Re: Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Tue Sep 09 2025 10:03 pm

Another thing - Is the disc a 1080p blu-ray, or is it a 4K blu-ray?

It doesn't actually say anywhere on the case... It's an old movie ('Platoon') which pre-dates 4K I'm sure.

Old movies are sometimes re-released in 4K (also, many older movies pre-date even DVD :) ). You can usually tell if it's a 1080p blu-ray or 4K based on the DVD case and the blu-ray logo. 1080p blu-rays are usually in a blue case with this logo on the case & disc:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Blu_ray_logo.png

4K blu-rays are usually in a black case with one of the following logos on the case and disc:

https://tinyurl.com/363k974u

https://tinyurl.com/ycx47ncv

Nightfox
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Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Tue Sep 09 2025 10:03 pm

Another thing - Is the disc a 1080p blu-ray, or is it a 4K blu-ray?

It doesn't actually say anywhere on the case... It's an old movie ('Platoon') which pre-dates 4K I'm sure.

Old movies are sometimes re-released in 4K (also, many older movies pre-date even DVD :) ). You can usually tell if it's a 1080p blu-ray
or 4K based on the DVD case and the blu-ray logo. 1080p blu-rays are usually in a blue case with this logo on the case & disc:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Blu_ray_logo.png

4K blu-rays are usually in a black case with one of the following logos
on the case and disc:

https://tinyurl.com/363k974u

https://tinyurl.com/ycx47ncv

More great info, thanks! The BD in question is definitely NOT a 4K
version, it's a regular 1080p. Haven't had time to try another disk
yet, but I will soon. Thanks for the continued replies!



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Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Tue Sep 09 2025 10:03 pm

No error message, it just sits there endlessly, looking for a Title. Haven't tried yet with a different BD, will do that tomorrow.

hmm.. Is it a new release? MakeMKV uses an encryption key database to decrypt the disc content, and often, with new releases, the key for the disc isn't in the database yet. In that case though, normally MakeMKV would output an error, along with some information about the encryption key, and it's possible for people to submit those so that decryption information can get into the database.. But if it's not outputting any error or anything, it may be something else. Not sure if it's a
hardware problem or perhaps a disc issue, or maybe something else.

I can open/browse the BD with a file browser, which would seem to
indicate that the drive and disc are OK. It's just that MakeMKV can't
seem to tell what movie it is.

You could get help on https://forum.makemkv.com and on Reddit in the /r/makemkv subreddit.

Thank you!


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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to All on Sun Sep 07 2025 06:43 pm

Hello all,

Recently I've wanted to start trying to rip my DVD/BluRay movie collection in order to be able to stream them from a home Plex server. I've had pretty limited success doing this in Linux so far...

I've tried 'Handbrake' and it won't even find the title of the DVD disc that's in a drive. Was going to try 'MakeMKV' but it seems quite convoluted to get installed and the program hasn't been updated in like 15 years.

Wondering if anyone has had good results doing this in Linux, and if so, what software did you use? Anything obvious that I'm missing here? Thanks for any help you can provide.

For DVD, HandBrake does the trick more often than not. I find it suspicious that it does not work for you. Ensure you are using the latest version. The builds distributed by distribution's package managers are often not well built, so you might want to use something straight from their download site.

Another alternative is using Mencoder. You can dump the whole DVD with Mplayer and then transcode it with Mencoder. It is way more unwieldly than Handbrake.

I have no input regarding blu rays, sorry.


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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Mortar M. to Nightfox on Mon Sep 08 2025 11:32 am

Handbrake won't work with copy-protected discs.

HandBrake beats most copy protected disks. You just need to install the proper libraries (probably libdvdcss or whatever that is called).

Some DVDs might be out of reach. For example, Disney DVDs often have messed up indexes so if you do a straight rip you will get the movie with the chapters positioned in the wrong order.


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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Arelor to Gamgee on Sat Sep 13 2025 03:21 pm

For DVD, HandBrake does the trick more often than not. I find it suspicious that it does not work for you. Ensure you are using the latest

I thought I had heard that Handbrake doesn't decrypt discs? Almost all commercially-produced DVDs (and blu-rays) are encrypted, so you'd need something that can decrypt it while ripping.

Nightfox
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Arelor wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to All on Sun Sep 07 2025 06:43 pm

Recently I've wanted to start trying to rip my DVD/BluRay movie collection in order to be able to stream them from a home Plex server. I've had pretty limited success doing this in Linux so far...

I've tried 'Handbrake' and it won't even find the title of the DVD disc that's in a drive. Was going to try 'MakeMKV' but it seems quite convoluted to get installed and the program hasn't been updated in like 15 years.

Wondering if anyone has had good results doing this in Linux, and if so, what software did you use? Anything obvious that I'm missing here? Thanks for any help you can provide.

For DVD, HandBrake does the trick more often than not. I find it suspicious that it does not work for you. Ensure you are using the
latest version. The builds distributed by distribution's package
managers are often not well built, so you might want to use something straight from their download site.

Yep, I think it's a missing dependency of some kind. Trying it on MX
Linux which is a Debian variant. A little strange that it didn't pull
in required dep's, but... I tried it on my wife's Windoze box and it
worked properly. When I get around to it I'm gonna get it properly
installed on a Slackware box and go from there.

Another alternative is using Mencoder. You can dump the whole DVD with Mplayer and then transcode it with Mencoder. It is way more unwieldly
than Handbrake.

Probably won't try that if it's a hassle.

I have no input regarding blu rays, sorry.

I've now succeeded with that, using 'MakeMKV', again on the Windoze box.
Will get that going on Slack too. Thanks for the input!



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Nightfox wrote to Arelor <=-

I thought I had heard that Handbrake doesn't decrypt discs? Almost all commercially-produced DVDs (and blu-rays) are encrypted, so you'd need something that can decrypt it while ripping.

I had to use another program to decrypt DVDs while ripping, but it
wouldn't surprise me if there was a plugin to decrypt on the fly. I've
been using Calibre to organize my eBook backups, and they have some nice
Kindle decrypt plugins that work when you drop in a kindle-restricted
book for fair use (e.g. backups)



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On 13 Sep 2025, Nightfox said the following...

Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Arelor to Gamgee on Sat Sep 13 2025 03:21 pm

For DVD, HandBrake does the trick more often than not. I find it suspicious that it does not work for you. Ensure you are using the la

I thought I had heard that Handbrake doesn't decrypt discs? Almost all commercially-produced DVDs (and blu-rays) are encrypted, so you'd need something that can decrypt it while ripping.

i double checked my Changelog (heh) and it looks like i installed libdvdcss immediately before handbrake.. yet i installed libaacs quite a ways after (i.e. it searches for and can use that at runtime. maybe that's how it uses libdvdcss too?)

perhaps it's one of those things they avoid being so blatant about. install handbrake and then, hint hint, nudge nudge, get a couple extras..

but i've definitely done both dvd and blu-ray with handbrake.. used this bad boy:
https://www.amazon.com/External-Enclosure-Generation-Aluminum-NST-540S3-BK/dp/B 09SS74KCN

worked exceptional, and it's nice to not have to have a machine with the drive in it permanently, taking up sata ports ;)

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Re: Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: fusion to Nightfox on Mon Sep 15 2025 12:37 am

but i've definitely done both dvd and blu-ray with handbrake.. used this bad boy: https://www.amazon.com/External-Enclosure-Generation-Aluminum-NST-540S3-BK /dp/B 09SS74KCN

worked exceptional, and it's nice to not have to have a machine with the drive in it permanently, taking up sata ports ;)

I don't mind having an optical drive inside my PC, and I actually somewhat prefer that. If I used an external optical drive, then every time I'd want to rip a disc, I'd have to go get it and plug it in, and then when I'm done, unplug it and put it away. And my PC has plenty of SATA ports.. I only have one other drive using a SATA port, which is a HDD (and my boot drive is an m.2 SSD, which uses its own port).

It actually seems odd to me that it's difficult to find a new PC case these days with exposed 5.25" drive bays, or even 3.5" drive bays. In addition to an optical drive, I usually like to have an internal card reader as well. I have several devices that use an SD card for storage, and I've found it useful to be able to have an internal card reader for those in my PC and not need yet another external thing to plug/unplug when I need to use it.

In the past, I've had smartphones that had a micro-SD slot, and I'd use a micro-SD to SD adapter to use in my PC's card reader to copy files to/from the micro-SD card for my phone. However, many smartphones these days don't have a micro-SD slot anymore, which I think is a bummer.. My currnet phone has enough storage built in, I suppose, but I feel like it wouldn't hurt to have more. And I wouldn't mind paying a bit less for a phone with less storage and be able to expand its storage with a micro-SD card (and I might still save money doing that).

Nightfox
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On 15 Sep 2025, Nightfox said the following...

I don't mind having an optical drive inside my PC, and I actually
somewhat prefer that. If I used an external optical drive, then every time I'd want to rip a disc, I'd have to go get it and plug it in, and then when I'm done, unplug it and put it away. And my PC has plenty of SATA ports.. I only have one other drive using a SATA port, which is a HDD (and my boot drive is an m.2 SSD, which uses its own port).

yeah, i usually keep the drive on my desk, and attached (though i turn it's power supply off when not in use) .. which seems silly, but i do use every single sata port (all six!) and both of the nvme ports. not quite to the point where i've started collecting external hard drives and powered usb hubs to daisy-chain all that stuff together but.. ;)

It actually seems odd to me that it's difficult to find a new PC case these days with exposed 5.25" drive bays, or even 3.5" drive bays. In addition to an optical drive, I usually like to have an internal card reader as well. I have several devices that use an SD card for storage, and I've found it useful to be able to have an internal card reader for those in my PC and not need yet another external thing to plug/unplug
when I need to use it.

amazon has lots of them.. from Antec for example. i think they just keep manufacturing the same old designs. might not work if you have to use a giant cooling solution to keep a 12 core cpu happy though. for a while i wanted to get a rackmount case, but it's a bit impractical for a desk unless you build the rack above or below it (or have lots of other gear that needs to go there too).

In the past, I've had smartphones that had a micro-SD slot, and I'd use a micro-SD to SD adapter to use in my PC's card reader to copy files
to/from the micro-SD card for my phone. However, many smartphones these days don't have a micro-SD slot anymore, which I think is a bummer.. My

for now, with the right version of android, you could use Termux and start an sshd from the prompt.. then connect over the network to your phone with sftp. i didn't catch if you were a linux user, but jmtpfs works pretty nice too if you just plug in the phone (usb again.. yeah)

since we're on the topic of optical media, i thought this was pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJzpp_Xr3SQ

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Re: Re: random stuff. was: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: fusion to Nightfox on Mon Sep 15 2025 08:23 pm

It actually seems odd to me that it's difficult to find a new PC case
these days with exposed 5.25" drive bays, or even 3.5" drive bays. In

amazon has lots of them.. from Antec for example. i think they just keep manufacturing the same old designs.

True. I was thinking of newer cases, but there are older PC cases you can still buy. And when I built my current main desktop PC in 2019, I found a case that I wanted, and later I realized the case was released in 2012. :)

Recently though, I've heard there have been at least a couple newer PC cases introduced that have 5.25" bays, so that's a plus. Off the top of my head though, I don't remember the brands.

might not work if you have to use a
giant cooling solution to keep a 12 core cpu happy though. for a while i

My 2012 PC case is fairly spacious and has room for a liquid CPU cooler (which I'm using) as well as plenty of room for a big GPU. It's a full tower case, which is probably the biggest PC case I've ever had - It's fairly bulky, and in the future, I think I'd somewhat prefer to have a smaller PC case again. My current case is a Corsair 750D Airflow Edition:

https://shorturl.at/RU45d

I moved about 5 years ago.. My PC was previously in an upstairs room, and now I'm in a 2nd-story apartment. At my age, carrying my fully-assembled PC in that case downstairs to my car and then back up a flight of stairs again (to my apartment) wasn't entirely enjoyable. :)

wanted to get a rackmount case, but it's a bit impractical for a desk unless you build the rack above or below it (or have lots of other gear that needs to go there too).

Yeah, currently I have my main PC on the floor, on top of a rectangular piece of particle board from a computer desk I used to have years ago. I have my PC on the floor since it won't fit in the tower compartment of my currnet computer desk. :)

In the past, I've had smartphones that had a micro-SD slot, and I'd use a
micro-SD to SD adapter to use in my PC's card reader to copy files
to/from the micro-SD card for my phone. However, many smartphones these
days don't have a micro-SD slot anymore, which I think is a bummer.. My

for now, with the right version of android, you could use Termux and start an sshd from the prompt.. then connect over the network to your phone with sftp. i didn't catch if you were a linux user, but jmtpfs works pretty nice too if you just plug in the phone (usb again.. yeah)

With an Android device, you can still copy files to it fairly easily by plugging it into your PC via USB. It's not like a USB card reader though - Android provides some kind of API or something that the OS has to use to communicate with it to show the files and transfer files back & forth. You can browse the phone with the OS's file explorer (at least in Windows), but behind the scenes it uses some different file browsing & copying functionality.

since we're on the topic of optical media, i thought this was pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJzpp_Xr3SQ

That's interesting.

Nightfox
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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Nightfox to Arelor on Sat Sep 13 2025 02:59 pm

latest

I thought I had heard that Handbrake doesn't decrypt discs? Almost all commercially-produced DVDs (and blu-rays) are encrypted, so you'd need something that can decrypt it while ripping.

Nightfox

I encode commercial DVDs with HandBrake quite often, it definitively works. I think they library for DVD decryption is optional, though.


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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Arelor to Nightfox on Mon Sep 15 2025 09:03 am

I thought I had heard that Handbrake doesn't decrypt discs? Almost all
commercially-produced DVDs (and blu-rays) are encrypted, so you'd need
something that can decrypt it while ripping.

I encode commercial DVDs with HandBrake quite often, it definitively works. I think they library for DVD decryption is optional, though.

You encode discs, as in you create and burn commercial DVDs? I was talking about decryping.

Nightfox
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Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Nightfox to Arelor on Tue Sep 16 2025 10:24 am

I encode commercial DVDs with HandBrake quite often, it definitively works. I think they library for DVD decryption is optional, though.

You encode discs, as in you create and burn commercial DVDs? I was talking about decryping.

I think I messed up my sentence.

To be clear, I use HandBrake directly to rip and transcode DVD contents into a *mkv or *mp4 file in my hard drive.

(Yeah if I wanted to encode and burn to an actual DVD in DVD compliant format then HandBrake is not the right tool, you'd need something like dvdauthor)


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On 13 Sep 2025 at 03:21p, Arelor pondered and said...

Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gamgee to All on Sun Sep 07 2025 06:43 pm

Hello all,

Recently I've wanted to start trying to rip my DVD/BluRay movie collect in order to be able to stream them from a home Plex server. I've had p limited success doing this in Linux so far...

I've tried 'Handbrake' and it won't even find the title of the DVD disc that's in a drive. Was going to try 'MakeMKV' but it seems quite convo to get installed and the program hasn't been updated in like 15 years.

Wondering if anyone has had good results doing this in Linux, and if so what software did you use? Anything obvious that I'm missing here? Th for any help you can provide.

For DVD, HandBrake does the trick more often than not. I find it suspicious that it does not work for you. Ensure you are using the
latest version. The builds distributed by distribution's package
managers are often not well built, so you might want to use something straight from their download site.

I can confirm the flakiness of HandBrake, both in windows and linux. Many times it just does not find the titles. I can run the same disk on the same computer with vlc and it finds it and can copy them.

I'm having some very good results with Freemake. I'm doing some copying right now as we speak.

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Re: Re: Ripping DVD/BD in Linux
By: Gryphon to Arelor on Sat Jan 17 2026 08:27 am

I can confirm the flakiness of HandBrake, both in windows and linux. Many times it just does not find the titles. I can run the same disk on the same computer with vlc and it finds it and can copy them.

For ripping, I normally use MakeMKV. I don't think I've ever used Handbrake for ripping (only for transcoding).. MakeMKV works fairly well; I don't think I've ever seen a time when MakeMKV couldn't find the titles on a disc.

Nightfox
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