Handbrake in Ubuntu 12.04

As always with early adoption, a few things aren't there just yet. Handbrake, which is my favourite program for DVD ripping, has no stable release for Ubuntu 12.04. It is possible to use the snapshot repository, which is often stable enough, but I prefer to use a stable version, and also one which does not require updates all the time.

This time it worked out fine just adding the release repository (using apt-add-repository) and then manually changing the word precise to oneiric in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/stebbins-handbrake-releases-precise.list (followed by apt-get update and install handbrake-gtk). For some reason the binary handbrake is called ghb, which could be good to know if for some reason you would like to start it from the command line.

Another thing to notice, if there is a problem reading DVD:s, is to 1) enable the css (content scrambling system) thing, with
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
and 2) check whether it works better with libdvdread (uncheck use dvdnav under preferences->advanced).

However, most copying protection systems are not circumventable with handbrake, so you may have to use another application (possibly even on another OS) to get a clean ISO to work from.