What do you need:

1. Linux, any distribution will do. Linux can be installed on the physical hardware or in a virtual machine (like for example VMware, Xen, VirtualBox or Virtual PC). It is important that you have access to a DVD drive. Otherwise you’ll have to first create an .iso image of the video DVD you want to convert. mplayer is also available for Windows so you could try the same process using Windows if you prefer.
2. mplayer. Installation of mplayer depends on the Linux distribution, some have it preinstalled, others require you to install it yourself. For most users the easiest option will be to find pre-built binaries in .rpm, .deb or other appropriate format and install them. I’m not going to go into details here, if you need directions drop me a comment.
3. DVD with the videos you want to convert. If your Linux installation can access a DVD drive you just need to insert the DVD disc, otherwise you need to create an .iso image.
4. Some program to convert .wav files into .mp3. Anything you use to convert CDs to mp3 can usually convert .wav files also.

Preparations:

1. Decide whether you want to convert the whole video or only some specific fragments.
2. Decide whether you want to convert the video into one audio file or maybe you prefer separate file for each chapter.
3. If you decided to do the conversion from an .iso image you need to create it.
4. Make sure you have enough disk space for the audio files. You need about 6 MB per one minute.

Conversion:

1. Create .wav files from your video using mplayer. The command to execute is:
   mplayer dvd://1 -chapter [first chapter]-[last chapter] -vc null -vo null -alang [language code] -ao pcm:waveheader:fast:file=[output file] -dvd-device [path to .iso file] -ss [start time in seconds] -endpos [duration in seconds]
   where:
   • dvd://1 usually is the correct option although sometimes (depends on the DVD) it will have to be another number instead of 1. The number corresponds to the DVD title on the disc; usually 1 is the main video.
   • [first chapter] – is the first video chapter to start the conversion from.
   • [last chapter] – is the last video chapter to finish the conversion with; in case your video has no chapters or you want to convert the whole video into a single audio file you should skip the whole -chapter [first chapter]-[last chapter] fragment of the command; in case you’re converting each chapter of the DVD to a separate audio file the [last chapter] must be the same as [first chapter] and you need to run this command for each chapter (with a different output file each time).
   • [language code] – code of the audio language, this is important if the video has audio track in multiple languages; for example English is en, Spanish is es, Hungarian is hu.
   • [output file] – the path to the output audio file including the .wav extension.
   • [path to .iso file] – the path to the source .iso file of the video; in case you are converting without first creating the .iso file you should skip the whole -dvd-device [path to .iso file] fragment of the command.
   • [start time in seconds] – this option can be used to specify how many seconds at the beginning of the video should be skipped; you should not use this option if you want to convert the whole video.
   • [duration in seconds] – this option can be used to specify how many seconds of the video to convert; you should not use this option if you want to convert the whole video. This option together with -ss is useful when you want to do a trial run and convert just a short fragment first to see if it works or if you need to skip some fragments at the beginning or at the end.
   Some examples:
   • Save audio of chapter 4 of the DVD disk as file chapter4.wav:
     mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 4-4 -vc null -vo null -alang en -ao pcm:waveheader:fast:file=chapter4.wav
   • The same but from an ISO image:
     mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 4-4 -vc null -vo null -alang en -ao pcm:waveheader:fast:file=chapter4.wav -dvd-device image.iso
   • Save audio of chapters 2 to 14 of the DVD disk as file chapters2-14.wav:
     mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 2-14 -vc null -vo null -alang en -ao pcm:waveheader:fast:file=chapters2-14.wav
   • Save the last 10 seconds of the first minute of chapter 3 from the DVD disk as file chapter3.wav, this time we want the Spanish soundtrack:
     mplayer dvd://1 -chapter 3-3 -vc null -vo null -alang es -ao pcm:waveheader:fast:file=chapter3.wav -ss 50 -endpos 10
2. Convert .wav files to mp3 format or any other you prefer using a program you like.

That’s it. Enjoy the new mp3s!

Related post(s)

• Skype 4.0 for Windows is out: Pros and cons (compared with Linux Skype 2.0) (1)
• Setting up UPS on CentOS 5.2 with SELinux, part 2 (1)
• Setting up UPS on CentOS 5.2 with SELinux, part 1 (0)
• Eee PC 901 – aka Big Eee (0)
• Too much success and popularity? (0)

And so I still believed until more and more examples of the contrary have appeared in my life. We wanted lamps for the house. For my office: a 10-euro-halogen standing lamp. Quite simple, bare, white, metallic… un-fancy. I did not need any more. For the living room, (where people show off their quality??) a 30-euro-halogen standing lamp, with parallel “feet”, covered in a classy dark-brown layer of granulated material, with a top glass plate. I can move my lamp about without much effort and it’s been working without a glitch for over a year now. The expensive lamp has never really stood straight, is a heavy monster and besides making noise, it has shocked me twice already when turning on the light and has made the bulb burst twice (the two events were not related, by the way).

Another example: the static bicycle ZoltarStark mentioned in his The challenge continue post. We spent a whole week comparing prices and the perks you’d get in each price range. We finally went for a more expensive one, with loads of cool stuff. The cool stuff has never worked properly. Sure, we could have returned it, but 1. we decided that a crappy bike was better than no bike; 2. if we had returned it, my present post would not have been as cool, now would it?

Six and a half years ago, when I was off to Ireland to do my PhD, my father bought me a 3000 EUR Acer laptop with 64 MB of RAM and a 9 GB hard-disk. That laptop worked without a glitch for 5 years. It might actually still be working, for all I know. And I say it might because someone “borrowed” it from a hotel in Bogotá over a year ago, and we have not heard from it since… snif. By the way, if that person reads this, could you tell us if it’s still working? We won’t ask for it back, promise! Three years ago I got myself a 1200 EUR DELL laptop with 1 GB of RAM and a 60 GB hard-disk. Allowing for time difference and the drop in laptop’s prices, I had expected my new laptop to be at least as good as the Acer one. My DELL laptop… cannot be called a laptop anymore. Its card reader slot and Ethernet port stopped working a year and a half ago, as the left back-side suffered from overheating. The laptop is placed over 4 tiny dictionaries that hold it 3 cm over the desk to allow air to circulate as the fans struggle to deal with the heat. When you tell it to open a file from Windows Explorer, you can sing Andrea Bocelli’s Vivo per lei three times before it actually responds. Oh, Windows needs to be reinstalled from time to time for it to continue working properly you say? I could reinstall Windows, you say? Yeah… the screen stopped working a year ago. It’s been plugged to an external screen since then and you can only see stuff when it’s already finished booting. I basically have the poor thing running Thunderbird and that’s it. I’m using a, yet another, new laptop which only has Linux installed, in case you wondered what was I typing from.

And finally la crème of this post: the products that prompted me to write this… dissertation on failing products and pocket pains. Last summer we bought a portable DVD player. As with the bike, we researched, we compared prices, we informed ourselves of the options, we blah bla blahed a bit more… and finally went to MediMax and bought the cheapest they had: a Xoro HSD7100 7” portable DVD player for 100 EUR, which according to some pages could, maybe, be convinced to play multiregion DVDs. Not long afterwards we followed the same research path for normal DVD players and instead of getting the cheapest one in the shop, we bought a Phillips DVP5960 DVD player in the mid-price region, looking for better picture quality, sound and whatnot.

Xoro played multiregion DVDs from the start. It also plays.. well, basically anything you throw at it. It is quick to respond, its battery life is almost 3 hours and once you accept portable DVD players do make some noise when playing DVDs, its sound is excellent. My brother bought a DVD player not long ago which cost almost twice the price and it might have a 9” screen and run for longer, but is picky as hell as to what it wants to play.

Phillips takes 10 seconds to respond to the Power on command. And another 5 to open the door, making it quite annoying when you forgot to remove the DVD before powering it off. It makes as much noise, if not more, as Xoro (which is NOT normal for DVD players). The remote is more temperamental than a Chihuahua after being stuck in a box for the duration of a transatlantic flight. And if it improves the image quality, well, you’d have to have better eyesight than Superman to notice it. It does play multiregion DVD, after you introduce a code, though…

Conclusion to all this rambling… buy pretty things, for there is no guarantee in quality anymore, and save to be able to replace your purchases in case you did not stumble by chance on a good product.

PS. El Xorro wins of course!

Related post(s)

• Convert videos to audio (1)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 4 (2)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? armpits area (day 2) (2)