Howto for DVD's, VCD's ripping, encoding, burning?

LarryDoliver · 07-14-2003, 10:45 AM

Howdy Folks,

I just got and installed a DVD+RW drive and am interested in learding all about backing up video DVD's, ripping, encoding, et cetera.

I'm familiar (a bit) with MPlayer, and have dvd::rip installed and functioning, but I'm not sure about the details of what it does. Is there a good book or website out there? I understand the basic process (rip data to HDD, transcode to smaller/different video format, maybe resize, rescale, burn to CD's or DVD's) but I really don't get the details.

Things I'd like to do/understand:
1) What's a VCD and how is it different from SVCD?
2) why can't I just dd if=/dev/dvd of=/tmp/dvd.iso then burn that to a new DVD? I try, but dd always fails.
3) What's the quality trade-off when a squish a full DVD (something like 6GB of data) to two VCD's (1.3GB)?
4) can I simply burn VOB's to a DVD and watch it on a standalone DVD player?

I guess I should just try many combinations out, but my standalone DVD player only reads DVD-R disks, so I don't want to experiment too much with expensive, read-only media.

This may be a retread for a lot of this info, but I can't seem to find any HOWTO or equiv for the various video file formats and blatant newbie stuff. Help is greatly appreciated.

If I get some good info back, I'll put together a write-up on my experience (from buying hardware, physically installing, getting it to play well with my existing CDRW drive, to the software encoding/ripping/burning bits).

acid_kewpie · 07-14-2003, 11:04 AM

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

also, i'd like to take this opertunity to plug my dvd ripper... http://acidrip.sf.net direct encoding using mplayer, so you don't need to rip to disk first etc....

LarryDoliver · 07-14-2003, 11:42 AM

ahhh - that website is VERY GOOD - though very Windows-centric for the tools help.

Guess I just have one more question: I want to spread one 8GB dual layer DVD onto 2 single layer 4.5GB disks. What files do I need on the first and second disks? My guess is:

First Disk:

Code:

VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
                /VTS_01_0.VOB
                /VTS_01_1.VOB
                /VTS_01_2.VOB
                /VTS_01_3.VOB

Second Disk:

Code:

VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
                /VTS_01_4.VOB
                /VTS_01_5.VOB
                /VTS_01_6.VOB

Do I need that .IFO file on #2? Do I need VIDEO_TS.IFO and VIDEO_TS.VOB at all?

I'll experiment around this evening and will post my results, if no one out there knows...

[CODE]

LarryDoliver · 07-15-2003, 09:27 AM

ok - I've yet to be successful in burning anything my standalone player can see.

Are folks out there just making VCD's and DVD's for computer use? this is much easier than a sit-top DVD player.

tools like aciddvd and dvd::rip are great for getting content off a DVD and transcoding it - but the 'burn' section of dvd::rip isn't the best.

Anyone out there have any luck making DVD's?

acid_kewpie · 07-15-2003, 09:39 AM

well the ripping tools are only really for encodign to an alternative format. you'll need to use the dvdrtools package to burn to DVD.

also if you're only after a dvd copy, tools like vobcopy might come in useful, it will dump a set of vobs to your hard disc (without css) for burning.

emence · 07-15-2003, 09:50 AM

I can tell im gonna get slapped for this one but here goes. If you do happen to have Windoze available, Try out DVDXCopy, rips and burns in one seemless motion. I say this just because I have yet to get dvd burning in Linux to play on my player as well.

LarryDoliver · 07-15-2003, 11:36 AM

I was afraid of that. DAMN! I really don't like having to keep a windows partition around just for moving bits from one disk to another....

LarryDoliver · 07-16-2003, 05:29 PM

any chance that any of the many windoze tools will run under wine?

rickenbacherus · 07-22-2003, 12:45 AM

DVD+RW-TOOLS It works great for burning .iso's It's a frontend for mkisofs.
I just got acidrip installed 31% of a DVD rip ago

So, I just need to get the image built. One thing at a time I guess. So far so easy. Acidrip is most excellent. I can't believe how easy it was to install and use on a Debian Sid system.

acid_kewpie · 07-22-2003, 01:58 AM

i thank you most kindly...

0.10 out soon.

rickenbacherus · 07-23-2003, 02:36 PM

OK so acidrip rip works like a charm. I was really dreading using all of those seperate apps to rip dvd's. Thanks Chris- you made things alot easier.

If you haven't checked this out yet I would HIGHLY advise doing so. I ripped an entire DVD into an .avi file < 700MB. You know what that fits on!

Question is, how do you go about burning an .avi file to cd so that it can be read by mplayer (or your favorite app).?

Also I have used the 'copy' function which was blazingly fast at ripping a nearly 4G image off the DVD. Same question here. How do I get that file onto a DVD that is readable on a standalone dvd player?

I hope these aren't elementary questions but there are SO many formats for video and SO many things to read! I'll be doing some experiments this weekend and maybe figure i out for myself. I just hate to waste too much media in the process. Thanks for any ideas.

doggizback · 07-27-2003, 09:25 PM

love to try out acidrip cept one problem. the mcommon rpm says it depends on mplayer being installed. mplayer says it depends on mcommon being installed. this doesnt bode well since i cant install one without the other being installed. id explain more but im confusing myself. try to give you as much info as i can though. the files i have are :
mplayer-common-0.90-1.athlon.rpm

and

mplayer-0.90-1.athlon.rpm

now, im extremely new to linux...so i just double click both of those and hope they install like i think theyre supposed to. for example when i double click the mplayer-common rpm i get this error: unlocatable package: mplayer= 0.90 required by:mplayer-common

and vice versa when i click the other one first. maybe i am overlooking something but JEEZE. am i the only one this doesnt make sense to? theyre saved to /root/.gnome-desktop/ if that makes any difference. thanks -=dogg=-

DigitalTygrrr · 07-27-2003, 09:32 PM

I don't know if it will help or not, but a website that has been helpful to me has been doom9 . It is mainly geared towards windows, but it does have a linux forum. I don't think the linux mods are worked too hard, but they posess alot of knowledge about linux and DV.

it's at least worth a look.

acid_kewpie · 07-28-2003, 02:27 AM

richenblahah... Thanks. any suggestions are welcome. as for burning it to disc, well you'd do it like any other normal file. alternatively you could actually burn the file as an image, and play the disc back directly as a block device, which is technially a dumb idea, but pretty cool nonetheless.

as for playing on a dvd player, you'd want to encode to a VCD, which i'm possibly going to give into and add to acidrip... maybe. If you want to actually copy the original DVD onto a DVDR, i've never messed with that, The file that acidrip can cache to is unlikely to be any good for what you want though.

doggizback... just do them all at once... "rpm -Uvh mplayer-0.90.rpm mplayer-common-0.90.rpm" easy!

doggizback · 07-30-2003, 07:48 PM

well i half ways got dvd::rip to work. i gets all the vob files out flawlessly, however i dont know how to convert it to avi, and i also got some weird message saying that it couldnt do rar or something..basically meaning i dont have rar installed?? not a huge problem since i got the vob files out, but now i dont know how to convert to avi format. i tried acidrip, and i can get the actual gui up and running, but as has happened with me with other programs, when i try to go :

perl Makefile.PL

it tells me that lsdvd isnt installed...when i swear it IS. i compiled it right from the source according to the generic install instructions...did ./configure, make, make install....yet when i try to do the perl Makefile.PL it says that lsdvd isnt installed. alternatively, is there an app for converting vob files on the hdd to avi?