Ripping DVDs to DivX

Using mplayer and acidrip, we compress large DVD files to DivX in Linux

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

You may have DVD films that you want to store on your PC, but their large sizes may be a deterrent. In that case, you can use DivX, a popular video format, to compress the size of the films such that you can save them on your PC. We will talk about DivX encoding in Linux. 

First, download libdvdread-0.9.3.tar.gz from www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/dist/libdvdread-0.9.3.tar.gz . Then open a terminal window and install libvdread-0.9.3 by issuing following commands. 

# tar –zxvf libdvdread-0.9.3.tar.gz
# cd libdvdread-0.9.3
#./configure
# make
# make install 
#cd /usr/local/lib
#cp libdvdread.so.2 /usr/lib

Next, download Gtk-perl, (acidrip uses Gtk-perl liberaries to run). Then download the following rpms. 

http://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/8.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/gtk2-2.0.6-8.i386.rpm 
http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gtk2-perl/perl-Glib-1.011-1.rh8.i386.rpm 
http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/gtk2-perl/perl-Gtk2-1.011-1.rh8.i386.rpm

Install these rpm files by issuing the following.

#rpm –ivh gtk2-2.0.6-8.i386.rpm —nodeps
#rpm –ivh perl-Glib-1.011-1.rh8.i386.rpm —nodeps
#rpm –ivh perl-Gtk2-1.011-1.rh8.i386.rpm –nodeps –force

To install DivX encoder on your PC, copy mencoder’s rpm from our this month’s CD into the root directory. Then install it by issueing the following commands.

#cp /mnt/cdrom/linux/mencoder.xxx.rpm /root
#cd /root
#rpm –ivh meencoder.xxxx.rpm

Next, install acidrip from our this month’s DVD and issue the following commands to install it. 

#cp /mt/cdrom/linux/acidrip.xxx.tar.gz /root
#cd /root
#tar –zxvf acidrip-6.tar.gz
#cd acidrip-6.0
#perl Makefile.PL
#make
#make install
#tar –zxvf lsdvd.xx.tar.gz
#cd lsdvd
#./configure

With this you are ready to rip a DVD into DivX format. Put your DVD in your DVD drive and mount the DVD. In Linux, DVD drives are denoted as /dev/scd0. Follow the commands to use acidrip.

#mkdir /dev/dvd (if you have not created a mount point for DVD)
#mount /dev/scd0 /dev/dvd
#acidrip

This will open a graphical interface window with four tabs (General, Video, Preview, Settings). Select General, and from the right window panel, specify the path of the mounted DVD drive. Give path /dev/dvd and click on the ‘Reload’ button. This will read the DVD movie content from the DVD and show each chapter in the text box. Select the DVD content from this text box then set the size and path of the DivX file (where you want to save it) from the left window panel. 

Note: Keep the file extension .avi and don’t set the size of the DVD movie to less than 570 MB. 

Click on the Start button to start DivX encoding. It will take few minutes to rip the entire DVD movie in to DivX. But, remember to keep in mind any copyright issues that may be involved in ripping your DVD.

Sanjay Majumder

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