Re: [gentoo-user] HandBrakeCLI & undvd. was: Cloning movie DVDs with dd
On 12 Aug 2009, at 21:43, Neil Bothwick wrote: ... If you just want the movies to play back on a Linux laptop whilst on a holiday trip then this probably won't bother you at all, but if you want an "archive" of your movie collection which you'll keep for playback into the future then undvd isn't the best ripper. It seems to me that HandBrakeCLI takes that prize, in the command-line category, at least. At the moment that's all I want, but that may not always be true, so I'd rather find one program that addresses my current and possible future needs, instead of having to learn a second later on. Undvd is very simple to use, but after some playing it turns out to be too simple, I'm a Gentoo user and therefore a control freak. What don't you like about undvd, please? What settings do you want to change, that it prevents you? The reason I'm asking is that HandBrakeCLI has a bug WRT cropping & PS3 playback, see: http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8032&start=0#p45390 I would prefer to be able to crop, because ISTM that the uncropped setting means I encode big black borders around the sides, resulting in larger files. I don't believe that undvd (relying upon mplayer) has this problem, so I am tempted to have another crack at hacking on undvd's source & porting its call upon mpeg4ip (which has been depreciated from the tree) to instead work with MP4Box (part of media-video/gpac). I already had a little go at this, but I'm not an expert coder - certainly not in perl - and got a little stuck. I think I can probably manage to overcome the difficulty I encountered, but I'd be grateful to hear of any other shortcomings of undvd that I may not have considered, before I invest any more time in it. Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] HandBrakeCLI & undvd. was: Cloning movie DVDs with dd
On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:05:02 +0100, Stroller wrote: > > mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile somefilm.mpeg > > No point though, really, is there? I mean, I'm happy with it this way, > I'm not short of space, and to me that just seems to be complicating > things. Well it's a one line command, no more complex than the dd you use, except it works first time ;-) > > However, it did download and compile a bunch of libraries that I > > already > > have. Programs using their own copies of libraries is a bit Windowsy > > for > > my liking. > > I know. I find it more "Macintoshy" than Windowsy myself, but whatever > - it just feels a little dirty. I can only guess the Handbrake devs > did it this ways because the latest versions of media libs like these > aren't so well tracked by many distros, so this saves them manually > updating from SVN (or are the versions pinned?). Also, I think they > develop for Windows & that HandBrakeCLI will compile & work on that > platform. There's also the way the ffmpeg API keeps changing, breaking everything built against it :( > > I suspect 0.9.4 will have more luck, as it uses a more standard build > > system. > > I really nope so. If I had more time I might look at the SVN & see if > I could hack an ebuild, but 0.9.3 is working just fine for me right > now. I didn't bother with an ebuild, it only installs one executable if you don't build the GUI. > Depending on how much time is available to you for ripping, and upon > your optical prescription &/or tolerance for video quality, you > probably want to look at undvd's "-2" argument & its target size > option. I think you can set the bitrate in undvd, but I didn't find it > obvious what bitrate it's using by default - thus it's not obvious > what bitrate to choose in order to improve quality (or by default does > it try to make a file that'll fit on a CD-R? I can't recall). Setting > a target video size is the easy way to improve video quality in undvd > & on a number of movies I found a 1.2gig rip indistinguishable from > the original DVD. I think it uses 900 as the default bitrate, I read that somewhere in the docs. > If you just want the movies to play back on a Linux laptop whilst on a > holiday trip then this probably won't bother you at all, but if you > want an "archive" of your movie collection which you'll keep for > playback into the future then undvd isn't the best ripper. It seems to > me that HandBrakeCLI takes that prize, in the command-line category, > at least. At the moment that's all I want, but that may not always be true, so I'd rather find one program that addresses my current and possible future needs, instead of having to learn a second later on. Undvd is very simple to use, but after some playing it turns out to be too simple, I'm a Gentoo user and therefore a control freak. -- Neil Bothwick the sum of all human intelligence is constant, only the number of humans increases. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] HandBrakeCLI & undvd. was: Cloning movie DVDs with dd
On 12 Aug 2009, at 12:05, Neil Bothwick wrote: On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:58:11 +0100, Stroller wrote: I guess I just prefer this encrypted.dd.iso image because it's a single file to work with, rather than a directory containing a mess of .vob files. Or, at least, the mess of .vob files are hidden from me. ;) I guess I've just gotten used to doing it this way. If you're only encoding one title from each DVD, you could use mplayer to rip the title to a single file. mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile somefilm.mpeg No point though, really, is there? I mean, I'm happy with it this way, I'm not short of space, and to me that just seems to be complicating things. Handbrake looks interesting, I'm trying to rip some DVDs to play on my Eee during a long flight next week, but the ebuild from b.g.o fails during compilation here. I think I used this one: http://gentoo-overlays.zugaina.org/voyageur/portage/media-video/handbrake/handbrake-0.9.3.ebuild I've since grabbed the latest from SVN, which builds with the standard ./configure && make && make install. However, it did download and compile a bunch of libraries that I already have. Programs using their own copies of libraries is a bit Windowsy for my liking. I know. I find it more "Macintoshy" than Windowsy myself, but whatever - it just feels a little dirty. I can only guess the Handbrake devs did it this ways because the latest versions of media libs like these aren't so well tracked by many distros, so this saves them manually updating from SVN (or are the versions pinned?). Also, I think they develop for Windows & that HandBrakeCLI will compile & work on that platform. I get the impression that Gentoo's devs find it difficult to reconcile Handbrake's build system with Portage. ... I suspect 0.9.4 will have more luck, as it uses a more standard build system. I really nope so. If I had more time I might look at the SVN & see if I could hack an ebuild, but 0.9.3 is working just fine for me right now. I'm fairly happy to tolerate it having done it's own rude thing wrt lib downloads, at least since I've installed using an ebuild, so `emerge -C` should remove all files installed by it, when removal or upgrading becomes necessary or desirable. I'm also trying undvd, which seems simplicity itself. undvd is really nice. There's some stuff the author has got really right: coloured output, nice display / layout, just the right amount of options, help display is not too long, split onto two pages (standard & advanced is accessed with "-z"). To me it seems just right for casual use at a terminal, like the author has focussed on that, and it's an aspect which the alternatives neglect to some extent or another. Depending on how much time is available to you for ripping, and upon your optical prescription &/or tolerance for video quality, you probably want to look at undvd's "-2" argument & its target size option. I think you can set the bitrate in undvd, but I didn't find it obvious what bitrate it's using by default - thus it's not obvious what bitrate to choose in order to improve quality (or by default does it try to make a file that'll fit on a CD-R? I can't recall). Setting a target video size is the easy way to improve video quality in undvd & on a number of movies I found a 1.2gig rip indistinguishable from the original DVD. The downside of undvd, as I've said & I'll keep saying, is that the video files it produces don't play so nice on other platforms. The author is a bit of a Linux evangelist, and doesn't really care about that, since mplayer (at least; I don't know about vlc or other Linux players) is really forgiving, and makes extra efforts to overcome video files' shortcomings. For me, however, this is just an insurmountable snag, and TBH I think undvd should neither be in the tree, nor promoted the way it is on its sourceforge page (he should admit it's just a personal project that "works for him"). I can't be the only person who wants to rip movies in Linux to play back on the Mac or PS3, and if I've wasted this much time on undvd then surely others will, too. If you just want the movies to play back on a Linux laptop whilst on a holiday trip then this probably won't bother you at all, but if you want an "archive" of your movie collection which you'll keep for playback into the future then undvd isn't the best ripper. It seems to me that HandBrakeCLI takes that prize, in the command-line category, at least. Stroller.
