DVD Backup on Linux

It's been years now, all my primary computers have Linux as the host operating system.  Few things can't be done in Linux, but one in particular is backing up dvd's which required the installation of VirtualBox and Windows VM.  I've been using that setup for some time to backup dvd's, with applications such as DVDFab, DvdShrink or the like.  With WinXp at EOL and Nero failing to work with Win7 VMs I finally gave it up after finding an alternative application for native Linux.

K9copy seems to scratch the itch.  Using Ubuntu 12.04, I found setting it up takes the form:

$ sudo apt-get install libdvdcss libdvdcss2
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
$ sudo apt-get install k9copy

http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/web/index.php/en/

Happy viewing.

Extracting Video from DVDs

Time and again I find a need to snag video from a DVD and perform some routine video processing.

FFMpeg works nicely with standard video files, less nicely with DVD structures.  While you can certainly extract video directly from the DVD VOB files (ref: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Inside_DVD-Video/Directory_Structure) it's less than desirable since the locating the specific VOB file that contains the segment of video your interested in can be a bit of a setback.

Enter Mplayer;
Mplayer can readily play DVD contents in a user friendly way.  It can also dump the file to a more usable file if you can persuade it to do so.

You can extract the full main title into a single VOB file can be done by playing the DVD somewhat normally, but adding a few arguments;

$ mplayer dvd:// -dumpstream -dumpfile /tmp/video.vob


user@River:~$ 

The above will extract the main title into a single VOB file.  Examining with FFMpeg and you'll find that the output file has a video stream and a single audio stream;

$ ffprobe -i /tmp/video.vob

ffprobe version 1.1.2 Copyright (c) 2007-2013 the FFmpeg developers

  built on Feb 10 2013 17:42:38 with gcc 4.4.5 (Debian 4.4.5-8)

  configuration: --enable-filter=split

  libavutil      52. 13.100 / 52. 13.100

  libavcodec     54. 86.100 / 54. 86.100

  libavformat    54. 59.106 / 54. 59.106

  libavdevice    54.  3.102 / 54.  3.102

  libavfilter     3. 32.100 /  3. 32.100

  libswscale      2.  1.103 /  2.  1.103

  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102

[mpeg @ 0x2cd4c60] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5004678

Input #0, mpeg, from '/tmp/video.vob':

  Duration: 01:37:58.02, start: 0.280633, bitrate: 5012 kb/s

    Stream #0:0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video (Main), yuv420p, 720x480 [SAR 32:27 DAR 16:9], 26.50 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc

    Stream #0:1[0x80]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 448 kb/s

You may choose an alternative container rather than a VOB by specifying an alternative extension, such as an AVI container by specifying output file video.avi.

Now, we have something we can readily work with.

Let's snag a 30 sec clip starting at 90 seconds in:

$ ffmpeg -i /tmp/video.vob -qscale 0 -ss 90 -t 30 /tmp/clip.mpg

If you're only interested in the video, you can extract only the video by specifying;

$ mplayer dvd:// -dumpvideo -dumpfile /tmp/video01.avi

Or, if you're only interested in listening to the Big Bang Theory like an audio tape, extract only the audio;

$ mplayer dvd:// -dumpaudio -dumpfile /tmp/video01.aac

Cheers.

Breakin' The Law, Breakin' The Law

The imortal words of Rob Halford, front-man of Judas Priest.

Copyright infringements are a delicate matter. As a professional, you should avoid infringements. After all, some day you're own product may find its way to the store shelves and you wouldn't want anyone to steal it without compensating you for it would you?

No, seriously; this post is aimed at identifying a couple products that I have heard (wink, wink) to be quite useful in duplicating production dvds.

Many commercial dvds have some form of copyright protection, restricting many duplication products from working. DVDFab HD Decripter 4 http://www.dvdfab.com isn't such a product. Fact of the matter is that it will work on most dvd's to date. I've heard many people use it to duplicate the dvd contents to their hard drive. The paid version can duplicate the contents to a dvdr, however being a cheapskate I've elected to duplicate it to the hd and used another product to burn it.

DvdShrink http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_shrink.cfm works directly for older dvds, duplicating the contents dvd to dvd. It however is not up to date on many of the improved copyright techniques. So I've heard that duplicating a dvd to hd, and burning the harddrive contents to a dvdr works quite well.

I've heard that these two products combined let you duplicate most of the commercial dvds on the market.

Burning an Avi/Mpg to Playable Dvd

It took some work, but I finally found out how to burn an Avi or Mpeg file onto a playable dvd.

Step 1: Convert the Avi/Mpeg to proper format
ffmpeg -i InputFile.mpg -aspect 16:9 -target ntsc-dvd foo.mpg

Step 2: Create dvd file structure
dvdauthor -o dvd/ -t foo.mpg
dvdauthor -o dvd/ -T

Step 3: Create ISO Image
mkisofs -dvd-video -v -o DVD.iso dvd/

Step 4: Burn to Disc
growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/scd0=DVD.iso

This will burn an input video file to a playable dvd. This example doesn't include a dvd menu, nor multiple files on one disc. DvdAuthor suffers from the same symptom as many open-source products, little-to-no documentation nor examples. As a result, I wasted about a dozen DVD+R's trying to decrypt it's usage and finally gave up.