Rip DVD-Video to harddrive directly from XBMC (perhaps copy parts of DVD2Xbox code?)?

XBMC can already today rip Audio-CDs to the harddrive so how about also adding the ability to rip DVD-Video to the harddrive direct from XBMC GUI in the same manor? Same as WiSo's DVD2Xbox does, maybe we could even re-use the same code?

I am not talking transcoding/encoding to a other video codec format like Xvid or x264, I only mean rip to the harddrive and remove the CSS encryption and Macrovision protection, (same as DVD Decrypter and DVDFab Decrypter does in Windows), ..maybe add the option to rip as files or to an ISO, and of course automaticly add it to the library.

I think that would be great as it removes the need to even own a computer (or learn how to use software rippers on it) to rip DVD-Videos, simply pop it into your XBMC box in the living-room and rip it. Rent a DVD-Video and rip it and watch it when you have time.

What do you guys think?

PS! This is becoming a more an more popular feature in open source media centers, and even a couple of high-end commersial media centers has it now (though they add their own DRM protection to it to prevent copying to a other computer than it was ripped to).

I'd love to see this as well as encoding. Of course it would have to happen in the background since it can take a lot of time. Feature request it on trac.

mmh, there might be issues with the legality. At for the pure ripping stuff I see no reason to remove the CSS since XBMC can play it fine from hdd.
The ISO stuff might be worse looking but the dvd2xbox one has a naturally flaw which is that it ripps the whole DVD whether it's content or nothing so you end up with 8gig for a double DVD.
The encoding stuff would be a nice one especially if it would handle multiple audio tracks

Which part would be illegal? The distribution of binaries or the actual ripping? Any more illegal than distributing ffmpeg?

WiSo Wrote:the dvd2xbox one has a naturally flaw which is that it ripps the whole DVD whether it's content or nothing so you end up with 8gig for a double DVD

That is fine, some people actually prefer it (as it then works as a full backup which could later be burned to a dual-layer DVD-R if the user wanted a disc backup, ...harddrive space is also getting cheaper and cheaper as each year passes so if someone would like to backup their entire DVD-Video collection to the harddrive to add to their XBMC video library then I am sure that person can afford the harddrive space).

I know that at least Swedish and UK law permits one to do one backup copy of any media that one has bought, (the law does not specifiy that the physical format or encoding format, so it is at least in those countries legal to do a backup of a purshased DVD-Video movie to a harddrive and use that backup of the harddrive, just as it is legal to backup a Audio-CD you own to MP3 and use that on a portable MP3-player).

XBMC's DVDPlayer already come with libdvdcss which works like DeCSS and that has been proven in Norwegian court by Jon Lech Johansen (a.k.a. DVD Jon) to be legal. It is possible maybe to make libdvdcss into a shared library so that it can be used by both XBMC's DVDPlayer and a DVD-Video ripper (and preferably at the same time?)?



I would myself like any DVD-Video ripper in XBMC to remove both CSS encryption and Macrovision protection so that the backup copy could be burned to a DVD-R and used in any stand-alone DVD-player or DVD-player software. Removing both the CSS encryption and Macrovision protection would also be required to transcode/encode it to a other video codec format.

Both FFmpeg and libdvdcss are however back-listed by some Linux distrobutions (like for example OpenSUSE):
http://en.opensuse.org/Application_Black_List
They are not black-listed by Ubuntu though.

PS! Transcoding/encoding to a different codec format would be a seperate feature request, and I think if that was even implemented as well then it would probably be smartest to first rip the whole DVD-Viddeo movie 'as is' to the harddrive and then only after that is done start the transcoding conversion to a other video encoding format from there instead of doing it all on-the-fly.

malloc Wrote:Which part would be illegal? The distribution of binaries or the actual ripping? Any more illegal than distributing ffmpeg?

Removing the CSS decryption during ripping at least in Germany but I guess somewhere else also
Providing the libdvdcss library is a gray zone I would say but as long nobody cares I'll provide it with the windows build.

Why would they ever want to burn the disc to another DVD? We are the media center! And why would they want to transcode? Once again, we are the media center!

malloc Wrote:why would they want to transcode?

to save disk-space, transcoding (re-encode) a DVD-Video movie to Xvid or x264 saves a lot of disk-space, ...that is why I still download most movies in DivX or Xvid "DVDrip" format where one more is 700MB (or a little less) in size, 700MB is A LOT of movies on 1TB of disk-space which enables to one entires movie collection on-demand on the harddrive without having to delete anything.

transcode = encoding on the fly. this saves no disc space. it's popular for streaming unsupported formats to a lame media center (xbox 360)
encode = ripping your dvd to xvid

i could see ripping and encoding being useful features in a media center, but not burning or transcoding.

malloc Wrote:i could see ripping and encoding being useful features in a media center,

that is what I meant and "transcoding" means, transcoding by itself only means to convert a digitally encoded video/audio stream from one codec digital to another, (transcoding does not always mean that you stream unsupported formats to a lame media center over the network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcode