dvdbackup for MacOS

Our library has a reserve system.  If an item has been checked out, you can reserve it which adds your name to a list.  When your name comes to the top, you're notified so you can pick it up at the local branch.  And the cool thing is it works for any item in the entire system, and can be done online.  So we use it as a kind of delayed gratification free Netflix.  We put movies (or TV series, i.e. Game of Thrones) on reserve then eventually get watch them.

For Game of Thrones I take the extra step of copying them to an external hard drive so we don't have to try to watch an entire season before they are due.  Previously I used DVDFab, but I was never really happy with it's nagging to purchase the "full" version.

What I wanted was something close to the original DeCSS program - copy the files from the DVD to the external drive while removing the CSS copy protection.  I didn't want to recompress the video to H.264 or anything else.  Seemingly an easier task, but one which many of the popular free programs (like Handbrake) didn't appear to include.

But after a bit of digging, I found a reference to an old Linux tool, dvdbackup, which would do exactly what I wanted.  But was there a MacOS version?  With a little more research I learned dvdbackup (and the required libdvdread and libdvdcss libraries) are part of the MacPorts Project, which brings Linux applications to MacOS.

Fortunately, I already had XCode installed, so it was a (relatively) simple matter to install the MacPorts package and use it to download, compile, and install dvdbackup.  With it I can make a copy of a DVD with a single command:

dvdbackup -v -M -o /Volumes/RED\ SEAGATE/Game\ of\ Thrones/ -p -i /dev/disk3 -n "Season 7 Disc 2.dvdmedia"

RED SEAGATE is the name of the external drive

/dev/disk3 is from the mount command

the dvdmedia extension opens automatically in DVD Player