A few months ago, I found a nice work-around for playing Video CDs in my Ubuntu using VLC. The work-around was as simple as removing the x from the MRL in Disc Advanced Options and checking “Play Locally” in the Stream/Save settings to get the audio. It worked for a time, but when I upgraded to Hardy Heron and re-installed VLC, the audio solution no longer worked. So, as a last resort, I now rip my VCDs into MPEGs in order to watch my movies; and here’s how I do it:

1. Insert the VCD in to the CD-ROM drive and fire-up VLC.
2. In VLC, go to File > Wizard. The Streaming/Transcoding Wizard dialogue will pop-up.
3. Select Transcode/Save to file, then click “Next”.
4. Select “Select a stream” then click the “Choose” button, which calls the Open… dialogue.
5. Under “Disc”, select VCD and remove the x from the MRL under Advanced Options, turning it to vcd:///dev/scd0 from vcdx:///dev/scd0.
6. Click “OK” to return to the wizard. And click “Next”.
7. Check “Transcode video” and “Transcode audio”, then click “Next”.
8. Select “MPEG 1″ as the Encapsulation format, then again, “Next”.
9. Provide a file name, or select an old file to overwrite on.
10. Click “Finish”, then let VLC do its thing.

From experience, it takes around fifteen minutes to rip a sixty-minute disc. But that’s ripping at a 1024KB bitrate. I’m assuming that the higher the bitrate selected in “Transcode video”, the longer it takes to rip the movie; conversely, lower bitrates will mean a faster rip.

Ah! And let me assure the Optical Media Board that the VCDs I’m ripping are legitimate copies, most of them I bought from Odessey. The above is just a process that I need go through so that I can watch my movies in my Ubuntu box.

Posted on: ABCruz.com