From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1PxO8a-0000l1-3J for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:29:33 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 516F11C035; Wed, 9 Mar 2011 18:28:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtpout.karoo.kcom.com (smtpout.karoo.kcom.com [212.50.160.34]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6A221C035 for ; Wed, 9 Mar 2011 18:28:02 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.62,291,1297036800"; d="scan'208";a="489459460" Received: from 213-152-39-90.dsl.eclipse.net.uk (HELO compaq.stroller.uk.eu.org) ([213.152.39.90]) by smtpout.karoo.kcom.com with ESMTP; 09 Mar 2011 18:28:01 +0000 Received: from [192.168.1.104] (unknown [192.168.1.104]) by compaq.stroller.uk.eu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1309FA9A27 for ; Wed, 9 Mar 2011 18:27:58 +0000 (GMT) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1082) Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Automation: Ripping DVDs to disk From: Stroller In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 18:27:59 +0000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <17E45FB3-077A-4CEA-ADDE-073092CD807F@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> References: To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1082) X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: 1be4bcdbe5cd820e16154077a6bc5c30 On 8/3/2011, at 6:09pm, James wrote: > ... > I have a large DVD(movie) collection, that I want > copied to hard drive(s) and a database set up > about the movies. Since disc is cheap > ($75/2TB) I'm not even going to fool around > with conversion or compression, i.e. MPEG-2 > is fine for now, unless the process can > be automated=20 I've started this process, and am pretty much happy with my "workflow". IMO you're absolutely right not to transcode the movies, if you can = avoid it. I've wasted a lot of time trying to do that well - whilst = h264 *is* really good, if you look closely picture quality is still not = as good as the original and there are several other ways you can trip up = when processing an even moderately large collection. DVD is a pretty whacky "standard", and I don't believe there are any = transcoding tools that will be certain to get the right framerate, = aspect ratio (anamorphic picture, cropping &c) and stuff like that every = time. If you blindly rip anything less than the whole DVD then it's very = easy to get the wrong language of audio or miss subtitles on foreign = movies. An example of a movie which has caused ripping complications for me is = "Killing Zoe" - it features an American protagonist but is set in Paris. = It is a Hollywood movie but there are large sections of French dialogue = - the American director probably wanted to give it a European "flavour" = by including so much. The DVD I have of this movie has a forced subtitle = only for the French parts - the film was surely subtitled like this = during US theatrical release, but I had not seen it for some years when = I originally ripped the disk. So thinking that "this is an English = language DVD of a Hollywood movie" I just ripped audio and video exactly = as I would have ripped any other US DVD at the time (for "hard = subtitles" this procedure would have, in fact, been perfectly fine). = Consequently the subtitles were missing, and I missed loads of context = when I watched it because I don't really speak French - it was only 3/4 = of the way through that I suddenly realised my mistake and that there's = supposed to be subtitles for these sections. Only at that stage of the = plot there was simply too much French dialogue I didn't understand. That is an example of one the most user non-optimal possible experiences = from poor DVD ripping. The viewer doesn't understand the movie, but when = watching it again the surprise of plot elements may be spoiled from = having inadvertently watched it in the wrong language in the first = place. Dramatic effect is important and, especially since DVDs allow = branching (Director's Cut vs Theatrical on the same disk), there = probably loads of examples where the DVD does something clever that = can't be captured correctly via a conventional rip of title 1 to .mp4. = These may seem like unusual cases, but it's the corner cases that get = you every time; since I've found at least a couple of them whilst = ripping less than 50 disks, there are probably several in any DVD = collection. In one scene of the British movie "Lock Stock And Two = Smoking Barrels" characters talk in cockney rhyming slang so = impenetrable it's subtitled; I have no idea whether this short set of = subtitles is hard or forced on the DVD. Presuming the movie also has = English subtitles for the deaf, how does the DVD avoid those clashing? I = don't know, but I don't want to have to care, either. One might = hypothesise that the same problem might manifest during the Disney movie = "Wall-E", were the beeping of one of the robots subtitled. Feel free to = dismiss this problem because "that film doesn't affect me", but I'm sure = you'll find a movie that does affect you, after you've ripped it. (I've just reread your original questions, and seeing your mention of = asking a teenager to perform the disk-swapping, I now realise that I've = probably been preaching to the converted with these last two lengthy = paragraphs. However I might as well leave that commentary in the hope = it'll benefit someone else some time). It's pretty common now to rip the main title to .mkv file, but I think = this is still flawed. The .mkv container allows storage of the original = MPEG2 video encode (quick to rip, no loss of quality) and unlike .mp4 (I = think) it also permits multiple different audio tracks (director's = commentary &c) and multiple subtitles. .mkv is pretty widely supported = on standalone players (nearly as widely as .mp4 h264/AAC) but you still = have the problem I described before that it may default to the wrong = language or subs; at least in this case the viewer can select those from = the player's menus themselves, but it's not as nice as the original DVD = in a conventional player. You may be already past the cockney scene = before you realise the subtitles are missing and have to rewind; more = likely you'll just not be aware of these subtitles at all, and you'll = entirely miss the point of this scene. I'm not aware of any tools which = will easily "translate" from a DVD the settings for default or forced = subtitles or for default audio - usually the latter is the first track, = but not always. No other format will handle the DVD's original menus. = Most people don't care, but you also lose extras like the "making of" = video and deleted scenes when you rip a DVD to .mkv. IMO ripping the whole movie to a DVD .iso file is the optimal solution = for home viewing. It's just like a perfect dd clone of the disk, except = decrypted, and so open-source players can treat the file just like the = original DVD. Standalone players and consumer devices do not support = .iso files quite so well as they do .mp4, but there are now a good crop = of great $100 set top boxes. These include a Western Digital "TV Live" = and the PlayOn HD Mini [1] (I have this latter) - both of which browse = to your files over network shares (e.g. Samba) and then treat them just = like the original DVD, showing the GUI DVD menu.=20 Both the Western Digital "TV Live" and the PlayOn HD Mini are in fact = mini Linux boxes (MIPS, I think) with a dedicated video decoder chip. = It's easy here on gentoo-user to be critical of the fact that these = boxes have a proprietary closed-source driver for that decoder and that = the o/s isn't really user-servicable, but it's very hard to beat them = for price, performance, convenience and their lack of a fan. Ideally we = might all build Linux-based home media centre PCs, but that would cost = more and it is difficult to achieve such a small form-factor; it's = another Linux project you could sink many hours into. These consumer = players, on the other hand, are nice looking little boxes - they're = tiny, with low power consumption and no fan. I can't emphasise that last = point enough, because fanless on any kind of regular PC is a real PITA. = Connect a consumer network video player to your network, HDMI to the TV, = use the menu to browse the network and go - your video plays perfectly. Under Gentoo, ripping a DVD to .iso is very easy. It is fundamentally:=20= dvdbackup -i /dev/sr0 -o tmpdir -M followed by: mkisofs -dvd-video -o "Movie Title.iso" -sysid '' -A '' -V $TITLE = dir/VIDEO_TS As long as you have appropriate decryption (CSS) libraries installed = then you'll get a perfect copy using these two commands. Actually, I'm = not sure how the layer change is handled, but I can't say that it = manifests during playback. The most significant caveat I can think of is = that some recent DVD releases introduce artificial "scratches" to = prevent copying. There are some mastering faults of this kind that = mplayer and the like won't notice because they're on a part of the DVD = which is never read during normal playback. I intended to take a look at = the dvdbackup source code and add an option to insert zeroes instead of = its current failure - erroring out with a "bad read" message; I'm pretty = confident that shouldn't be too difficult, that it will fix the problem = and result in a playable disk image. That got kind put on hold a while = back and I haven't had a chance to look at it again since. The only = other alternatives I'm aware of are to transcode (mplayer -> mp4) or use = a Windows-based ripper; DVD FabDecryptor seems to work on all these = disks, it offers a free trial and you can circumvent the license = restrictions with ethical integrity, as its developers violate the GPL = license of the ffmpeg code they use. I've got a Perl script to wrapper `dvdbackup && mkisofs`, reduce typing = a little and do some error-checking. It tries to preserve some of the = DVD metadata (TITLE &c), and you might find it handy if handing off = disk-swapping to your teenage progeny. My script is currently too ugly = for me to distribute widely - as soon as I finished I realised I want to = rewrite it from scratch - but I think it's fairly robust and if you want = a copy for your personal use only then email me off-list. In the next = version I'd like to remove the "unskippable" flag from all titles / = chapters, as it seems a little daft to have ripped all one's DVDs to a = network RAID array, and yet still have to suffer the dumb FBI warnings. = All the Windows rippers do this, so I assume it's possible to implement, = but I have no idea how difficult. There are some questions in your original post that I haven't addressed. = I don't know that there's any "perfect" solution in existence for this = kind of consumer management of media files. I'm pretty sure MythTV does = some clever lookup of metadata at the IMDB and adds cover art and stuff, = but MythTV's focus is on TV recording(s), not DVDs; it probably handles = DVDs pretty well, has a decent search and stuff, but it's a whole larger = proposition than my setup, a lot more work. Besides, you can probably = rip DVDs with `dvdbackup && mkisofs` and then later worry about = databasing (whether by importing them in to MythTV or otherwise).=20 HTH, Stroller. [1] http://www.playonhd.com/en/?upn=3Dproducts&subpage=3Dplayonhdmini