On Wed, 12 Feb 2020 22:13:29 -0500 Kevin Becker kevin@kevinbecker.org wrote:
I haven't had the need to copy a DVD in over a decade and the last time I did it was probably under OS X, possibly even Windows, using some commercial tool. But recently my stepfather came to me with a DVD that had been made from a home video that he wanted several copies of. It is not copy protected in any way, just a plain DVD video disk. I have an external USB DVD drive which seems to work okay, but honestly I barely use it for anything. I tried using Brasero but it seems to read the disk quickly at first and then become progressively slower and slower until it gets to 99% and then stays there for hours and hours. I used the dvdbackup command line program and was able to make a backup and burn it with growisofs with no problem so I'm not sure why Brasero didn't work. Does anyone have any recommendation for a simple GUI DVD copying tool? I'm not worried about breaking copy protection here. I'm fine with the command line tools but I do this so infrequently that it would be nice to have a GUI app that doesn't require me to look up notes or search the internet for instructions to refresh my memory the next time I want to do this in 2036.
Like you, I haven't burned a DVD in a while, but I used the program k3b to do so the last time I did, and it worked fine. I have brasero installed as well, so next time I'll give it a try to see if it will work for me.
I wonder if your external drive had a power issue; mine is internal. Or, maybe the lense needs cleaning with some isopropyl alcohol, using a q-tip or cotton ball.