Free dvd backup software for linux

DVD BacKup Express is a small Kommander Script to create a GUI for dvdbackup.

I made it because it can be run on any platform with kommander installed and dvdbackup available (which may be more platforms than kdvdbackup or other binary frontends are available for)

There is a lot of room for improvement here. Feel free to spruce it up a bit and send me the new .kmdr file and i will update this.

dvdbackup you can do a 1:1 copy of a DVD-video.

Installation

Download dvdbackup version 0.1 - you will also need libdvdread version 0.9.3 or later.

Compile dvdbackup.c in the src dir like this gcc -o dvdbackup
-I/my/prefix/to/libdvdread/include -L/my/prefix/to/libdvdread/lib
-ldvdread dvdbackup.c

NOTE: The "" indicates that its one line - i.e. remove the "" from the command
line

Usage:

If your backup directory is /my/dvd/backup/dir/ specified with the "-o" flag. Then dvdbackup will create a DVD-Video structure under /my/dvd/backup/dir/TITLE_NAME/VIDEO_TS.

Since the title is "uniq" you can use the same dir for all your DVD backups. If it happens to have a generic title dvdbackup will exit with a return value of 2. And you will need to specify a title name with the -n switch.

dvdbackup will always mimic the original DVD-Video structure. Hence if you e.g. use the -M (mirror) you will get an exact duplicate of the original. This means that every file will be have the same size as the original one. Like wise goes also for the -F and the -T switch.

However the -t and (-t -s/-e) switch is a bit different the titles sectors will be written to the original file but not at the same offset as the original one since they may be gaps in the cell structure that we dont fill.

To backup the whole DVD

dvdbackup -M -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir/

This action creates a valid DVD-Video structure that can be burned to a DVD-/+R(W) with help of mkisofs version 1.11a27 or later

To backup the main feature of the DVD

dvdbackup -F -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir/

This action creates a valid DVD-Video structure of the feature title set
dvdbackup defaults to get the 16:9 version of the main feature if a 4:3 is also present on the DVD. To get the 4:3 version use -a 0.

dvdbackup makes it best to make a inteligent guess what is the main feature of the DVD - in case it fails please send a bug report.

To backup a title set

dvdbackup -T 2 -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir/

where "-T 2" specifies that you want to backup title set 2 i.e. all VTS_02_X.XXX files.

This action creates a valid DVD-Video structure of the specified title set

To backup a title

dvdbackup -t 1 -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir

This action backups all cells that forms the specified title. Note that there can be sector gaps in between one cell and an other. dvdbackup will backup all sectors that belongs to the title but will skip sectors that arent a part of the title.

To backup a specific chapter or chapters from a title

dvdbackup -t 1 -s 20 -e 25 -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir

This action will backup chapter 20 to 25 in title 1, as with the backup of a title there can be sector gaps between one chapter (cell) and on other.dvdbackup will backup all sectors that belongs to the title 1 chapter 20 to 25 but will skip sectors that arent a part of the title 1 chapter 20 to 25.

To backup a single chapter e.g. chapter 20 do -s 20 -e 20
To backup from chapter 20 to the end chapter use only -s 20
To backup to chapter 20 from the first chapter use only -e 20

You can skip the -t switch and let the program guess the title although its not recomened.

If you specify a chapter that his higher than the last chapter of the title dvdbackup will turncate to the highest chapter of the title.

Return values

0 on success
1 on usage error
2 on title name error
-1 on failur

Todo - i.e. whats on the agenda

Make the main feature guessing algoritm better. Not that it doesnt do its job, but its implementation its that great. I would also like to preserve more information about the main feature since that would let me preform better implementations in other functions that depends on the titles_info_t and title_set_info_t strcutures.
Make it possible to extract cells in a title not just chapters (very easy so it will definitly be in the next version).

Make a split mirror (-S) option that divides a DVD-9 to two valid DVD-5 video structures. This is not a trivial hack and its my main goal the next month or so. It involves writing ifoedit and vobedit libraries in order to be able to manipulate both the IFO structures and the VOB files. Out of this will most probably also come tscreate and vtscreate which will enable you to make a very simple DVD-Video from MPEG-1/2 source.

DVDKUP is a GTK interface for Mencoder, the encoding command of the software MPlayer.
It allows to easily create a backup copy of your dvd in MPEG4 standard, fully compatible with your DivX player (even the "stand-alone" ones!), using the LAVC codec. This codec, written by MPlayer developers, gives a quality comparable with last DivX and Xvid codecs (higher, for the MPlayer staff!).
For the audio encoding, DVDKUP use the dear old mp3 or the original AC3 stream of your dvd. Actually DVDKUP doesnt support OGG Vorbis encoding.
DVDKUP uses a very simple interface to create one or more AVI files ready to be burned on your cd-r. If you choose to use more than one cd-r, DVDKUP automatically split the movie using the chapter informations, in order not to break a scene just in the middle.
Enhancements:
- various bugfixes

scdbackup is a simplified CD/DVD backup program for Linux. It can back up large amounts of data on one or more media, with no special tools needed for reading the backup. scdbackup supports ISO9660 filesystems and afio archives.
Its special features are automatic division of data into multiple volumes, verification of write success, and incremental backups. An information script on each volume tells where a certain file may be found. CDs get written via cdrecord. DVDs get written via growisofs.
Purpose:
- backup large amounts of data on one or more CDs or DVDs,
- simple (therefore no excuse not to do the backup),
- no special tool needed for reading the backup
Formats:
- ISO9660 file systems (readable after : mount )
- afio archives (readable by : afio ... /dev/cdrom)
Special features:
- Breaks the 650 MB / 4.7 GB limits (more than one CD / DVD )
- Information script on each CD tells where a certain file may be found
- Collision test with renaming avoids aborting of mkisofs
- Interrupted backups can be resumed at the start of the failed piece
- Verification of resulting CDs possible by recorded checksums
- Incremental backups with an arbitrary number of levels
- Multi user safe by use of a locking protocol
Hardware requirements:
A CD recorder suitable for cdrecord (most SCSI or ATAPI writers, see also list of drives ) It has to be reachable via a SCSI address. On modern Linux systems, other connection types can be used via an emulated SCSI bus. Recent versions of cdrecord got direct support for IDE burners via address prefixes ATAPI: and ATA: .
As an alternative, it is possible to use cdrskin, based on libburn.
and/or
A DVD writer suitable for growisofs. It has to be reachable via a SCSI device file. On modern Linux systems, other connection types can be used via an emulated SCSI bus. On even more modern Linux (>= 2.5), growisofs can use IDE device files directly.
As an alternative, it is possible to use cdrecord-ProDVD.
If you got any other high capacity backup devices which you want to use rather than a CD recorder then please contact me. I am interested in learning how to use them for writing of backup data.
Software requirements :
/bin/sh
compatible to GNU Bourne-Again SHell (bash).
including usual programs like: cat, date, du, echo, ls, ...
see hints for working around shell compatibility problems
afio
archiver program (for system backups)
gzip
data compression program (for compressed afio and incremental backups)
bc
calculator language (only if you employ the locking protocol)
Required for writing DVD :
growisofs
from package "dvd+rw-tools"
or cdrecord-ProDVD (see README, Appendix DVD)
a binary with time limited license
Enhancements:
- scdbackup now supports wodim and cdrskin as CD/DVD burn backends, as well as the ISO9660 formatter genisoimage.
- The helper application scdbackup_askme is able to quickly find files in large incremental backups, to guide through extraction of single files, or to perform the full restore of a whole backup.

Box Backup is an FREE, completely automatic on-line backup system for UNIX.
Main features:
- All backed up data is stored on the server in files on a filesystem; no tape or archive devices are used
- The server is trusted only to make files available when they are required; all data is encrypted
- A backup daemon runs on systems to be backed up, and copies encrypted data to the server when it notices changes
- Only changes within files are sent to the server, just like rsync
- Old versions of files on the server are stored as changes from the current version
- Behaves like tape -- old versions and deleted files are available
- Choice of backup behaviour, optimised for document or server backup
- Designed to be easy and cheap to run a server. Portable implementation, and RAID implemented in userland for reliability without complex server setup or expensive hardware. (optional)
Enhancements:
- The diffing algorithm was highly optimised for speed.
- Bugs were fixed. Solaris support was added.
- Portability improvements were made, including a new autoconf based build.
- Xattrs are supported on Linux and Darwin, which backs up resource forks under Mac OS X.
- Experimental features include keep-alive on long diffing operations, saving state for non-server use, a native Win32 port, and support for MinGW and MSVC under Win32.

Midnight Backup is a flexable framework composed of plugins that will allow system administrators to develop sophisticated backup systems.
It will be cross-network and cross-platform, allowing clients to submit data to servers for backup purposes. It will have a high level of admin control though filters and a pervasive "plug-in" architecture. Midnight Backup will be under an Open Source/Free Software license.
Main features:
- Network Oriented
- Portability
- Fully Modular and Extensible Design
- Easy Add-On Creation
- "Bare Metal" Recovery through creation of custom boot disks
- Authentication and Encryption between clients and servers
- Bandwidth Usage Optimization for low-bandwidth connections
- The ability for users to recover their own data without admin intervention
- Multiple output media support (CDrom/CDrw, ftape, disk, etc)
Enhancements:
- After a year and a half hiatus, here is version 0.6 of mbackup. This has been completely rewritten in c++. See README and doc/object-description.txt for more info.

Simple Backup is a shell script to create basic backups using tar, grep, sed, and bash.

Simple Backup works by using a file that contains the folders to be backed up and a file that contains expressions to exclude certain folders/files.

Usage: backup.sh < backuplist > < excludelist >

Free to use at your own risk. The author cant be held responsible for any side effects
of using this software. Use at your own risk.