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Decent DVD-Ripping Solution For Linux?
supersloshy writes "I'm a user of Ubuntu Linux and I have been for a little while now. Recently I've been trying to copy DVDs onto a portable media player, but everything I've tried isn't working right. dvd::rip always gets the language mixed up (for example, when ripping 'Howl's Moving Castle,' one of the files it ripped to was in Japanese instead of English), Acidrip just plain isn't working for me (not recognizing a disc with spaces in its name, refusing to encode, etc.), Thoggen is having trouble with chapters (chapter 1 repeated twice for me once), and OGMRip has the audio out of sync. What I'm looking for is a reliable program to copy the movie into a single file with none of the audio or video glitches as mentioned above. Is there even such thing on Linux? If you can't think of a decent Linux-based solution, then a Windows one is fine as long as it works."
Just this morning, Lifehacker posted about this very topic: http://lifehacker.com/5205221/acidrip-for-linux-rips-dvds-with-two+click-ease
You won't find one better than Handbrake, works great for me. Here's a howto I wrote on the topic: http://spareclockcycles.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/handbrake-for-dvd-ripping-on-ubuntu/
Mencoder (mplayer package) works pretty well.
Following the docs gave me decent quality rips without too much hassle.
http://web.njit.edu/all_topics/Prog_Lang_Docs/html/mplayer/encoding.html
BitTorrent. Its probably faster and definitely easier.
Through much trial and error I've found that k9copy is the most reliable and functional program for ripping DVDs. You can customize what you want or don't want and it puts everything into VOB that can easily be burned as a video dvd in k3b. Happy Burning! :)
vobcopy -i /folder/to/copy/to -m [executed where the dvd is mounted]
/directory/to/put/iso
mkisofs -dvd-video -udf -o desired_iso_name.iso
Done.
I say that the solution is a Linux solution since the Author supports the application running on Wine. If the Author supports it, then to me it is as much a Linux solution as any other app that uses external libraries.
I can't say I'm an obsessive purist
Then what IS the reason? I run Linux exclusively, and I independently reached the same conclusion as AC: The best Linux DVD ripper is DVDFab.
If DVDFab isn't a "Linux solution" because it requires WINE, then KDE isn't a Linux solution because it requires Qt.
OR you could run a program that actually runs native under linux. Download handbrake. I believe the site is handbrake.fr (google to make sure) you also need VLC for dvd decryption, it works perfectly. I have even ripped Howl's flying castle. and many many more.
First of all, Matroska is an open spec, and most implementations (including the reference implementation, libmatroska) are Open Source (lgpl for libmatroska).
Mkv supports B-frames, Variable bit rate audio, Variable frame rate, Chapters, and Subtitles. Not all containers support all of these, and AVI only supports any of those with workarounds, modifications or just nasty hacks.
The mpeg container can't do chapters or subtitles, and obviously only holds media in the mpeg (1 or 2) format.
MP4 has limited chapter and subtitle support and only deals with mpeg media (basically 1, 2, and 4 ASP/AVC).
Ogg/ogm is designed for simplicity, streaming and specifically for Vorbis and Theora (although most/all other codecs can be used), while Mkv is meant as a completely general-purpose distribution container, and wants to replace avi, asf, mp4, mov, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats
http://www.matroska.org/technical/guides/faq/index.html
http://xiph.org/container/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t10426.html
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
That could cause problems. VLC is crippled in the latest Ubuntu. While the VLC people blame Ubuntu on their mailing lists, it turns out that the FFMpeg library uses different names for some codes in their newer version -- and on the latest Ubunut (Intrepid), that version of VLC doesn't use the newer names.
I was on both mailing lists for a while (VLC, FFMpeg) and the latter admitted to changing the names but did have all the codecs available under Ubunut. The VLC people claim some of those codecs are not available under Ubuntu (even with extra repositories), but they're there -- just with different names.
Until Ubuntu gets this straightened out, anyone using Intrepid or following versions will have trouble with video codecs, including ripping DVDs and, in my case, trying to read files from my HD camcorder that were easily readable in Ubuntu Hardy, but which nobody was quite sure how to read (or what settings to use) in Intrepid.
After wasting several days of my life on this issue, I gave up, ordered an iMac, and since switching, have spent more time doing what I want on my computer and less time at the computer overall. I no longer have to spend time trying to make sure the tools taht are supposed to help me are set up properly or if I'm using the right settings.
It's nice to have more time for real life than to be spending time adjusting my tools.
The 1990s called: they want their benchmarks back.
That's Linux for you and the reason why I switched to a Mac. Linux is a fantastic OS but many of the applications that run on it are just not mature enough to be used by laymen.
-- Cheers!
If the issue was an ffmpeg or VLC issue, then that would qualify as a dependency issue. The newer VLC should have required the newer ffmpeg. If, however, it was an Ubuntu packaging naming issue, I completely blame proprietary Linux packaging for that.
This is one of the many reasons Linux packaging standards are needed. Distros should be offering the same exact software that you can get easily online. If they want to modify a program, they need to change it's name, but if it's simply distros having different package names then they need to fucking stop it. Metapackages are fine, but fucking around with software names just so you can make your repository be proprietary is wrong. Until Linux users are really free to choose what software to install no matter their distro, and the focus is shifted to making the default software work correctly for all Linux users, you sadly will have more freedom in some ways on a proprietary OS.
Thank you distro wars for giving everyone less freedom and making Linux suck more.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
It's probably likely that the problems he was having in this case was the tipping point of a long series of personal annoyances. What this story seems to illustrate is that Linux is still in the rough Harley Davidson stage, in that almost every Harley Davidson owner I ever met was a fairly decent mechanic as the cycles are famous for requiring a lot of mechanic knowhow. One respondent's answer in brief was "compile your own". While this works for a certain group of user, there are a lot of users which it won't. With Mac OSX now having a lot more common with the 'Nix OS's and featuring software which simply "just works". I can understand why he finally made the switch. (OS X even has it's own versions of WINE working for it now that it's main architecture is Intel based.) and OS X has shed most of what made the original Mac OS such a hostile environment to develop for, as seen from the explosion open source code for the platform. "Stuff just works" is a good benchmark on the maturity of an OS as a user system for other than "Harley Davidson home mechanics." OS X is a good example of that benchmark as a UNIX type OS you can give your grandmother to use. Linux's progress towards that goal has slowed down considerably if not stopped altogether.
"95% of all Harley Davidsons ever made are still on the road.
The other 5% made it home okay."
- found floating around somewhere on the interwebs
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
What nobody will tell you is that to prevent some older, free ripping tools from working, some studios (mostly for DVDs released in region 1 - USA and Canada - but also sometimes seen elsewhere) use a copy protection method called ARCCOS or something similar to protect their DVDs. The only rippers I know of that can defeat this are DVDFab HD Decrypter (they have a free version available) and AnyDVD (don't know if there is a free version or only the commercial version). Both are updated regularly to deal with new variations in ARCCOS. ARCCOS uses deliberately placed bad sectors on the disc to thwart copying. It's quite complicated, but it relies on a difference between how standalone DVD players and PCs read discs to thwart copying attempts. DVDFab and AnyDVD get updated because they are produced in countries that are currently free from MPAA enslavement. I am unaware of any programs other than those that can correctly rip DVDs and those only work on Windows. I don't keep up with Handbrake as it's mostly for Mac fanboys (but they do have a Windows version), so I have no idea if Handbrake is actually able to deal with ARCCOS or not. The people I know who use it do not rip DVDs that I know to use ARCCOS, so I have no idea if Handbrake can even deal with ARCCOS correctly or not.