Translating the Debian install instructions to tor network use, we have:

  torsocks wget https://apt.benthetechguy.net/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg
  echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg] tor://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/benthetechguy.list
  apt update
  apt install makemkv

apt update yields:

Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Err:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
  Connection failed [IP: 127.0.0.1 9050]

Turns out apt.benthetechguy.net is jailed in Cloudflare. And apparently the code is not developed out in the open – there is no public code repo or even a bug tracker. Even the forums are a bit exclusive (registration on a particular host is required and disposable email addresses are refused). There is no makemkv IRC channel (according to netsplit.de).

There is a blurb somewhere that the author is looking to get MakeMKV into the official Debian repos and is looking for a sponsor (someone with a Debian account). But I wonder if this project would even qualify for the non-free category. Debian does not just take any non-free s/w… it’s more for drivers and the like.

Alternatives?

The reason I looked into #makemkv was that Handbrake essentially forces users into a long CPU-intensive transcoding process. It cannot simply rip the bits as they are. MakeMKV relieves us of transcoding at the same time as ripping. But getting it is a shit show.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      I haven’t checked, but ffmpeg is super versatile. It does a lot of stuff, even esoteric and niche things… Sometimes depends on what flags are set when compiling it, so the Linux distros don’t always include everything ffmpeg is capable of.

    • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.eeEnglish
      31·
      3 days ago

      Doesn’t look like it supports libdvdcss in any way.

      Check that library and look for alternatives. dvdbackup is what I used back in the day.

      Edit: looks like people still use dvdbackup. Which is open source. Dump the disk with it and then use handbrake.

      Though I don’t know if this will be raw video passthrough like MakeMKV. But you probably want to compress it anyway. I don’t know why you’d want to keep a 8GB 1080p video in 2025 with the modern compression we have today. This is why there is CPU intensive stuff happening in handbrake. It’s using modern compression. Do you not want this? Just want to dump the massive files and be done?

      Wish I had time to mess around making something like this. There definitely SHOULD be an open source project. These are all very doable things. My guess is it’s just not worth anyone’s effort when MakeMKV or dvdbackup exist.

      • evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.orgOPEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        What’s the point of spending a day compressing something that I only need to watch once?

        If I pop into the public library and start a ripping process using Handbrake, the library will close for the day before the job is complete for a single title. I could check-out the media, but there are trade-offs:

        • no one else can access the disc while you have it out
        • some libraries charge a fee for media check-outs
        • privacy (I avoid netflix & the like to prevent making a record in a DB of everything I do; checking out a movie still gets into a DB)
        • libraries tend to have limits on the number of media discs you can have out at a given moment
        • checking out a dozen DVDs will take a dozen days to transcode, which becomes a race condition with the due date
        • probably a notable cost in electricity, at least on my old hardware