Gento Multimedia FAQ

DVDs

Keywords: AVI, DivX, DVD, libavcodec, Matroska, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Ogg Media, VOB, XviD

  1. How do I rip a DVD?

    2. Applications: acidrip, chaplin, cpdvd, dvdbackup, dvdrip, dvd9to5, ffmpeg, kmenc15, ldvd, lxdvdrip, mplayer, ogmrip, ripmake, streamdvd, thoggen, transcode, vobcopy

    MAN pages: acidrip, dvdrip, ffmpeg, mplayer, mencoder, transcode

    Tutorials:

    Documentation:

    Answer:

    For this question, let's assume you are talking about a movie DVD instead of a disc just for storage.

    When ripping a DVD, there are two ways to do it. One is simply copying the raw data off of the disc, and the other is re-encoding the movie to another audio and video format to save space. Just backing up a DVD is covered in the next question below.

    There are a couple of reasons for wanting to re-encode a DVD. The main one is usually because the tracks on a disc are very large in filesize (up to 9 gigabytes). The reason they are so large is because the video is MPEG-2, and the audio is uncompressed.

    Unless you are an audio- or videophile, you're probably perfectly comfortable with the acceptable loss of quality when a file is re-encoded with a codec that can compress the same movie into a smaller filesize. The most common video format is MPEG-4, which is used by a few codecs you may have heard of before: DivX and XviD. There are other comparable open source codecs, such as Ogg Theora.

    The audio streams can also be compressed. DVDs usually carry multiple audio tracks, either multiple languages or commentary tracks. Depending on the wrapper (AVI, Matroska, OGM, etc.) you want to put your new audio-video file into, you'll have a few different options, ranging from the older MP2 codec, to MP3, to Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and even keeping the raw audio format.

    If you're new to ripping DVDs, it's best to start off with a GUI program that will do all the work for you. They will come with a lot of options that can be confusing to someone new to the whole process. In most cases, the default options will work. Plus, no matter what you encode it to, chances are your favorite Linux media player will be able to play it back anyway.

    Once you learn some more, take a look at some of the command-line encoding programs. Almost all the GUI frontends will use one of three encoding programs: mencoder (part of the mplayer package), transcode or ffmpeg. Read up on their documentation pages if you want to get your hands a little more dirty in the details.

  2. How do I backup a DVD?

    3. Applications: dvdshrink, k3b, vobcopy, mplayer, streamdvd

    Tutorials:

    Answer:

    Copying raw data from a DVD is much simpler and faster than ripping a DVD and re-encoding it. Plus, many DVD rippers will first copy the movie to the harddrive before encoding for faster readtime.

    If you only want to backup the main movie of a DVD, and ignore things like chapter menus, advertisements, trailers and special content, then you can use either MPlayer or vobcopy to grab the largest track.

    Otherwise, if you want to make a complete backup, you can use k3b for a nice frontend.

  3. What is a two-pass rip, do I need one?

    4. Applications: xvid, ffmpeg, mencoder, transcode

    Documentation:

    Answer:

    When encoding a DVD, the more passes you make, the higher the quality. Whether or not you want to do it or not is only a question of how much time you want to invest into reencoding a DVD.

    Your best bet is to see what your preference is. If a one-pass encoding looks and sounds fine, then go with it.

    However, if you're having problems with audio/video sync, or the picture doesn't look as good as you'd like, try out a two-pass encoding, or raise your video bitrate quality.

  4. What codecs should I rip DVDs to?
  5. Can I create my movies into a DVD?

Audio

  1. What's the best soundcard to use in Linux?
  2. What's the best MP3 player for Linux?
  3. How do I know what soundcard I have?
  4. How do I get my sound working?
  5. How do I play multiple audio streams?
  6. How do I rip a CD?
  7. How do I burn a CD?
  8. How do I play an audio CD?
  9. How do I adjust my speaker volume?

TV Tuner Hardware / Software

  1. What's the best TV tuner hardware for Linux?
  2. How do I record / watch TV in Linux?
  3. Are there any USB TV tuners?
  4. How do I watch TV?
  5. How do I record TV?

Media Players

  1. How do I watch DVDs / videos in Linux?
  2. How do I watch movies in my browser?
  3. Why can't I watch WMV movies?
  4. How do I use win32codecs with amd64?
  5. Are there any command-line audio / video players?
  6. How do I setup permissions so a non-root user can watch DVDs?
  7. How do I watch a DVD with menu support?

Other

  1. How do I edit audio / video files?
  2. How do I stream audio / video to another computer?
  3. How do I automatically mount USB disks, CDs, DVDs?
  4. How can I eject a cdrom/dvd with simply press the eject button?