I’m copying a DVD for Claudia again, and it’s definitely tricky to read old DVDs. They all seem to have data errors. Luckily I remembered previous experiences and used ddrescue as suggested on 2005-11-02 Software DVD.
I also copied a double-layer DVD for a friend. I ripped the DVD into a 6GB image, and discovered that a. I don’t have double-layer DVD media, and b. even if I had, I’m not sure my software could handle it. So instead, I decided I wanted to recode it.
I tried to copy the DVD image onto my external harddisk but discovered that the stupid disk is formatted with a VFAT filesystem, limiting file size to 2GB. I find it hard to believe – and hard to take. 🙁
Next, I mounted the image as a loopback, using the following command:
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 /mnt/media/foo.iso /mnt/hd
(Hah, found it on my own website, too: 2005-05-05 Software. I should collect all this stuff on one page and just update that.)
Then I copied the directory structure (each file was smaller than 2GB) onto the external harddisk, and connected it to my iBook.
Then I tried HandBrake, first. It produced an MP4 movie file, but unfortunately it seemed that eventhough I had asked for subtitles, none were included. Grrr. It also estimated about four or five hours of number crunching.
Next, I started DVD2one and produced a compressed copy of the DVD directory tree on my external harddrive. The totally amazing part was that it only took a few minutes, maybe twenty minutes in all, to shrink the DVD!
Unfortunately, this marvelous piece of software is not FreeSoftware. 😢 – it’s shareware: You get a 30 days trial period, and it costs about 30€. Why is there no free alternative?
Since my iBook doesn’t come with a DVD burner, I had to move the external drive back to the SlackWare box and use k3b to burn the new DVD onto a single-layer DVD. It seemed to work. 😄
I was totally amazed by the movie HOWTO Backup Your DVD Movies by Mark Pilgrim, by the way, explaining how to use DVD2one. What a cool way of explaining things!
Interesting how he links to the artist he uses for the background music (Manolo Camp). The music is on opsound:
Opsound is a gift economy in action, an experiment in applying the model of free software to music. Musicians and sound artists are invited to add their work to the Opsound pool using a copyleft license developed by Creative Commons. Listeners are invited to download, share, remix, and reimagine. Drop by the Opshop for copyleft releases on the Opsound record label (selling free music since 2004). – About Opsound: Free Love, Free Music.
Cool.
#Software #DVD