DVDFab on Linux & Wine

Has anyone gotten the 30 day full function trial to work in recent vintage Wine (1.1.7 or later)?

http://www.dvdfab.com/download.htm

When I install DVDFab 5.1.1.0 on a new Wine installation, and I select a feature like Split, which is supposed to be enabled for 30 days, DVDFab complains that the feature is only available in the "full" version, i.e. DVDFab thinks the 30 days have run out, even though everything's been installed for about 2 weeks (Ubuntu 8.10, Wine, DVDFab).

I removed and re-installed 5.1.1.0 and updated wine to 1.1.8 and the Split function now works. DVDFab reports the 30 day trial active.

Several issues-

First, you should basically always use the latest Wine (be aware of regressions in new versions), which is currently 1.1.27-

http://www.winehq.org/site/download

and use the Autodetect drives option in the Winecfg GUI (Drives tab) to detect/set up your optical drives.

Second, you should always use the latest DVDFab, currently 6.0.4.0

http://www.dvdfab.com/download.htm

Newish DVD releases may use new anti-rip tricks that older Fab versions can't handle.

Third, in all the time I've used DVDfab on Ubuntu under Wine, Fab has never reliably auto-detected DVD insertions into the DVD drive after Fab is already running- could be the optical drive auto mount daemon used by Ubuntu or some interaction between the drive mount daemon and Wine and/or Fab. IMGburn under Wine on my same setup always auto-detects disc insertions, so its probably something to do with Fab's disc detection routines not getting along well with Wine's drive handling routines.

The process I follow is to first insert the DVD, let it mount to the desktop (Gnome in my case), THEN launch DVDfab, which should nearly always find the DVD in the drive automatically when it starts. If it doesn't see the disc, exit Fab, eject and re-insert the DVD, then launch Fab again.

If you have multiple discs to rip, you need to exit Fab after a disc is done, insert the next DVD, let it mount to the desktop, then launch Fab again. It sounds like a hassle, but after a few times, it's not really any extra effort, assuming you have an icon on the desktop for DVDfab, since Fab saves all settings and paths in the GUI. You shouldn't have to change anything when you re-launch Fab.

Other distros may work with Fab better for auto detecting DVD disc changes while Fab is running if they handle optical drive mounting differently, YMMV.

AFAIK, Fab should rip all non-BD+ BluRays, but I haven't tried BD's, only DVD's.

I believe the DVDFab guys are feverishly reverse engineering AnyDVD, so Linux should be good to go re: BD+ ripping via Fab in a few months...

Yes, the current version 7.0.4.0
http://www.dvdfab.com/en/download.htm

works as well as ever for me on Wine 1.1.36 on Ubuntu 9.04.

I only use it for processing DVD's- rip to hard disk, splitting a dual layer DVD into two single layer halves with menus on both (to preserve 100% quality with no reencoding- I kinda like switching disks during the movie- good time for a break, and reminds us HT old timers of the good 'ole LaserDisk days ), and sometimes using Fab's built in shrink function to reduce a dual layer DVD to single layer. Most of the time I prefer the classic DVD Shrink under Wine for shrinkg DL->SL as it's encoding is higher quality, though it takes longer.

Someone with a BD-ROM drive will have to test...

I don't see why it wouldn't work.

The current version supposedly handles most/all of the BD+ discs.

Be my guest...

...though I think the whole point and purpose of DVDFab is backup of optical media...

We might want to move the relevant archive/backup media posts to the new thread...

...might want to start an .mkv thread for those posts, too...

I requested the backup media posts and mkv posts be moved to their own threads.

From here on, we'll keep to howto/tech talk on running DVDFab in Wine...

I've noticed that the DVDFab 7.x series leaves an "afterimage" of itself in the upper left of the screen upon exit. Mousing over or moving a window over this GUI artifact "erases" it, or simply maximizing any window erases it- just an annoyance.

I thought that the latest versions of Fab, Wine and Ubuntu might resolve this, but it appears to still be an issue with WIne 1.1.44, Fab 7.0.5.8 beta and Ubuntu 10.04.

Doesn't appear to harm anything, just an annoying GUI artifact- probably Fab trying to display a "Buy me" (or maybe some exit error) or similar message on exit.

Anyone else NOT getting this on other distros?

...or some interaction among Wine, X, and video driver.


Are you using KDE or Gnome? This is happening on Gnome...

Time to try Fab 7062 with Wine 1.2rc1. I expect the GUI artifact behavior to just go away with some combination of Fab, Wine, Gnome, X or video driver update.