Backing up DVDs on Linux

I'm trying to backup my DVD collection onto my Linux box. Usually dvdbackup or ddrescue work just fine. With some DVDs, however, dvdbackup and ddrescue fail, likely due to copy protections.

I tried ddrescue with "-b 2048 -n /dev/sr0 movie.iso rescue.log", with "-d" and with "-r3" instead of "-n" – they all fail with these DVDs.

Did I use ddrescue correctly? What other programs are there? How do you rip your DVDs when they are protected like this?

— Clarification —

The DVDs are commercial movies and I want to "rip" the DVDs to my hard disk. Tools like dvdbackup, dvd::rip or ddrescue don't seem to work. I have a whole bunch of failing DVDs (many of them new) so it's not just a bad disc.

jk4736

Posted 2012-02-13T20:38:06.410

Reputation: 21

Answers

If you're trying to back up commercial DVD movies (not the same as a regular burnt DVD) and you're not looking to rip them (use dvdrip for that), then dd should work fine.

dd if=/dev/scd0 of=mydisc1.iso

If for some reason that's not working, you either have a bad disc or drive that won't let you read the disc raw for some reason. I would rip the disc with dvdrip in those situations.

See http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip

mikebabcock

Posted 2012-02-13T20:38:06.410

Reputation: 1 019

They're commercial DVDs (that's why there's copy protections on them). dvd::rip does not work since it uses transcode which uses libdvdread, which I already tried via dvdbackup. – jk4736 – 2012-02-13T21:19:24.917

dd doesn't work because of the copy protections. When ddrescue doesn't work, you may assume that dd doesn't work either. – jk4736 – 2012-02-13T21:48:52.183

The reason I posted 'should work fine' was to imply that if it isn't, you have a disc or reader problem. There are Windows-based disc duplicators that understand the various Copyright tricks but those won't help you on Linux and are probably DMCA violations to post here. – mikebabcock – 2012-02-14T17:53:12.767

It's a DMCA violation to watch a DVD in Linux? (Where I am, it's legal to circumvent copy protections if it interferes with otherwise legal use.) – jk4736 – 2012-02-14T20:12:28.737

DMCA is an American-only law, and yes, technically its a DMCA violation to circumvent digital copy protection systems in the USA unless other laws supersede it in your state I presume. I'm Canadian so its not an issue personally. – mikebabcock – 2012-03-27T17:59:31.233

After much fiddling, i ended up going with ogmrip. It's pretty good and seems to able to rip most discs. There's still a hardcore of discs i haven't been able to rip though.

Sirex

Posted 2012-02-13T20:38:06.410

Reputation: 10 321

cdrecord has been a great tool (works with CDs and DVDs) Here's the home page.

jdh

Posted 2012-02-13T20:38:06.410

Reputation: 6 645

I'll try readcd. – jk4736 – 2012-02-13T21:31:47.880

1No luck, I get read errors all over the place. – jk4736 – 2012-02-13T22:31:12.300