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Free DVD Recording Tool For Linux?

jobsagoodun writes " cdrecord-ProDVD is OK for burning DVDs but (i) it grumbles pointlessly about device names and (ii) it has a weird binary-only license that expires every six months or so. There are some Free forks off cdrtools - dvd+rw/+r/-r ,dvdrtools and this patch - do any of them make a good replacement?"

38 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Some info by Guiri · · Score: 5, Informative
    I use dvd+rw-tools and works pretty good.

    To burn a DVD I just do:

    growisofs -Z /dev/burner -R -J /path/to/data

    A very good option for doing all this very easily is to get K3b which is part of the KDE distribution.

    For authoring DVDs I recently discovered Qdvdauthor, and it works like a charm!, I was able to create my own DVDs with menus with custom backgrounds, sound, etc.

    Also check my homepage for help about video conversions: http ://dvdripping-guid.berlios.de

    1. Re:Some info by Corhonio · · Score: 5, Informative
      I've been using dvd+rw-tools (my distro is gentoo) exlusively for burning dvds since I got a plextor 708A last xmas.

      I never had a single problem with it from day 1 :)

      I'd like to mention that with the -overburn flag I can squeeze a bit more of data (above 4.7 billion bytes but below 4.7 million Kbytes(Kbyte=1024 bytes)) when needed.

      In addition I update my dvd burners firmware with PXUpdate for UNIX http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employee s/joerg.schilling/private/firmware.html, something which is very important for people that don't dual boot.

      As demonstrated in https://expressivefreedom.org/Projects/PVR/Firewir e-Methodology.html a 4gb+ single file (ie a backup tar/bz2ball) can be squeezed in dvd, which is something that propably(I can't say for sure since I haven't used windows for ages) can't be done in windows.

      Chris. PS Use the above at your own risk

    2. Re:Some info by slobbargoat · · Score: 3, Informative

      A very good option for doing all this very easily is to get K3b which is part of the KDE distribution.

      Just note that you don't need the entire KDE distribution to have K3b, you only need kdelibs from the KDE distribution.

    3. Re:Some info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      4gb+ single file (ie a backup tar/bz2ball) can be squeezed in dvd, which is something that propably(I can't say for sure since I haven't used windows for ages) can't be done in windows

      Sure it can be done in Windows. Why do think that your aging Windows knowledge is still current?

    4. Re:Some info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Don't forget -dvd-compat if you want it to work on all DVD-readers.

      After first trying cdrecord-prodvd a couple of times, I've switched to only using growisofs on Linux and FreeBSD.

  2. k3b by FireChipmunk · · Score: 3, Informative

    k3b works great for burning DVDs.

    1. Re:k3b by unixmaster · · Score: 3, Informative

      FYI K3B recently got fixed to compile/run properly on FreeBSD .

      --
      Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
  3. K3B by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 5, Informative

    K3B, dvdbackup, and dvdshrink (ran under wine, 3.0b5) work awesome.

  4. dvdrecord??/ by kidgenius · · Score: 1, Informative

    I could be mistaken, but I thought there was a counterpart to cdrecord called dvdrecord.

  5. dvdrtools by mishan · · Score: 4, Informative
    I use dvdrtools (dvdrecord), which works completely perfectly for me. Debian even has dvdrtools in their distribution already. I use it just like cdrecord.
    dvdrecord -v dev=/dev/dvdrw driveropts=burnproof -dao -data MY_DVD_IMAGE.ISO
    1. Re:dvdrtools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You are misinformed. dev=ATAPI:x,y,z has been in since 2.4. It is a slow, broken interface (no DMA) only added because ide-scsi did not (does not?) work with PCMCIA connected devices.

      dev=/dev/foo or dev=ATA:x,y,z (there should not be a technical difference in between these two, just two different ways to specify the same thing) is the prefered interface on 2.6.x.

  6. dvdrtools by james+b · · Score: 4, Informative
    dvdrtools in Debian unstable works pretty well.
    I use it like this:
    mkisofs -f -udf -V "Your Disc Label" -o currentcd.img -r "your-directory-of-data"
    dvdrecord dev=/dev/hdd -dao currentcd.img

    It gives a warning about accessing the drive via /dev/hdd being depracated, but works fine.
  7. growisofs is your friend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just use growisofs! It comes with the dvd+rw-tools and it works like a charm. It only requires mkisofs.

    So to burn a data DVD:
    growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -r -J my_directory

    and to burn a video DVD:
    growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video my_dvd

    I don't know the story behind cdrecord-prodvd and all that license cruft (was Mr. Joerg "you must use SCSI" Schilling involved with that nonsense?)

    The less you have to deal with Schilling the better.

    1. Re:growisofs is your friend by Chris+Siegler · · Score: 3, Informative

      The less you have to deal with Schilling the better.

      Amen! Back before dvd+rw tools came out and all there was were some hacks to cdrecord I tried to buy ProDVD but gave up. As far as I could tell there's no way to actually buy it. When searching the newsgroups all I found were several Schilling rants, several people like me trying to buy it without luck, and finally a patch to an old cdrecord version that didn't require a license. If it was an intelligence test you needed to pass to get the damn license I failed miserably.

  8. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    in case you haven't noticed, k3b burns DVDs using those very programs he mentioned in the summary.

    it it just a front-end for programs like mkisofs and cdrecord.

  9. Re:Is this a joke? by \/\/ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I did not think there could be any desktop user that has not heard of k3b...

    I did not think there could be any desktop user that doesn't understand k3b is a GUI FRONTEND to several command line tools, one of them being cdrecord-ProDVD for writing DVDs. Without these backends, your k3b will DO NOTHING. Another option for writing DVDs are the dvd+rw-tools, which also work for DVD-R now. THAT is what the question is about, not your GUI-of-the-day.

    Perhaps for the next Ask Slashdot we could have a question about free web browsers? Or maybe a free Linux C compiler?

    Or maybe have a question about what's the difference about a GUI frontend and an actual work-performing backend?
  10. Media Recording in Linux by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 3, Informative

    For any kind of Linux-related media recording whatsoever, you should definitely check out dyne:bolic, i.e. a free multimedia studio in a GNU/Linux live CD:

    "dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives, being a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, all using only free software.

    "dyne:bolic is a GNU/Linux distribution simply running from a CD, without the need to install anything, able to recognize most of your devices and periferals: sound, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb devices and more.

    "It is optimized to run on slower computers, turning it into a full media station: the minimum you need is a pentium1 or k5 PC 64Mb RAM and IDE CD-ROM, or a modded XBOX game console--and if you have more than one, you can easily do clusters."

    It is unquestionably invaluable to explore if you are not sure which software do you need to install and use on your own GNU/Linux system (e.g. Debian or Gentoo). I hope this helps.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  11. Re:What I'd like to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd like to see that, too, although I am alot happier to discover that video DVDs do NOT REQUIRE menus! Because, personally, I just want to pop in a disc and go. I don't want to do more work than press play, and I doubt my presently-DVD-less parents want anything different from the "play/stop/rewind/ff" interface of a VCR they're familiar with either.

    So here's my formula to get DV to DVD without crufty menus. With almost minimum fuss.

    1. use kino to grab the DV and do basic editing. It can't do much editing (i.e. you can't trim in between clips) and it's sluggish in some respects but it works like a charm.
    2. Inside kino go to EXPORT->MPEG and select option 8 for the file format.
    This uses mpeg2enc, which is amazingly SLOW, but does a good job. Expect many hours encoding 1 hour of footage. My FX-53 is about 1/10th real time. If you want to retain chapters, make sure to select "scene split" before exporting!
    3. So now you have one or more .mpeg files. Use dvdauthor to construct the directory. First you must make an XML file (the second-most annoying part of the whole procedure after mpeg2enc slowness).
    <dvdauthor>
    <vmgm />
    <titleset>
    <titles>
    <pgc>
    <vob file="/path/to/first.mpeg" />
    <vob file="/path/to/next.mpeg" />
    </pgc>
    </titles>
    </titleset>
    </dvdauthor>
    4. Generate the DVD file structure.
    dvdauthor -o my_dvd -x my.xml

    5. Burn it with growisofs
    growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video my_dvd

    Voila! Alot of steps and very slow, but not too painful otherwise. And no annoying menus!

  12. Re:Since the post was rather questionable by waferhead · · Score: 2, Informative

    One word: DMA.

    hdparm -iI will reveal all.

    Also try a UDMA 66/100 (80 wire) cable.

  13. from linux weekly news: Alternatives to cdrecord by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 3, Informative
    Alternatives to cdrecord
    After last week's discussion of cdrecord, and concerns that recent releases of cdrecord may not be free software, we decided to take a look and see what alternatives exist for Linux users. The answer, unfortunately, is "not many." While there are quite a few front-ends for recording CDs under Linux, there are very few actual CD and DVD-burning applications available to Linux users. Applications like K3b, MP3Roaster, BashBurn and others all use cdrecord to burn CDs.
  14. Re:Is this a joke? by cjpez · · Score: 2, Informative
    It should be pointed out that Qt actually doesn't have anything to do with KDE, other than KDE elected to use Qt as its base. Qt can be installed perfectly fine with no other KDE components, and there's plenty of other software that relies on only Qt, and no KDE components.

    KDE is probably the most "well-known" application which uses Qt, and so they're associated together in many people's minds, but Qt doesn't depend on one inch of KDE.

  15. Re:What I'd like to see... by AstroDrabb · · Score: 4, Informative
    You can get MainActor for Linux. A professional multi-platform editor. Some info from the site:
    MainActor 5 for Linux offers professional features almost identical to the features you already know from the Windows version, including DV capture and MPEG-1/2 import and export in a new interface.
    You can download the demo and give it a whirl. I think it cost about $99.

    For lighter work, there is Q DVD-Author. It is FOSS and works well for making DVD's with menus, etc.

    --
    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
    it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  16. dvdrtools/dvdrecord by kraada · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, I don't know if this is the fault of dvdrtools/dvdrecord or just the fact that I bought generic, cheap disks . . . but 1/3 disks I burn are unreadable immediately thereafter (ie- after the burn is finished, mount the disk and md5sum the files). And some 6 months later I've found that almost every disk I ever burned won't mount right . . .
    I can use readcd to get everything back with errors (~4000-5000 errors per disk), but it's really quite annoying.

    So either it's my crappy disks (bought for about 44 cents a pop online in bulk) or it's dvdrecord. I've no idea which, though I'm leaning towards blaming the dvds (in which case, just be aware that cheap dvds aren't worth it! :)

    Just my .44 worth of useless dvdness . . .

  17. Re:Global images by ionpro · · Score: 2, Informative

    One reason that pops to mind is that some people are still running Windows XP on FAT32 volumes. Those people have a 4GB maximum file size limit, which may cause a problem for large DVD ISOs. This, of course, isn't a problem on NTFS, where the default maximum file size (dependant on cluster size) is something like 16 terabytes (minus 64KB).

  18. Re:Is this a joke? by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Informative

    I guess the reason for no mention of k3b on freshmeat is more kde's braindamaged way of packaging applications

    Wrong. Freshmeat has a page for k3b, independent of any larger "kde-tools" package. But you can't find it by searching by reasonable keywords like "DVD burn"- you have to already know that k3b is what you want to search for.

    The problem's not the completeness of freshmeat, but the lack of a good way to browse/search.

  19. If you're using scsi emulation by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Informative

    You should already have DMA, since it's on by default in scsi emulation (I used to turn scsi emulation on for just that purpose). Still, you're better off w/o scsi emulation, it can do weird things with the device nodes. Check your lilo.conf or grub.conf for the line 'hdc=ide-scsi' and remove it.

    If you want better speed, upgrade to the latest DVD+/-rw-tools. There's a ton of recently fixed speed bugs with newer drives. Install from source is easy. just make && make install as root and it'll copy itself in /usr/local where k3b will find it (you'll have to go in and tell k3b to use the new binaries). I couldn't set my speeds correctly until I upgraded, and was left choosing between 8x (not happening on my 4x media) or 1x. Once I upgrade everthing just worked.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  20. Re:Not so fast! by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Informative
    Kernel 2.6.8 has effectively killed non root users from burning CDs and DVDs.
    I had no idea what this guy was talking about either, until I read this.
    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  21. Re:11th Commandment by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Informative

    Let's try googling for DVD burning linux free

    That's a poorly-crafted search term. Too many words in the query means fewer good responses. In this case, the word "free" is basically redundant with "linux", and "burning" is just extra-syllables onto "burn" (try to use the root form of words whenever possible). "Linux DVD Burn" would've been better.

    But regardless of that, the page of results given by your query is indeed useful. Two of the results go to forum discussions on LinuxQuestions.org, where a person has asked almost exactly the same question, and gotten almost exactly the same response ("Get K3B") as Asking Slashdot produced.

  22. Re:Is this a joke? by LibrePensador · · Score: 2, Informative

    Scribus, Audacity and lots more. Do a bit of research.

    --
    Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
  23. Schilly is the Dawes of CD recording by Nailer · · Score: 2, Informative

    Makes a great tool, but screws it up in his desire for control. Schilly cdrecord is no longer Open Source in its most recent versions due to a license change. GIYF.

    Use the cdrecord that comes in your distro. Red Hat, Suse, and most others now come with patched versions of older cdrecord that handle DVDs fine.

    1. Re:Schilly is the Dawes of CD recording by swv3752 · · Score: 3, Informative

      You forgot Mandrake, who pays the developer who actually maintains the cdrecord fork.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
  24. use -scanbus dev=ATA by Hal+XP · · Score: 2, Informative
    cdrecord -scanbus should still work. But with the new ide direct access (minus the ide-scsi emulation layer), you have to pass an argument to -scanbus to get the bus, etc, ID of your burner. To view the possible arguments, try cdrecord -scanbus dev=help. In my case to get the bus ID I use cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATA. To burn a DVD I use something like cdrecord dev=ATA:1,1,0 (which is functionally, I think, equivalent to dev=/dev/hdd).

    That's unless SuSE did something really insane with their fork of cdrecord.

    --
    I'm a sci-fi vegan: I don't want the aliens to think we have as much right to live as the fried chickens we eat.
  25. Re:Dev=0,x,0 vs. dev=/dev/hdx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wish I knew the answer to this as well.

    All I can say is the entire reason I went through the hassle of SCSI on my old system was just to avoid the hassle of ide-scsi with cdrecord. The entire ide-scsi flap seems to be centered around cdrecord and Joerg Schilling's stubborn refusal to accept reality and deviate from his beloved SCSI. Never mind the reality that almost no one carries optical SCSI devices anymore! (Save hard drives you can't find SCSI *anything* anymore!)

    Schilling also has his own "make" program, IIRC, because he refuses to write a makefile that works with GNU's make. This was discussed on the amd64 gentoo forum recently.

    Then there's cdrecord-prodvd and its annoying nagware license. Again, Schilling at work.

    Then recently there was some flap on LKML, though I have not read it because, frankly, I don't know the best place to even look at LKML.

    Heck, you can almost get a sense of his attitude from the wording of his website:
    http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glon e/employee s/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html

    I saw this problem brewing in 2000 when I got my SCSI CD burner--about the last one available. The problem is as long as Schilling is the only person with disc burning software we are all subject to his whims.

    So bring on the free and open alternatives. growisofs, for example, is fantastic, although also dependent on mkisofs (which I think is also Schilling software, but at least it doesn't seem to suck yet). Take Schilling out of the loop and then we aren't 100% dependent on him.

  26. Re:UDF write support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    That's not "already done". It's not finished yet. They're over the hump, I guess, but that's still "being developed" - It's not fully in the mainstream kernel proper, the big distros haven't picked it up yet and integrated it (though fedora now has udf-read support out-of-box, at least) - it's certainly not yet to the point where one can just drag files to the window in a bog-standard KDE/GNOME desktop on a fresh Mandrake/SuSe/Fedora install as if the CD were a floppy...

  27. Simple Answer - Lxdvdrip by newdles · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=l xdvdrip This above link is where you can find the software. This link below is how you can use it to perfection. Lxdvdrip is quite literally configurable to a 1 click dvd backup software. You can set it up to where all you do is click an icon and you're done as it does everything else for you (if configured right and with a dvd r/w and a seperate dvd rom to read from unless you want to switch dvd's in the middle of the process). http://pcpitstop.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic= 59445&hl=lxdvdrip Read this thread here and you'll find out how to configure it to work for you as well as delete all the temp files when done.

  28. Re:Dev=0,x,0 vs. dev=/dev/hdx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Take Schilling out of the loop and then we aren't 100% dependent on him.

    No problem. No UDF or DVD support yet though, I think. I've heard grumbles of speed issues as well, but it is 0.2 after all.

  29. lwn.net coverage by pyg · · Score: 2, Informative
    Lwn.net has had articles about cdrecord for two weeks in a row. The first being about the development of cdrecord and the role GNU/Linux distributers (Red Hat, et. al.) play in adding dvd capabilities. The second is about alternatives to cdrecord.

    In case you happen to live under a rock somewhere lwn.net is possibly the best Linux/FOSS news source on the net.

  30. cdrtools mailing list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Please subscribe to the cdrtools mailing list to stay informed about all the recording to cd and dvd tools.