[EDIT - New GUI DVD copy program for Linux -- see end of article.]

[EDIT: You may come across a flick that you cannot backup with the methods that I mention in this article. Specifically, there are some movies with a content protection system that scrambles the titles and introduces bogus file information designed to thwart copying. Well, no matter. In these (rare) instances I simply use vobcopy with a command like this:

$ vobcopy /media/cdrom1 -l -n 1 -O . -t /directory-for-dump

This works pretty well to copy over the files and thwart those schemes. The legality of this is dubious, Fair Use takes a pounding from the DMCA. You will have your TITLE and your VIDEO_TS directories that you can shrink if necessary and make an .ISO out of for burning.

No matter what your tastes we all love movies for whatever reason. My kids have favorites and I like to protect those favorites from and for them. At $15 to $35 a movie this type of expenditure (while part of our "entertainment" budget) is certainly at the bottom of our household expenses. DVD media is pretty inexpensive as are DVD drives. Currently, in America anyway, it costs about $0.65 per backup and takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 1.25 hours on my homemade machine to make a backup. Of course, YMMV and I tossed Windows out the same a long time ago. I use Debian.

The whole process is rather easy to do. I like to use the command-line because it doesn't get in my way. That's just me. Of course I like pretty GUI's as well and in this tutorial we'll use both. I would like to use straight CLI but mkisofs doesn't always like the way I type. Let's get started.

----------------------------------

I use the following programs to accomplish this task:

dvdbackup
DVD Shrink
K3B (I don't, but you can)
libdvdcss
dvd+rw-tools

You can also install all of the above except DVD Shrink through Synaptic.

You will find that other people use different programs. For example, many like to use, as the second step, mkisofs. Others will burn their finished .ISO file with Graveman, or some other program. For ripping/transcoding others use Mencoder (here's a mencoder tutorial) or dvd::rip. There are other ways as well. Try this with vobcopy. Do what you like.

Make sure to have the programs I just listed (or your own favorites) installed before you start ripping. In this tutorial we use a Wine emulated Windows program called DVD Shrink. Yeah - I don't really like the idea of using non-native Linux apps, but...it works, I'm not going to argue.

As well, I have already prepared a partition for this purpose. You need to do the same. If you have better than 10GB of space in your /home directory you may just use that. On my spare HDD I made a 30GB partition for this purpose. Why don't you go ahead and prepare a spot for your rips right now. I'll wait...

Let's begin. Pop that DVD of yours into your DVD drive and resist the urge to slack and watch the flick. You're working here, bub. Now, open your terminal:

ALT+F2, type xterm (or konsole, or gnome-terminal, or whatever), hit enter.

On my machine(r) removable drives are mounted upon insertion. (Can I say that?)

Now you must decide whether you want to copy the entire disc or just the feature. At our house we get pretty annoyed at being forced to watch commercials or previews. We could also care less about the extras on a disc -- but it's your life and your time, do what you feel. The following commands get the show started, pick one:

dvdbackup -M -i/dev/cdrom -o/path/to/your/directory (entire disc)

dvdbackup -F -i/dev/dvd -o/path/to/your/directory (main feature)

If you get an error reading something like this:

• Can't read title
• DVD title too generic, please make or change title

$ dvdbackup -F -n DVD_TITLE -i/dev/dvd -o/path/to/your/directory

Notice the -n DVD_TITLE added into the command.

You will notice that I have two different devices in the command here, /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd. Your machine is different than mine and on my box either device will work.

You will see that the first thing dvdbackup does is attempt to find the encryption keys, if it does not you will not be able to copy your kid's favorite movie this way. This encryption has all sorts of ugly connotations and I won't get into it. Whether you are morally or ethically troubled by copying your own disc is up to you. FUD is FUD and like I said, we paid money for this DVD and I'll ensure that we can continue to enjoy it.

This first step takes about X minutes on my machine, depending on the length of the movie, the position of the sun, and how sweetly I ask my machine to do its job. Yours is different, more or less memory, the whole thing. I usually read some news or pummel my kids at this time. Maybe I'll go outside and have a smoke. It's pretty quick, though.

What we are going to do next is shrink up that main movie title (if necessary) and make an .ISO out of it so you can burn it to a disk. It's pretty easy...and hasn't it been easy thus far?

We'll use DVD Shrink for this part. You'll need to install WINE, or get CodeWeaver's Crossover Office (not free) in order to run DVD Shrink in Linux. Or, just fire up Synaptic, search for Wine and winesetuptk, mark 'em and install 'em. Run winesetuptk to configure your wine.

You'll have to change the default configuration of Wine so DVD Shrink doesn't crash on you. I looked around and found some good info on the Mr. Bass website concerning exactly this. If you are running wine goto the following file

~/.wine/config

and change the following:

"Windows"="win98" change to "Windows"="nt40"

.There is only one instance that you have to change. If you set up Crossover Office instead you will find the file here: ~/.cxoffice/dotwine/config. Mine says "win2k" and it's fine. I could swear that I changed it to nt40 but I guess not.

Next up download the following .dll files here . Extract those .dll files into your ~/.wine/fake_windows/Windows/System/ directory if you run Wine, or put them here if you run Crossover Office: ~/.cxoffice/dotwine/fake_windows/Windows/System.

Open DVD Shrink

In the Title bar you see some icons. Since we have already extracted the movie files we choose to Re-Author, because we're going to compress (if necessary) and make an .ISO. Go ahead and click Re-Author.

Now, using the File Manager under the DVD Browser tab, goto the extracted movie folder. Click Video_ts, then click Main Movie, then right-click on Title 1 and choose ADD.

You will see a small window appear and DVD Shrink begin to add your files. You can view the whole process as well with the built-in viewer. Only colossal geeks can appreciate this.

This can take from 35 seconds to some minutes. What you do with your time is up to you. When the ADD process is complete another box will appear with options. The defaults are pretty good but your image quality needs to be assured. On the Quality Settings tab you'll see that Compress Video with High-Quality Adaptive Error Compensation is checked off if your data is more than 4644MB. If it's not, go ahead and check that, you'll be glad that you did...and yes it will take a while.

Go ahead and poke around these options if you like, but you already checked the most important one, you can go ahead and choose OK now to begin the process. This can take anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour. Just depends on the size of the movie, machine specs, etc. The last one I did took 18 minutes at this step with high-quality compression. Schweet.

That same box with the viewer will appear at this point. I like to uncheck the viewer option because I am a colossal geek and don't need to be tempted to watch. Do what you feel.

When this process is complete (hooray!) you will have an .ISO file suitable for recording onto one (1) blank DVD. There are options in the DVD Shrink step that I didn't write about. It's your machine and your process, feel free to play around with DVD Shrink and its options. If you're wondering, yessir, you can also rip that DVD with DVD Shrink and skip the dvdbackup step.

The last step is to:

Burn the .ISO - You can use K3B, or growisofs. You can even right-click on the .ISO file in Nautilus and choose to burn it. You may have to rename and make .ISO lower-case. like this: .iso There are a number ow ways for you to burn this to disk.

In K3B, you simply choose to burn DVD .ISO image from the Tools menu. In the resulting box go find that .ISO you just made.

Burn that bad-boy. However long it takes later your DVD drive will spit out a beautiful copy of your flick. Terrific. All finished. Go outside and play.

Feel free to use the following command line option:

$ growisofs -speed=8 -Z /dev/dvd=/path/to/MOVIE_TITLE.ISO

Pick your own speed. Now, wasn't that easy? Still think Linux is hard? You go.

No doubt you have noticed that my writing style forces you to RTFA through one time prior to following the instructions. I do this because I'm a lousy writer. I hope you found this tutorial useful anyway.

----------------------------

Listen -- for a native Linux GUI DVD copy program -- try K9copy. Sure it's a KDE program, I tried it recently and while it's no end-all-be-all, it does work. It's in the Etch (testing) repositories.

-------------------------------

command line: How long is that flick?

Must have installed:

• dvd+rw-tools
• dvdbackup
• libdvdcss2
• libdvdnav4
• libdvdread3
• dvdrecord

Yes to dependencies.

Happy Computing.

machiner 23 Apr 05   Should you need further discussion on the matter.

---

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (8)