall the title, and if you want to buy it, drop me a line.

    Comment 1: What happened to the copy of windows that came conveniently bundled with your PC?
    That's more a question than a comment. Anyway, there was none. It's not easy to have an OS bundled when all the parts come from different places. Should it come with the motherboard? Processor? Processors?

    Comment 2: As a Linux Zealot, you will know that DivX is not standardised and therefore you cannot use it, as it is against everything you stand for.
    Zealot? Nope. Just a user. Although I wouldn't use it because it usually relies on win32 dlls to work, and it usually means less stability for me.

    Comment 3: There are no tools available that are legal for this purpose.
    Depends on where you live. You're entitled to backup copies in some jurisdictions.
    Now, I want a tool to do the backup for me rather than do it by hand with a hand calculator for the IDCT. Can I?

    Comment 4: As you will know, the production of a tool like abcde for DVDs is against the DMCA, and so anyone who creates such a tool is likely to go to prison like Dimitry did.
    If he didn't come to the US, he wouldn't have been arrested. As I said, there are some other juridictions with different laws than the US. Jon shouldn't have been arrested for something he did in Norway. A swastika is legal out of Germany and France. A pdf viewer for the disabled is legal in Russia.

    What does all this leaves? I don't know. I'll continue to watch rented and lended DVDs on my Linux box, and you'll probably continue to think it is difficult/illegal to do so. Have a good day!

  5. It's not very difficult at all, actually... by Ramses0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After ironing out issues between the Adaptec/SCSI firmware and my DVD drive, it took ~2 hours to get my Linux box playing encrypted DVD's (with a little help from the friendly people in #debian).

    Basically, my process was: Bootable Debian 2.2 CD installation. apt-get install kernel-image-2.4.18-k7; vim /etc/lilo.conf; lilo; shutdown -r now; I don't think I needed to update my kernel, but I want USB support for later on, so it's kindof necessary. apt-get install ogle, run the included install-illegal-decss-library.sh script that it told me I needed. Run ogle from the supplied menu shortcut, open and play the DVD. Once you know what you're looking for, it's remarkably simple.

    I have 200+ CD's. I had most of them MP3'd before at 192 bitrate, but now I'm using abcde with oggenc -q7 for VBR OGGfiles averaging 200-250kbps since the quality is better. I own 20-40 DVD's. I want to stuff my DVD's to my harddrive because I'm basically a geek with too much hard-drive space. :^)

    I bought all my PC parts in pieces following the specifications given by those nifty Spindl3top people (hi lucas :^). Including Black Slot-loading DVD, and Black LCD display. Most of it came from directron.com, or harddrive.com. Got Quake 3 and the Matrix Orbital LCD display from linuxcentral.com. Bought all of the $9.99 linux games I could from EBGames, and some of the newer ones from TuxGames. I need to buy the 'Loki Installer' for RTCW because I bought RTCW from BestBuy since couldn't wait any longer after I finally got all my hardware talking to each other.

    As a technology pragmatist, I recognize that there are a multitude of competing video container formats (mov, avi, mpg) with multiple supported codecs. I don't know which tools are mature on which platform, and what quality/stability issues remain to be ironed out, which is why I asked slashdot in the first place. :^)

    Looks like I came to the right place since there are a bunch of high-quality responses and no "check google you dumbass" postings. ;^)

    --Robert