Step 1.Installation

First, dvdbackup may be installed through Synaptic, or by typing the following into the command line: sudo apt-get install dvdbackup

Second, you most likely have to install a CSS library to remove the copy protection. This may be done by adding the following unofficial repositories to your list of repositories (System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager, then Settings->Repositories, and them on the “Other Software” pane):

deb http://unofficial.debian-maintainers.org/ lenny main contrib non-free restricted
deb-src http://unofficial.debian-maintainers.org/ lenny main contrib non-free restricted

You will most likely get an error message because of a missing key. Ignore this error message, or get the missing key through installing the package dmo-archive-keyring. Then you need to add the package libdvdcss2.

Third, Handbrake does not have an official stable release for Ubuntu at the moment. However, the nightly build has been working very well on my computer. To install this build follow these instructions. In short, add the following two repositories, and install the package handbrake-gtk.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stebbins/handbrake-snapshots/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/stebbins/handbrake-snapshots/ubuntu lucid main

Step 2. Ripping with dvdbackup

I use the command line tool dvdback up to make a copy of the DVD on the hard drive. The copy does not have any copy protection. To do this, start the command line, and go to the folder where you want the image to be stored. Then, type: dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M

dvdbackup - screenshot

I have experienced some problems with the name of the dvd drive, but /dev/dvd/ usually works. If not, find the right name under /dev or /media. As you might see from the image above, you could receive some error messages. Do not worry about these. They are ignored sectors that are part of the copy protection. Ripping a full DVD usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes on my computer.

3. Transcoding with Handbrake

Transcoding the movies and series from the DVD format (usually a VIDEO_TS folder with several VTS_**_*.VOB files) to a single video file is very simple. First, set up Handbrake the way you want. Personally, I do not include subtitles, select the MP4 file format, and use the “High quality” preset. However, you may play around with the settings any way you like.

HandBrake - Screenshot

Second, Select “Source” in Handbrake (see the screenshot above), browse to the source folder of one DVD, and click “OK”.

Third, Pick the “Title” you want to encode. give it a sensible name, select the folder where you want to store the transcoded file, and click “Add to Queue”. The longest title is automatically selected. For DVDs with movies, the longest title is usually the movie itself. For TV series, make sure that you add all the episodes on the disc to the queue.

Fourth, when you have added all the movies you want to transcode, simply click “Start” and let your computer do the job. On my machine (AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black with 4 GB RAM), transcoding a movie takes about 45 min to an hour with the hiqh quality settings. On an AMD Athlon X2 4850e with 4 GB RAM, it takes significantly longer.

The next step

When Handbrake finishes you will have a collection of transcoded movies and series. In future post, I will show how I manage these using another set of open source software.

Disclaimer

Ripping and transcoding (copyrighted) DVDs may be illegal in some countries. In Norway, where I live it is not illegal to break “weak” copy protections like CSS (the copy protection used on DVDs). Distribution of copyrighted material is still illegal in Norway and most other countries, so please don’t do it.

Steam - Technology for the future or infrastructure from the past?

Recently I complained about Canal Plus’ C Sports awfully high prices. Paying close to €20 for streaming a Premiere League game, is in my eyes way too expensive. While I am a very big fan of digital distribution I wonder why so many digitally distributed products have to be so expensive. Digitally distributed products are often sold at the same or even higher price as their retail counterparts. The most recent example is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. MW2 was recently made available through Steam for close to €60. Elkjøp, a Norwegian retail store, is currently selling the same game in a weekend deal for 350 NOK (about €40).

A €20 price difference is quite astonishing. Retail products come on a disk which is put into a case together with a manual. The cases are transported all over the world and sold in stores which need to pay rent and their employees. These are all costs which can be cut if the product is distributed digitally.

Setting up and maintaining a server park for digital stores is obviously not free either. However, it would surprise me if these costs are higher than the costs related to printing, distributing, and selling retail products. Moreover, digital distribution should give the developers and publishers added advantages. First, it is so far not possible to resell digitally distributed product. Hence, everyone who wants to get their hands on a product needs to buy it from the publisher rather than through second hand stores or on the private market. Second, by requiring activation of the games through the digital store, the stores may contribute to reducing piracy. Third, digital stores would make it far easier to sell add-ons, extensions, and other products using micro transactions. All in all, digital distribution seems to be a big advantage for the developers and publishers.

However, this is not the first time Steam charges the price of a kidney for their games. I guess we as consumers should look elsewhere to increase the competition in the market. I hope that stores like Impulse and Direct2Drive will increase their catalogs and contribute to forcing Steam into reducing their  prices.

In this post I show how I digitalized my CD collection on Linux (Ubuntu with Gnome) using Asunder and Grip to rip and encode lossless Flac files, and EasyTAG to edit the files’ ID3 tags.

Ripping format: Flac

I had previously read Martin’s post (in Norwegian) about backing up his music collection and I was inspired by some of his choices. Like Martin I wanted a lossless copy of the CDs which could be converted to any other format. I also wanted a format which is open. Therefore, I decided to go for Free Lossless Audio Compression (FLAC). Another benefit of Flac is that the files are smaller than uncompressed wav files. The files are however larger than for instance mp3 files but these are not lossless.

Flac plugins for several media players can be downloaded from the Flac page at SourceForge. As a media player on Windows/Linux I have up until now been using VLC quite a lot. VLC comes with a built in Flac plugin so no extra plugin is needed.

Ripping and encoding tool for Linux: Asunder/Grip

I started off ripping and encoding CDs with Winamp. Winamp is as the name reveals for Windows and it is not open source. It works quite well but the freeware version has a 8x CD-ripping cap. Not that it is a big problem but I wanted to find something for Linux which is open source.

Grip Flac encoder settings

The first alternative I found was Grip. Grip is available through the Ubuntu repositories so installing it is easy. When I fired it up it complained that the flac encoder was missing. This is nothing a “sudo apt-get install flac” can’t fix. I also had to set the path for the flac encoder (see the screenshots above). One is also able to set several options using the flac command line. I left the default settings more or less untouched but you have all the options at your fingertips.

After a bit of configuration I was off to a running start. I decided to use Flac, enable ID3 tags, keep upper case file names and spaces rather than underscores. I guess this is something I am used to after using Windows for a long time.

There is however one thing to complain about. Grip frequently crashes when I am trying to rip certain CDs. I really don’t know why but I think they are CDs with multimedia content as well. This means I can’t use Grip for all my CDs. However, I really liked Grip and if you do not experience these problems I would warmly recommend it.

Edit: The problem with Grip seems to be related to the ID3v2 tags on some CDs and it is already registered as a bug. Turning off the ID3v2 tags was at least a workaround for me.

Sound juicer configurations

Then I tried Sound Juicer (Audio CD Extractor) which is a simple and easy to use ripping tool. It worked really well, ripped all the CDs I tested, and stored them as Flac. However, it lacked some of the flexibility I want when it comes to customizing file and folder names. It was moreover not possible to create playlists automatically. If you need as simple tool I would warmly recommend Sound Juicer.

Asunder

The third one I tried was Asunder. This was another simple tool but it has somewhat better file name configuration options than Sound Juicer and it created playlists automatically. It has not crashed so far and it does what it should. The configuration was not as detailed as Grip’s but it had the most important options. I would have preferred to have them all but Asunder actually worked on my computer with most CDs. Ripping and encoding was therefore done with Asunder when Grip did not work.

Another alternative is XMCD but since Asunder was working I did not bother to check it out. This blog entry and this Wikipedia entry suggests a few other tools you might want to check out if you want something else. You may also want to check out one of these guides(one, two)which shows you how to rip and encode a CD as flac using the command line only. This looks tempting since you will get some of the configurability which I miss with Asunder.

ID3 editing tool for Linux: EasyTAG

All of the tools mentioned above contact an Internet database to download information about the discs and tracks one rips. This information is then stored in the flac-files ID3 tag. This is very convenient but the information is unfortunately not always correct and sometimes it is not formated the way you want it. To edit the ID3 tags of a large number of files one will need some tool support because doing it manually is just too time consuming.

EasyTAG user interface

I have for a long time been using mp3tag on Windows and I am really satisfied with it. It is unfortunately not available for Linux so I had to look for another tool. I found EasyTAG through the Ubuntu repository. Even though the user interface could have needed a overhaul it seems to be doing its job and I decided to go for that. It offers the functionality I need (rename files, folders, and automatically get tags from file/folder names). It is also possible to search an online database for updated tags.

I am sure there are other options but EasyTAG seemed to satisfy my needs and I did not bother to look further.

Future work: media center software, encoding for portable players, and DVD backup

After ripping my CDs I need to first look into arranging the music with a new media player/music library. Next, I need to find something for encoding it in a somewhat more compressed format for portable mp3 players. Then I would like to look into ripping the DVDs I have as well. After building a gaming media centre for the living room I need to put it into proper use.

If you have any hints or comments please leave me a message.

Disclaimer

Ripping CDs and DVDs for personal backups is permitted according to Norwegian law. Other countries may have different legislation when it comes to copying/taking backup copies of copyright protected intellectual property like CDs and DVDs. Do not use this guide to copy/spread copyright proctected material illegally.

I recently discovered this acoustic version of All within my hands on Youtube. Even though St. Anger has some highlights I must admit that it isn’t my favorite Metallica album (that is of course Master of Puppets). However, I really liked the acoustic All within my hands and I wanted to get it eh … all within my own hands.

It turned out that it was played at the yearly Bridge School Benefit for children with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs. I am no big fan of people running after me in the streets or calling me on the phone to ask me to donate money to whatever reason. Even though the causes are good I just don’t like being nagged into doing something. I prefer doing it of my own will. I must admit though that I am not much of a charity giver (shame on me) but when I could get good music and support a good cause I felt it was right.

The solution was of course the live Metallica catalog which I think is a good source for music and a great store. The store sells all (?)  live Metallica shows since 2004 and gives you about 20 older shows for free. The music comes without DRM in either MP3 and FLAC. You’ll get the MP3 version of a show for $9.95 and the FLAC version is going at $12.95.

Metallica played at the Bridge School charity both the 27th and the 28th of October 2007.  Metallica played only 8 songs each night (some covers and some Metllica songs) so the shows are a bit expensive. However, you have to remember that all net proceeds goes to the Bridge School. The set lists have some variations between the two days. Of the cover songs I really liked I’m only happy when it rains.

This is by far not the first thing I have bought after seeing it on youtube or somewhere else. I just don’t see why people are against it and so afraid of people posting copyright protected material there. I think the exposure it gives an artist and the sales this generates is well worth the potential loss of income. I could have chosed to continue listening to the youtube version but I wanted to have the song and I decided to pay for content of higher quality in the sense that it is Flac and therefore also transportable to other devices but my computer.

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

I must admit that I probably look for the opportunities where I can use Metallica lyrics to express something but this time I think it is quite appropriate. While I am against piracy I must say that I value democracy, freedom of speech, and just legal system over the commercial interests of a reactionary industry. Recently, it seems the commercial values of the movie and music industry is more valuable than a just legal system. Legal companies here in Norway are pushing to get sensitive information (IP, names, addresses etc) from the Internet Service Providers about “suspected” pirates. The attorneys are in other words trying to do the police’s work. Do we really want to privatize the police? I don’t think so.

However, it seems the Norwegian courts are bending over for the movie and music industry. A recent verdict about whether or not a Norwegian ISP has to hand over the identity of a suspected pirate to the attorneys, was today kept secret from the public. I agree with Atle, WTF? How is it possible to keep a verdict which concerns the whole legal system, secret? If private companies are allowed to act as police I would like to know about it.

If the movie and music industry feel the police are not doing enough to solve their cases maybe they have to realize that there are other cirmes (murder, rape, child molestation, trafficing and so on) which are way worse than illegal distribution of music and movies. Second, maybe they should try to deal with this politically like the rest of us. If they are not happy with the way the police is spending their resources maybe should start their own political party and change the way the country is run. Third, why don’t the industry start providing the services we want? How hard can it be? There are plenty of alternatives of people who have understood how to use technology propperly to distribute digital content: NRKbeta, Steam,  Metallica (of course), and a whole lot of others.

I knew they didn’t care but I was really surprised when I read this. Even Sanvold Roland complained in his blog that he could not by the pre-order the new Dave Matthews Band record through iTunes. The response he got from Warner Music‘s Terje Pedersen (on myspace) through Twitter was rather incredible: “I think you should steal it and brag about the process on your brat blog afterwards. Don’t want you to be angry.” (translated from Norwegian)

First, he incouraged him to steal the music and second he insulted him. What kind of customer relation is that? Even though Terje Pedersen apologized a bit later it illustrates how much (some) people in the music/movie industry actually care about what we, their customers want. The music/movie industry has climed up too high and totally lost touch with its customers the last ten years (Napster anyone?), now they are taking the fall for not opening their eyes.

Edit: I found another English article on the topic. You should digg it to spreat the word.

Personally I really do not understand why EA and others are using SecuRom and similar products to “protect” their games. I assume the intention is to either (1) stop piracy or (2) stop people from selling used games. For me, the only thing they achieve is stopping me from buying their games.

Piracy is clearly a problem on the PC platform. It is a shame that people does not pay for the games they play and it is understandable that the industry tries to stop this. However, there does not exist any effective copy protection (yet) and I do not think DRM is the right way to stop piracy. DRM is only making it harder for the customers.

I have a stronger beliefe in digital distribution of quality games which are updated after their initial release to a reasonable price. Much like what the guys at Stardock intends to do with their “Gamers Bill of Rights”. This is of course a PR trick but I agree with them in most of what they say.

Back to DRM, copy protections like SecuRom are just creating problems for the people who pay for the products, not stopping piracy. Pirated versions of Spore and NoCD-cracks sirculated, probably even before Spore was released. I want to play the games I buy anywhere, at any time and I want to be able to install them as many times as I like. I payed for the bloody game didn’t I? I wouldn’t buy a bike which I could only use four times, within the city limits on Sundays!

Spore is unfortunately not the first game which incorporates such DRM solutions. Both Bioshock and Mass Effect have received massive amounts of flack for their DRM solutions which created a lot of problems for a large number of users.

So why? Dear gaming, record and movie industry. Why do you use DRM when it creates problems for the paying users, does not effectively stop piracy, increases the price of your products and give you a lot of negative media coverage? Some of the vendors have got it and they are pulling the plug on DRM as we speak. But Walmart, what about the customers who were unfortunate enough to by DRM (infested) music who are not able to play their music any longer?

The day before yesterday, Metallica released their new album Death Magnetic and I had to get my hands on it. I could have bought just a digital copy but as a long time fan of Metallica I opted for the CD. The CD was delivered actually the day before the release date but I was rather disappointed when this was what I found in a thin envelope in our mailbox. The cover was broken, beat and well perhaps not scarred.

When that is said, I think Metallica has succeed here on two fronts with their new album. They have made very good record but they have also created a successful distribution model. Through Mission Metallica I have been able to see a couple of hours of video from the recording of the record, and download about 10 live concerts and four singles. All this before the record was released. I think this is the way to go to stop or at least to reduce piracy. Provide something extra to the ones who pay. When providing something extra, they also make more money. The record was a bit more expensive than a normal CD (30 Euros as compared to a normal price of 18-25 for a new record) and by releasing material over the Internet, Metallica has managed to create a buzz around the album. However the extra 10 Euros were well worth it. In particular the live material is priceless.

For the future I think I will go for digitally distributed movies, games and music. If the provider offers backup I do not have to fear broken CDs and covers, and I do not have to reserve several meters of dusty shelf space to the covers.

After selecting a case for my new living room computer I had to buy some more parts to piece together a running PC. The case I selected was the Lian Li PC-C32, in black. Overall I am satisfied with the case. It is fairly spacious, it looks good, it was pretty easy to mount everything inside of it. However, when I got the case it was a bit bigger and lighter than expected. The plates used for the case were a bit thin and the top lid had two screws in the front which I did not see and they almost made me force the top off. Other people have said the case comes with one motherboard stand too many. I did not have that problem as I installed a microATX board. The stock fans on full speed were a bit nosier than I would have liked too but it was nothing a replacement of fans and a fan controller could not handle. I chose the ZM-MFC1 Plus controller from Zalman.

The hardware

The computer consist of a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H microATX motherboard with an on-board AMD HD3200 video chip powerful enough to playback full HD video. The AMD 780G chipset is a favoritte among many reviewrs (1). The motherboard is fitted with an AMD Athlon 4850e CPU which only requires a limted amount of power and 4 GB of Kingston DDR2 memory. Both the 1TB Spinpoint F1 hard drive and the SH-S203B DVD player came from Samsung. The plan is to get another hard drive and install it in a RAID level 1 to have backup of images, music and movies. Hopefully will the prices of solid-state-drives fall while the performance contines to increase so I can get such a drive and use it for the operating system drive. The whole ting is powered by a NorthQ Giant Reactor power supply which I had laying around.

The software

I have I have been using Windows Vista 64 because I had a license and I eventually plan on getting a better graphics card to be able to play games. Currently the cards are either too expensive, too noisy or not powerful enough so I think I will be waiting until the next generation arrives or until someone starts selling better cooling solutions for, for instance the AMD 4870X2. If I wasn’t planning on gaming I would have used a Linux distro for sure.

The problems

I wish I could say everything went accoring to plan. Unfortunately it did not. First, the PSU is a bit too noisy. The 850W version of the Zalman ZM1000-HP could be a possible solution. Second, the DVD is way too noisy. I do not plan on using this much but it sounds like a plane taking off. Third, the stock fans were too noisy on full spead. This has been solved by using a fan controller. I might also replace the fans. Fourth, I will certainly get a modular PSU the next time I buy a new one. I hate all those cables. Finally and most annoying. The graphic chip has some problems with HDMI and TVs. If I select the right input on the TV and then turn on the PC I get an image and everything works perfectly. However if I change the input on the TV to something else and then back again to the PC, I do not get any image. It seems it is a problem with the Catalys driver and the handshaking with the TV. I hope this will be fixed with the release of a new driver. As a consequence of this problem I have not used it as much as originally planned. I have not moved neither movies, images nor music to the PC.

The future

As mentioned I have planned to get another disk and a new graphics card. This is however somewhere down the road. It would have been nice to get a quieter PSU as well but with the noise level of the graphic cards of today it is no point of getting a silent PSU before I know which graphics card I will be pairing it with. When new and more powerful CPUS are comming I will probably update those too. However until later the two core AMD should do the job.

To build a good HTCP you would want a PC with a decent storage, capable of high definition (HD) video playback. It should look good in your living room, be small, slim and silent and have a high WAF rating. Most modern computers with an integrated graphic chip coupled with a CPU with low power requirements are able to do the job. Low power requirements mean limited heat which again means no or only very few fans for cooling. Platforms based on AMD’s 780 or Nvidias GeForce 8300 based chipsets have for these reasons been popular.

A gaming rig should produce as many polygons as possible per second. To do this you need a very power hungry CPU and GPU. Power means heat, and to move this heat away from the CPU and the GPU you will need large coolers and a lot of fans. This combined with the fact that most graphics cards are quite long you would want a quite large case for this gaming computer.

For fans there are some simple rules. The larger the fan is the more hot air does it move per second. The higher the velocity of the fan is the more air does it move per second but the noise will rise to unbearable levels.

Requirements

So let us look at the requirements for a HTPC/Gaming computer. I’ll start with the one which are absolute. Since I have a girlfriend it has to look good! Looking good would in this case mean black (to match the other equipment), small and probably shiny.

Second, it should be powerful enough to run modern PC games at resolutions up to 1920*1080. This would include a large and hot graphics card which requires cooling and a pretty deep case. I will also need a decent CPU which would require good cooling. Big tower coolers like TRUE could reach up 160mm but they could be fitted with one or two 120mm fans.

Third, it should be silent. This would include water cooling or really big coolers and several large fans at low velocity. Water cooling would have been fun but it is a bit expensive and I don’t really bother right now. Since I am no millionaire it cannot be too expensive either.

To sum up, it should be a large good looking case which looks small and has room for large coolers, large fans, long graphics cards and a couple of hard drives. Most HTPC cases are small so it is a bit of a challenge to find something which matches all these requirements. However, after searching the web for a long time I found some candidates. And the nominees are:

Antec Fusion 430 Black

This case looks great, uses two 120mm fans for cooling, the critics are great and the price is quite good (about 1200 NOK = 150€). Unfortunately, a bit too small (445mm (W) x 146mm (H) x 414mm (D)) for my planned PC.

Review:

• Bjorn3d
• Silentpcreview
• Tomshardware
• 3dGameMan (if you can call these reviews )

Antec Performance One P182

Another case from Antec. I really love this one, it costs less than 1000 NOK (125€), it is big (520mm (H) x 210mm (W) x 510mm (D)) and has a lot of space for hardware, coolers and five 120mm fans. Unfortunately it is a tower, not a desktop case. If I was looking for a pure gaming rig I would have gone for this one but since it has to fit in the living room it is a no go.

Reviews:

• Bjorn3d
• Silentpcreview

Silverstone CW02

This case is another beauty, at least in my eyes. It is quite tall (435 mm (W) x 225mm (H) x 440 mm (D)) and a large cooler should fit inside. It has quite large fans with one 120mm fan and two 92mm fans. Unfortunately it got a pretty low WAF rating, it is a bit expensive (3800 NOK = 450€) and it could be a problem to fit long graphics cards so was not a winner.

Reviews

• XtremeComputing
• 3dGameMan

Silverstone LC-20

This case has room for in total two 92mm and three 80mm fans. It is fairly large (430 mm (W) x 170 mm (H) x 430 mm (D)) but neither really large coolers nor long graphics cards would fit. It got an overall good WAF rating and the price is attractive (about 1000/1500 NOK or 125/200€ without/with the LCD ). However, there is something to it which I did not like. 80mm fans are perhaps a bit small and there is not plenty of room inside of it.

Reviews

• DevHardware
• DreamWare Computers

Lian Li PC-C32B

This is the case I selected. It is no way near flawless but it is a decent compromise. It is very deep (426mm (W) x 167mm (H) x 530mm (D)) which would allow long graphics cards, and standard ATX motherboards and power supplies to enter. It has room for two 120mm and one 80mm fans. Coolers up to 140mm should enter according a very helpful forum user at hw.no . The fans should according to some reviews be replaced with some, less nosier ones. The fact that the case is pretty deep is also somewhat of a problem because it will take a lot of space in the living room. Hopefully this will not be too much of a problem. The price was about 1700 NOK (210€). It looks great (without the rack mount handles) and it got a very good WAF rating.

I am eagerly waiting for it to arrive in the mail tomorrow or one of the next few days and I will probably post some images when I get my hands on it. Having decided on the case it only remains to decide on all the other parts of the PC …

Reviews

• XSReviews
• Visual-Hideout
• CaseUmbau (in German)

Some Case Providers

I found several other nice cases when searching for this one and I recommend you to check out the following if you are looking for a HTPC case yourself.

• 3RSystem
• Antec
• Chieftec
• Lian Li
• OrigenAE
• Silverstone
• Thermaltake
• Zalman