Saturday, May 19, 2012

Backup copy-protected DVD using Linux but...

I like watching drama and movie DVD and it is simple to create an iso backup for my favourite on Linux Mint platform. Just use Brasero and it gets the job well done... until few days ago.

When an iso file is created using Brasero, I run the following commands for integrity check as well as generate a new volume ID (mkisofs -V), mkisofs failed to generate a new iso file:

 








Brasero did not report any error during the creation of iso from this DVD. When I opened the iso file from Totem Movie Player and tried to play it, the following error message box appeared:







VLC media player could not play the movie too.

Different programs have been tried but none of them could fix the error (vobcopy, dvdbackup, ddrescue, dd). I even read somewhere saying Linux is not able to cope with the latest DRM, Oops!

Interestingly, the file system from those DVDs tricks the Linux OS about its VOB files with total size closed to 60GB! Further investigation tells me the DVD deployed more than one copy-protected techniques (other than CSS). The article from Gentoo Wiki explains what the problem is and suggests to use IfoEdit to fix the broken IFOs on Windows. After trying to repair several IFO files few times (through wine), I couldn't fix them. In addition, the DVD has 99 chapters, it is too time-consuming to fix all those IFO files, and if I know how!

According to one of the forum I came across it suggested to use DVDFab to rip the DVD and then use imgBurn to take care the rest. Oh no! I need to use Windows (I use it mainly to flash my Xperia phones.)! Therefore, I tried to install DVDFab Qt 8 on Windows 7, then used it to rip the DVD and it did not report any error. Next I used imgBurn to generate iso files, Volia! It worked! I ported those 2 programs into Linux Mint and did similar tests and all were ok.

To install wine:
vpcf1 ~ # apt install wine
Then you need to configure wine to add CD/DVD ROM drive letter:
penguin@vpcf1 ~ $ winecfg


To install DVDFab and imgBurn on Linux, you can just use the following commands (I installed them under /opt directory):
vpcf1 ~ # wine DVDFab8178Qt.exe &
vpcf1 ~ # wine SetupImgBurn_2.5.7.0.exe &
  
Once both programs are installed, rip the DVD using DVDFab, in my case the ripped files are saved under E: (/bittorrent/FullDisc/DVD_VIDEO). Leave the ripped files intact. Next, use imgBurn to generate an iso file from /bittorrent/FullDisc/DVD_VIDEO. When it finishes, your backup is ready!



In summary, to backup a movie DVD, you can:
Method 1
Use bundled Brasero on latest Linux Mint to create an iso.

 
Method 2
Use DVDFab to rip those intentional sector corruption DVD, then use imgBurn to create an iso file. Both can run under Linux through wine. How to use both programs are straightforward.



This morning I bought DVDFab DVD Copy but the license code cannot be registered on Wine.