Linux Multimedia Hacks

Rip and Encode DVDs with K3b

Use K3b as an easy-to-use frontend to rip and encode DVDs without touching a command line.

The big success of a program such as K3b is how it gives you much of the power of the command-line tools it uses while still remaining easy to use. K3b is mostly used to burn CDs and DVDs, but you can also use it to easily rip and encode DVDs. This hack will take you through the process of ripping a DVD and encoding it using K3b.

Warning

K3b’s ripping and encoding features do work, however they are currently not maintained. This means that you might encounter bugs in the process. For instance, in the version I was using, I was able to crash K3b by checking certain options. The primary functions should work for you, so give it a try and see whether it can suit your needs.

Like with CD and DVD recording, K3b relies on command-line tools behind the scenes for much of what it does. K3b uses transcode for the encoding process, and K3b has a few dependencies for DVD ripping:

• Transcode version 0.6.0pre5

• An MPEG4 codec such as XviD or DivX4/5

• libdvdread

• libdvdcss (The developers prefer Version 0.0.3.ogle3 but Version 1.2.0 should work as well.)

With the requirements met, put your DVD in the drive and launch K3b. Click on your DVD drive from the filesystem tree on the left, and K3b reads and displays information about the DVD titles on the right side of the window. Choose the title you want to rip to your filesystem (generally the title with the longest runtime is the main feature, ...