Home Video (DVD) Backup Process

This is a work in progress, but is my current process for quickly backing up my home video's. I shoot home video's with a DVD camcorder.

I use Linux, and the following php script makes a copy of the original VOB, then makes a light weight VCD quality copy. This would probably work under Windows with very minimal adjustments.

Before running this process, I backup the original DVD by simply copying it to full size DVD+R media.

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
 
        // Make sure single argument was passed
        if ($argc != 2)
        {
                showSyntax();
                exit;
        }
 
        // Show info
        echo "Home DVD Machine\n\n";
 
        // Run the first
        echo "Copying VOB file...\n";
        passthru("cp /cdrom/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB {$argv[1]}.vob");
 
        // Run the next
        echo "Converting to VCD format...\n";
        passthru("ffmpeg -i {$argv[1]}.vob -target vcd {$argv[1]}.mpeg1");
 
	function showSyntax()
	{
		echo "Syntax: dvd [name]\n";
	}
 
?>

I have more information about video formats and codecs, ripping home video from a DVD, a story board sketching, and more on my Digital Video page.