[linux-audio-user] [OT] ? DVD questions

[Maarten de Boer]

>   I have to write some documentation on DVD/VCD players for Linux. I own
> a nice new DVD player (dmesg says it's a LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163D, ATAPI
> CD/DVD-ROM drive) that works well on my machine, though I did have to
> discover a few secrets for glitch-free viewing (e.g. my nVidia card
> should have its double-buffering turned off). I'm writing not only about
> viewing video discs but also recording and ripping them. Thus, a few
> questions for anyone in the LAU community using a DVD player and/or
> recorder.
> 
>     1. What software do you use for viewing DVDs ?

mplayer

>     2. Do you use that software for watching AVI, MPEG, or other video
> formats ?

mplayer

>     3. What software do you use for ripping/encoding DVDs ?

mencoder

>     4. If you have a DVD recorder, please let me know how well it works
> for you under Linux, what outstanding problems exist, what software you
> use, etc.

n/a

>     5. Overall, how would you rate Linux DVD support, particularly
> compared to Windows or the Mac ?

n/a, but mplayer works fine for me.

>   I don't own a DVD recorder and I'm curious about Linux users'
> experiences with them.
> 
>   I've been trying to rip DVDs using the dvd::rip software (based on
> transcode) but keep receiving read errors. If anyone has any special
> tips for DVD ripping I'm interested in them too.

I use:

mencoder -dvd 1 
  -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=$RATE \
  -vop crop=$CROP,scale -zoom -xy 640 \
  -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128 \
  -o file.avi

I calculate the crop value with:

mencoder -aspect 16:9 -dvd 1 \
  -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=$RATE \
  -vop cropdetect,scale -zoom -xy 640 \
  -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=128:vol=9 -o /dev/null

Maarten