I tried using Handbrake for a while to rip and encode, but what I really want is something that just does it in the background. On the mac, RipIt is a great tool for ripping the DVD to the HDD allowing you to go back at your leisure and encode it.
What i really want is a solution that will autorip on DVD tray-close (like RipIt on the mac) and then a cron that will encode. This is a post about how I get on.
First, we'll need to add restricted formats:
- sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
- sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Now, install dvdbackup
- sudo apt-get install dvdbackup
Create a directory to put the ripped DVDs into and enter it and execute the command to rip the DVD:
- mkdir Ripped
- cd Ripped
- dvdbackup -M
You can also use the -F option rather than -M to just get the main feature, but I had bother with using handbrakeCLI to encode after doing that. Also use the -v flag to give a bit more output.
And, to eject, just use the command
- eject
So, now we need to work out how to do that automatically when a DVD is inserted into the machine. In the perfect world, we'd do that using the terminal only so that it could run flawlessly on a headless server.
Handbrake
We need to install handbrake from a PPA.
- sudo add-apt-repository ppa:handbrake-ubuntu/ppa
- sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install handbrake-cli
Then, it's a simple hop skip and a jump to a simple CLI command to encode the ripped disc using a preset for "Film"
- HandBrakeCLI -i 21/ --main-feature -o 21.mp4 --preset="Film"
Amazingly, this encoded the film at, on average, 280fps (granted, I'm running a quad core AMD monster), but still! I'd tried this on the Mac, using the GUI version and was getting an encode with an average fps of about 9!
