Examples of backing up DVD’s with Handbrake / HandbrakeCLI

Backup with default language:
HandBrakeCLI –main-feature -i /dev/cdrom -o movie.mp4 -e x264 -b 1000 -B 192

Backup with 2nd language:
For example English language DVD with additional Japanese audio track. The switch “-a” and then the number for the audio track desired will replace the default audio in the resulting mp4 file.
HandBrakeCLI –main-feature -i /dev/cdrom -o movie.mp4 -e x264 -b 1000 -B 192 -a 2

Backup with default language and subs:
HandBrakeCLI –main-feature -i /dev/cdrom -o movie.mp4 -e x264 -b 1000 -B 192 -N jpn

NOTE: The “–main-feature” results in an initial scan of the media to find and correct inconsistencies. This is helpful if the DVD authors have anticipated the media to be copied and therefore randomly scrambled the order of the chapters.

Enabling DVD backup / playback on Debian Wheezy

First ensure that apt has access to the relevant sources. My /etc/apt/sources.list is as follows (please update to reflect your local mirror – I’m in Japan, hence the “jp”):
deb http://ftp.jp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.jp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib
deb http://ftp.jp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.jp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org wheezy main non-free

Run update:
apt-get update

Install the deb-multimedia keyring:
apt-get install deb-multimedia-keyring

Run update:
apt-get update

Run dist-upgrade:
apt-get dist-upgrade

Install all libdvdcss packages:
apt-get install libdvdcss*

Try it out with vlc or Handbrake or your favorite player

If there are issues, try installing libavcodec-extra:
apt-get install libavcodec-extra-53

Building HandbrakeCLI from source on Debian Wheezy

Install prerequisite packages for the build:
sudo apt-get install subversion yasm build-essential autoconf libtool zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev libxml2-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libsamplerate-dev libfribidi-dev libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libass-dev libmp3lame-dev libx264-dev intltool libglib2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgtk-3-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libwebkitgtk-3.0-dev libnotify-dev libappindicator-dev libtheora-dev

Checkout the code from svn:
svn checkout svn://svn.handbrake.fr/HandBrake/trunk hb-trunk

Enter the directory and run configure:
cd hb-trunk/
./configure –disable-gtk –launch

Enter build directory and run make:
cd build
sudo make install

We’re done! Run Handbrake and try it out:
HandBrakeCLI

How to use openssl to create a certificate (CER) and PFX file to connect to Azure using the App Controller

First create the certificate for upload to the Azure account via the Azure web page:
jonas@nyx:~$ openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout privateKey.key -out certificate.cer
It will ask for country, name, etc. Just enter something.

Next, create the pfx file required for the App Controller:
jonas@nyx:~$ openssl pkcs12 -export -in certificate.cer -inkey privateKey.key -out certificate.pfx

The App controller will also ask for Subscription ID This is listed under “settings” in your Azure account (far bottom on the left hand pane)

XenDesktop 7.5 mapped drive execute permission

By default it’s not possible to run executables (install software) from a client drive which has been mapped to a XenDesktop VM. A work around is to copy the files to a network share and run the installation from there, but it takes time and can be a fair bit of extra work.

Instead, it’s possible to enable execute permissions via a quick and simple registry modification on the VDA (the XenDesktop VM). No DDC or client PC changes are required.

  1. Start “regedit”
  2. Navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\GroupPolicy\Defaults\”
  3. Add the key “CDMSettings”
  4. Add the following DWORD value: “ExecuteFromMappedDrive”
  5. Set “ExecuteFromMappedDrive” to “1”

A restart of the VM is required for the changes to take effect.

Tested on XenServer 6.2 with XenDesktop 7.5 on a Dell R720 with NVIDIA K2 GPU card (K240Q and K260Q vGPUs assigned to the VMs).

XenDesktop75_execute_from_mapped_drive