[MPlayer-users] -dumpfile with dvd:// - determine output file size?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

I've written a GUI which allows my users to select a DVD title, audio and 
subtitle tracks and import them to my server for playback. I should point 
out here that my purpose is not piracy; the application is a screen server 
for a movie theatre which occasionally needs to play back DVDs, and it's 
more reliable to extract them to hard disk first.

To do so, I'm using the -dumpfile commandline switch to create a composite 
.vob of the entire title. I would like to be able to give my users a 
progress bar or percentage-complete indication, even if it's fairly 
approximate. At the moment I am simply reading the size of the output file 
to give the user some indication that something is happening, but I have no 
indication of how large the file will eventually be. It seems to be roughly 
the same size as the .vobs on the DVD that make up that title, but not 
exactly, and in any case I have no way of identifying which .vobs make up 
which title without parsing the .ifo files, which is a bit outside the scope 
of the project. I know the duration of the title, but with VBR compression 
on DVDs that would end up being hopelessly inaccurate.

Is there any way I can get information which will allow me to give the user 
a progress report? Even just the .vob filenames would be useful, or perhaps 
an indication of the expected output filesize. It's OK if I have run mplayer 
against the DVD several times with different commandline switches to get 
this information. My filesize strategy may not be the best approach, so any 
suggestions welcomed.

Thanks,

Phil