Paul’s Linux Blog

At last I managed to get handbrake-gui on my pc big woohoo.

Not that excited hmm maybe not but I have tried many times to install handbrake, the only success I have had was on windows I have managed to get the Linux CLI version installed but could not get the out of my files quite right. The gui version I thought would be a simple install however I kept running into dependency issues.

Finally I did it, and worst of all it was far easier than expected.

First ensure you have subversion installed and configured as follows.

• sudo apt-get install subversion

Now setup subversion

• sudo svnadmin create /svn

Now to sort the dependencies.

• sudo apt-get install  yasm build-essential autoconf libtool zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev intltool libglib2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgtk2.0-dev libhal-dev libhal-storage-dev libwebkit-dev libnotify-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev

To begin the install you will need to fetch the latest build of handbrake as follows:

• svn checkout svn://svn.handbrake.fr/HandBrake/trunk hb-trunk

Once the handbrake source code has downloaded change into the src directory.

• cd hb-trunk

To configure and install handbrake in one easy go use the following command.

• ./configure --launch

Once the build has completed you should be able to launch the gui as follows.

• cd build/gtk/src

• ./ghb &

NOTE: You are able to copy the ghb binary file to anywhere on your system.

I would recommend moving it to the local bin dir, then you should be able to launch it from a terminal screen by typing handbrake-gui &

• mv ghb /usr/local/bin/handbrake-gui

If all was good you can delete the installation directory.

• rm -rf hb-trunk

NOTES: I have run through these instructions on crunchbang / ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10 with no problems.

Today was one of those days when I had to fall back to windows

I wanted to backup my DVD to avi for the PS3 and found my unusual method of using dd to dump the DVD to an iso file failed. I kept getting the message error reading disc.

I tried my other method of using vobcopy but this failed as well with errors.

My next try was DVD-Shrink via wine this method has worked on occasion but only on old discs, this time the app hung.

My last resort was booting into windows and using DVDFab, I could have installed it via wine but after spending so long trying I just wanted it done, so I could get on with other things.

Anyway windows came through and the image can now be converted into a ps3 compatible format.

In case you wonder why I do it the long way, I just don't like having my DVD drive spinning for several hours when I am converting video, especially if I do higher resolution backup.

Well it's almost done and I have probably saved another disc from the sticky hands of my kids.

Right now I need to convert some flv's to avi so I can watch them on my ps3.

Once again a little googling and 5 minutes later I have the method. Once again I find that mencoder comes to the rescue.

 mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -o output_name.avi input_name.flv

I love mencoder it probably one of my most used commands these days. I travel to work on the train every day and it's an hour each way. I find that wathcing a DVD is ok but it drains the battery on the laptop and also generates heat not to mention I don't like carrying my DVD around in my drive all day.

The solution is MENCODER. more on this to follow.