Backup DVDs with dvd::rip

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I've always been a little unorganized with my DVDs-- some are in their original cases, some live in a case amongst some other software CDs, some are just completely lost. I've been meaning to get organized with my DVDs, but I just never got around to it.

Instead, I decided to back them up on my computer. This is convenient because I generally watch them on my computer anyway. Also, I'll never have to worry about them getting scratched or lost.

Which brings me to dvd::rip, the DVD ripper of choice on Linux. I started using it earlier this week, and am very happy with it. It's a little rough around the edges, because it's so feature-rich. The program itself is basically a GUI wrapper for a number of command-line utilities, and each option refers to a command-line flag you can set. As a result, you can very carefully fine-tune the results of your rip-- from target size, to resolution, to subtitles.

One of it's best features, in my opinion, is it's "Cluster" daemon. Basically, you are able to distribute the job of transcoding the video amongst as many machines as are available. The job is broken up into parts, and many computers can get the job done together much quicker. Furthermore, you can schedule many jobs on the cluster, which will all be pooled together and processed by the cluster. Once again, it's an advanced setup, but I was able to backup 10 DVDs overnight.