Copy video files from a video CD (VCD).

There are a lot of outdated media storage devices still around, some of them are not actively being used but may contain important content. In this article we will try and copy files from a VCD.

Requirements

You need to have VLC, mplayer, and ffmpeg. Run the following commands to install the softwares if they are not available in your system.

sudo add-apt-repository universe && sudo apt update;
sudo apt install vlc mplayer mplayer-gui ffmpeg

Copying the video or audio files from the VCD.

After you have installed the necessary softwares, the next task is to copy the files from the target VCD. Load VCD in the player/tray (computer tray) then open the VLC media player and follow the following steps.

  1. Click "Media" in the menu.
  2. Click "Open disc.." sub menu.
  3. Select "Disc" tab if not selected.
  4. Select SVCD/VCD option.
  5. Make sure "/dev/sr0" is selected in the "Disc device".
  6. Click play.

VLC media player will allow you to view the list of tracks or video files available for copying. The next thing on our list is to copy the target files into our computer.

You can use mplayer software to copy any files from the VCD using the following command.

mplayer vcd://2 -dumpstream -dumpfile destination_file.mpg

The two '2' is the track number to copy, you can enter any track number in that position provided there is such track number in the VCD.

'destination_file.mpg' is the result file.

You can later use ffmpeg to make it .mp4 using the following command.

ffmpeg -i destination_file.mpg destination_file.mp4

You can play the media inside the VCD directly without copying either by using the VLC media player as stated above or by using the mplayer software as follows:

mplayer vcd://'the-target-track'