I own an IMAC, and am about to buy a PS3. I would love to take advantage of the blue ray player but also back up the discs on my external hard drive. What software would you suggest I use to rip the disc so I can xfer it to my external? Also, will it deal with any copyright protections on the disc?
Your question is out of my experience, but not that of others here. If it's not answered here, try these: Digital video discussion for Mac users http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/56 Blue-ray discussion http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/200 DVD ripping http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/200 You might also search for 'rip' on MacUpdate.com, and see which will work on Blue-ray discs. (Because the players have been around for some time, I doubt the backup-prevention schemes differ much from the usual.) My understanding is that, if you buy a Sony PlayStation 3 (which is selling itself as a media display center, not just a game machine), you'll be able to boot a 'variety' of Windows with DRM and 'Yellow Dog' Linux without. It's also my understanding that you can replace 'Yellow Dog' with a free, open-source Linux. Your iMac & PS3 could then dual-boot the same Linux. (Just for simplicity. Yellow Dog is for PPC, supported freely by Fedora, Debian, & Gentoo; but many Linux distributions have dropped support for the PPC processor.) Linux on your Apple Mac (Belgian site) http://mac.linux.be/ The KDE3 desktop resembles (to me) that on MacOSX, but GNOME became an accidental alternative. Both allow backups of copy-protected optical media. Foreseeing this upon buying a PS3, you could also ask on these forums: PS3 - General Discussion http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/153 Digital video discussion for Linux users http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/162
In PS3 linux terminal: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/BluRay_title.iso FTP it over to your iMac and use MakeMKV to convert it into a movie file you can store on your external drive. Haven't used MakeMKV for BluRay yet. Looking for a more direct approach (internal BluRay mod for my MPB hopefully) before trying it out.
Sony's PlayStation 3 I'm still looking into, after it supports 3.0 Mbit/sec WiFi. It would seem reasonable for someone who has one now, and is experienced with Linux, to try various Bourne-shell scripts in Yellow Dog (unlikely) or a free Linux, and list successful ones in the Video for Linux Users forum. Yellow-Dog or free Gentoo, Debian, Fedora Linux for the PPC processor Blu-Ray would be of particular interest. Here are some possible options to the beloved 'dd': http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Backup_a_DVD Here's a free, Debian command-line application: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/DecryptHD-27766.shtml Here's a very simple 'shareware' application, also in .tar.gz: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/DumpHD-48211.shtml MacOSX (check requirements) On Macs, it's very easy to momentarily open a port for ftp, though ssh is preferred on an open network. When PS3 supports WiFi, you'll probably build a secure connection immediately. (Regularly I learn & forget how to establish a TCP/ip connection over a normal, twisted-wire ethernet cable.) Should one have an external Blu-Ray DVD writer, here's a strange, little program for MacOSX 10.4: http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Pavtube-Blu-Ray-Ripper.shtml
