Backup and playback DVD from hard drive using command line

This post is about how to backup and playback DVD content on a hard drive using the command line.

1. Check available space on hard drive.

    
   $ df -h
   Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   rootfs                   1.4T   41G  1.2T   4% /
   udev                      10M     0   10M   0% /dev
   tmpfs                    1.6G  900K  1.6G   1% /run
   /dev/disk/by-uuid/6c30b  1.4T   41G  1.2T   4% /
   tmpfs                    5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
   tmpfs                    9.6G  640K  9.6G   1% /run/shm
   

   The df command indicates that 1.2 TB is available on my hard drive, which is plenty to hold the 4 GB DVD.

2. Insert disc into DVD drive.
3. Backup DVD.

   Both the dd and readom commands write to a single iso file. The dvdbackup command writes out the DVD file structure - the complete VIDEO_TS folder.

   • dd

     
     $ dd if=/dev/dvd of=~/birthday.iso
     8310528+0 records in
     8310528+0 records out
     4254990336 bytes (4.3 GB) copied, 303.204 s, 14.0 MB/s
     

   • readom

     According to its man page, "unless you want to risk getting problems, readom should be run as root." Hence, sudo below.

     
     $ sudo readom dev=/dev/dvd f= ~/birthday.iso 
     Read  speed:  5540 kB/s (CD  31x, DVD  4x).
     Write speed: 22160 kB/s (CD 125x, DVD 16x).
     Capacity: 2077632 Blocks = 4155264 kBytes = 4057 MBytes = 4254 prMB
     Sectorsize: 2048 Bytes
     Copy from SCSI (3,0,0) disk to file '/home/peter/birthday.iso'
     end:   2077632
     addr:  2077632 cnt: 64
     Time total: 277.602sec
     Read 4155264.00 kB at 14968.4 kB/sec.
     

   • dvdbackup

     The -o parameter specifies the output directory under which the DVD file structure will be copied. This directory does not need to be unique for your DVDs. This is because a title sub-directory will be created under it. For example, you can have a common ~/movies output directory for all your home movies with different titles.

     The -M parameter specifies that you want to "mirror", i.e., backup, the whole DVD.

     The optional -p parameter enables progress reporting during the backup operation.

     
     $ dvdbackup -p -M -i /dev/dvd -o ~/movies
     libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.13 for DVD access
     libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys
     libdvdread: This can take a long time, please be patient
     libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x0000011e
     libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
     libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x0000358c
     libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
     libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x00003710
     libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
     libdvdread: Found 1 VTS's
     libdvdread: Elapsed time 0
     Copying menu: 100% done (26/26 MiB)
     Copying menu: 100% done (1/1 MiB)
     Copying Title, part 1/4: 100% done (1024/1024 MiB)
     Copying Title, part 2/4: 100% done (1024/1024 MiB)
     Copying Title, part 3/4: 100% done (1024/1024 MiB)
     Copying Title, part 4/4: 100% done (958/958 MiB)
     

4. Playback video.

   My favorite video player is VideoLAN, aka vlc. It can open an iso file as well as a title directory.

   To play back a DVD backed up using dvdbackup:

   
   $ vlc --fullscreen  ~/movies/2014birthday
   

   Note that 2014birthday is the title directory created under the ~/movies directory.

   To play back a DVD backed up using dd or readom, you need to first mount the iso file:

   
   $ sudo mkdir /mnt/iso
   $ sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop ~/birthday.iso /mnt/iso
   $ vlc --fullscreen  /mnt/iso
   

My next article discusses the same topic but introduces GUI tools.