Media/Copying DVDs

From Linux Hints

Note: I don't recommend illegal copying of DVDs. This refers to back up of DVDs for personal use and to avoid scratches. I copy DVD images for use with my MythTV box, which can then play them directly.

Entire DVD

For most DVDs, copying the entire image to a .iso file with K3b or similar will work. This will then play fine in most Linux media players as if it's a regular DVD (but check play of the actual content beyond the menus). This will of course include all the extras such as commentary, previews, which you generally don't want to see more than a few times and can add significantly to the file size.

For some DVDs, copy protection is in place, and even though it appears to copy ok, it won't play. This especially includes some Sony and Disney DVDs.

Main Title Only

If you just want to get the main content of a DVD to a file, then try this:

mplayer dvd://<title> -dumpstream -dumpfile mydvd.vob 

<title> is the main title of the DVD. About 50% of the time, it will be 1, but otherwise could be anything. I use:

dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -I

To list the titles. Even what that lists as the title may not be the main feature, but it will list the organization of the DVD, and it'll be the one with the most chapters. To be sure, use:

mplayer dvd://<title>

Using the -dump flags will result in a file which again will play fine in Linux video players, and will avoid running into copy protection in many cases. For animated features, it can also reduce the file size by 1/3 or more. Even this may not work for everything - in one case, I had it get stuck 45 seconds in, for several hours, then continue from the start, then finally get stuck again during the credits, at which point I was able to kill it.

The resulting file had the first 45 seconds repeated, which I trimmed off using the command below:

Remove introduction

If you want to trim off the front of a generated .vob file (note that -ss doesn't work with mplayer using -dumpstream), then try something like this:

dd if=mydvd.vob of=mynewdvd.vob bs=1000000 skip=10

Vary the '10' value to alter the start. The precise value could depend upon the DVD, but 10 may be about 5 seconds.