DVDs in Linux

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Revision as of 22:25, 5 September 2006 by Woozle (talk | contribs) (dvd playing)
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computing: software: operating systems: Linux: DVDs

Overview

Video DVDs pose some issues for Linux due to the legal semi-quagmire surrounding the CSS encoding technology.

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Burning

Burning data DVDs in Linux is generally very easy; most Linux distros come with K3b, which can burn data DVDs. The issues arise in reading and writing video DVDs (largely because of the copy protection encoding), but it can be done.

Playing Movie DVDs

Playing movie DVDs is most commonly done using the libdvdcss descrambling library. Although it does not appear to be illegal, there is enough grey area in the laws surrounding CSS – and enough sabre-rattling by the movie industry – that many Linux distros choose not to include the file, which is nonetheless easily available and (in most cases) not difficult to install.

Applications

  • gbDVDenc: "rip & encode DVD into mpeg4 files"