DVD ripping software.

[McCordRM]

I have a huge DVD collection (Some blu-ray) and want to convert it all to digital
media for easy of use and safekeeping. I like flipping through movies with my
remote as opposed to changing out disks every time the movie ends. Also, I want
to put away my DVDs to keep them safe.

Anyhow, just switched to Linux so I'm behind the curve on software knowledge.
What should I be looking into? I'm using Mint 9, 64-bit.

[oz]

I'm unable to recommend anything specific for you, but you can take a look through more than 20 pages of various Linux multimedia apps by checking here:

Multimedia | Linux App Finder

As always, it's best to install any apps that you want to try with your default package tool rather than installing them from source, if possible.

Maybe some of the others here will offer up some specific app suggestions for you.

[TaZMAniac]

You will need to install the restricted codecs from the repos and the libdvdcss which can be installed by using the following commands;
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Now you can read and access video DVDs.
An easy way to rip them to an Iso can be found here;
Easy Steps to Rip a DVD to ISO in Ubuntu 8.10 | TechSource

Essentially you use the built in Brasero Cd/DVD burner to burn them to an Iso file. It does work with newer Ubuntu based distro's like Mint.

VLC can be used to open Iso files and watch the movie contained in it.
Or you can mount that Iso and use Handbrake to convert it to a mkv which is a very versatile container or convert it to an mp4.

Another program you may want to try is k9copy which is also available through the repos. It not only copies the DVD but allows you to re-author it and take out scenes, extras or audio tracks you don't want.

As for Blu-ray?
I looked into that a month ago and from what I read, there was no easy or full proof method of making a back up in Linux.

Hope this helps you.

[Rubberman]

DVD's are easy - I always rip mine when I get them to have backup copies for when the original gets munged. You need the libdvdcss package and some other software such as dvdbackup. I use K3b (on KDE) as a front end - it makes it really easy to do, though rips with dvdbackup are very easy (command line) also. As for Bluray, I think the tools are getting there but since I don't have a BR player, I don't need to figure out how to rip them...

[McCordRM]

Yea, I don't want to create a new CD/DVD/Blu-Ray disk... I just want to rip them to .AVI format as a digital copy so I can watch them from my harddrive while protecting the actual media.

Blu-ray seems to be the hardest to figure out so far.

[waterhead]

For ripping DVDs and transcoding them, a lot of people use Handbrake. To just rip the DVD, DVD Rip may be what you want.

For ripping Blu-ray discs, the best choice is a windows program called DVDFab. You can install and run it using Wine. It is actually a trial version, but purchasing an actual license doesn't work under Wine. After the trial period you have to uninstall it, then delete the hidden .wine folder in your home directory. You can then re-install it.

The ripped Blu-ray will be rather large, around 30GB. I have (successfully) experimented transcoding to a smaller .mp4 file, using ffmpeg. I have chronicled my transcoding attempts using ffmpeg, in this thread:

Encoding H264 Video With FFMPEG - AVS Forum

[Segfault]

mplayer -dvd-device /dev/dvd2 dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile rip.vob

This example command will read DVD from second DVD drive and save first title on hard drive as a vob file. You can play it as it is (it's a MPEG-2 file) or you can convert it to MPEG-4 to save disk space.

[fruit]

I just want to rip them to .AVI format as a digital copy so I can watch them from my harddrive while protecting the actual media.

[Rubberman]

That's why I use ffmpeg. It can rip videos to just about any format you want. FWIW, avi files are just wrappers over any number of other formats. You can rip to mpeg2, mpeg4, mastroika, x264, or avi, wmv, flv, etc. That's my preferred tool on Linux for video ripping and/or transcoding.

[Rubberman]

One final thought. For preservation of my DVD's (I have a LOT of them also) I use dvdbackup and rip them to a DVD image .iso file. I can easily mount that file (now with CSS encoding and region codes removed) and play the DVD on my computer (or stream it) whenever I want, with all the extras included. Alternatively, I can also burn a DRM/region unencumbered copy to play in any DVD player, so it is a true backup and preserves my DVD in truth.