I've been using [abcde][] to rip our audio CD collection onto our fileserver for a few years now. Then I can play songs from across the collection using [[MPD]] without having to dig the original CDs out of the closet. I just picked up a large external hard drive and thought it might be time to take a look at ripping our DVD collection as well. There is an excellent [Quick-n-Dirty Guide][qnd] that goes into more detail on all of this, but here's an executive summary. Make sure your kernel understands the [UDF file system][udf]: $ grep CONFIG_UDF_FS /usr/src/linux/.config If your kernel was compiled with `CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC` enabled, you could use $ zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_UDF_FS instead, to make sure you're checking the configuration of the currently running kernel. If the `udf` driver was compiled as a module, make sure it's loaded. $ sudo modprobe udf Mount your DVD somewhere: $ sudo mount /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd Now you're ready to rip. You've got two options: you can copy the VOBs over directly, or rip the DVD into an alternative container format such as [Matroska][]. Vobcopy ------- Mirror the disc with [vobcopy][] (`media-video/vobcopy` on [[Gentoo]]): $ vobcopy -m -t "Awesome_Movie" -v -i /mnt/dvd -o ~/movies/ Play with [Mplayer][] (`media-video/mplayer` on [[Gentoo]]): $ mplayer -nosub -fs -dvd-device ~/movies/Awesome_Movie dvd://1 where `-nosub` and `-fs` are optional. Matroska -------- Remux the disc (without reencoding) with `mkvmerge` (from [MKVToolNix][], `media-video/mkvtoolnix` on [[Gentoo]]): $ mkvmerge -o ~/movies/Awesome_Movie.mkv /mnt/dvd/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB (Processing the following files as well: "VTS_01_2.VOB", "VTS_01_3.VOB", "VTS_01_4.VOB", "VTS_01_5.VOB") Then you can do all the usual tricks. Here's an example of extracting a slice of the Matroska file as silent video in an AVI container with `mencoder` (from [Mplayer][], `media-video/mplayer` on [[Gentoo]]): $ mencoder -ss 00:29:20.3 -endpos 00:00:21.6 Awesome_Movie.mkv -nosound -of avi -ovc copy -o silent-clip.avi Here's an example of extracting a slice of the Matroska file as audio in an AC3 container: $ mencoder -ss 51.1 -endpos 160.9 Awesome_Movie.mkv -of rawaudio -ovc copy -oac copy -o audio-clip.ac3 You can also take a look through the [Gentoo wiki][gentoo] and [this Ubuntu thread][ubuntu] for more ideas. [abcde]: http://code.google.com/p/abcde/ [qnd]: http://www.scottro.net/qnd/qnd-dvd-backup.html [UDF]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format [Matroska]: http://www.matroska.org/ [vobcopy]: http://lpn.rnbhq.org/ [MKVToolNix]: http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix [Mplayer]: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ [gentoo]: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Ripping_DVD_to_Matroska_and_H.264 [ubuntu]: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=e45e01b671c1dd08351876fda432f04a&t=1400598&page=2 [[!tag tags/linux]] [[!tag tags/tools]]