Simple DVD Re-Authoring in Linux

The other night I sat down with my girlfriend to watch one of the few movies we both enjoy and can see over and over again. I noticed an odd thing after I inserted the DVD, however. The movie went straight to the menu. There were no previews, no studio splash screens, no advertisements, no videos telling me not to steal this movie that I had already paid for. It was refreshing.

Sometimes, though, when you put in a DVD you are subjected to endless previews, piracy warnings, and splash screens that can last minutes before you finally get to the menu. It's not too bad when you can skip them, but some DVDs disable the "next" button, forcing you to sit through them.

If it's a movie you only watch once or twice it may not be a big deal, but if it's one you want to see over and over again it is especially irritating. When this is done with kid's movies it's almost unforgivable, as they tend to enjoy watching the same video many times.

K9Copy will allow you to re-author your annoying, but beloved, DVD to skip all the content that annoys you, while letting you keep the movie and extras that you enjoy, resizing the movie to fit on a 4.7 GB disc if necessary. It will also let you put the original DVD away from harm. Any horrible accidents involving your DVD, peanut butter, and the dog will be restricted to the copy.

Be aware that copying commercial DVDs involves breaking copy protection, which may be illegal in your country even for fair use. Please check your local laws before using this guide.

K9Copy should be available in your distribution's repositories. If not, there are packages for various distributions available for download on their website.

The movie I'm reauthoring has almost 5 minutes of unskippable content, previews and splash screens. It's excessive and annoying, so we're going to improve it by removing those titles. 

Insert the DVD into your DVD drive and open K9Copy. If you don't see a list of the DVD titles in the window, clicking on the folder at the top left will open the DVD.

Click on the top box beside the DVD disc title. This will select all the titles, and we can now remove the ones we don't want.
 

Article Author: Steve Wild

Steve has been using Linux since 2002, and writes about computers, gadgets, and random thoughts on his blog at Chronological Dissonance. He also recently started a computer support company called HiTech Assist.

Visit Steve Wild's author page — Steve Wild's Blog