How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X

[gunthermic]

Are you talking about Ripping Tittle 0 vs Title 1 type of thing. Actually just ripping specific titles from the DVD/BD? vs ripping the whole DVVD/BD?

Reading you previous posts, kinda not sure which you mean.

The Batch Rip (Finder) allow you to rip any DVD/BD by itself.

I see what you mean now. I went to encode Expendables and it encodes the wrong version with only 16 Chapters vs the right one with 28 chapters...

So yes a way to pass the title number to encode might help this out..

 

[gunthermic]

Not sure how fairmont works but i actually used this to rip/encode Up the other day. However, I had already removed the CP using anydvdHD. But from that point on, i just used batch encode to convert all the way into M4V. Had no problems with MKVMerge through handbrake.

Fairmont doesnt just remove the CP on the disc? You need to specify the correct files?

With Fairmount you are ripping(removing CP) and making a copy of the DVD.

 

[geerlingguy]

Wow! You make my own Blu-Ray ripping setup seem pedestrian by comparison.

Kudos to posting such an in-depth guide! This is awesome. For those not needing the full automation provided here, MakeMKV is a good alternative

 

[tahitibub]

Hi Mac.Jedi,

Thanks for your fantastic work.

Is it possible to setup the batch.encode script in order to keep two different audio languages (for exemple : english and french) when encoding a DVD ?

Regards

No answer ... Is this too hard to do ?

 

[gunthermic]

No answer ... Is this too hard to do ?

Now I know he does whatever your default does, but not sure about two. maybe he is on vacation. And if you look at the term window it does show the other lang being detected. So maybe... who knows

 

[adobejack]

Orange means that Chapter Title Names were not found or matched.

I have hazel move mine into a hold folder to be looked at, to either type in chapter names or find the correct match of tagChimp.

Red means file integerity check failed.

Green means file encoded, chapters names added and meta data added.

I'm new to all of this, so please excuse me if this question seems too basic, but just what do I loose, if I don't have the chapter title names? As a viewer, where would I come across these?

 

[gunthermic]

I'm new to all of this, so please excuse me if this question seems too basic, but just what do I loose, if I don't have the chapter title names? As a viewer, where would I come across these?

Not at all to basic. Truly you lose nothing. Those of us that are anal about how our encodes are to be as close as the real deal. LOL

The Chapters Titles names would be when you want to go to certain location you see the name of the section vs just Chapter 1 or Chapter 2. Whereas instead I see Going South, or Man Blows up X type of thing...

On a ATV1 or 2 you would see it when you paused, or hittign cetner button to select the chapter to go to. Same i Itunes you get a menu item to show chapters.

I feel it makes the viewing enjoyment increase.

My two cents!

 

[mstrze]

The versions I have (latest ones AFAIK) are set to encode DVD sources by default using the Apple TV preset from Handbrake. You should be able to see what setting the action is using if you open the batch encode action in Automator (in your user folder/Library/Services): mac.jedi describes this at the start of the thread in about post 3. If yours is using something different you can select the Apple TV preset (or whichever preset you want) from the dropdown list.

Well, I opened the Batch Encode Service in Automator and it differs from what is shown in that post 3 in that there is no area to choose what type of encode, as there is in the diagram. It has the options for DVD checked but also has 720p checked...again no options below. See screenshot.



I compared movies that do play back on my ATV and the recent ones that don't using the 'inspector' in QuickTime and the ones that do not play have an extra line of info for fps (frames per second, I assume) and that is at 23.97 or 23.98. Ones that play do not have any fps info listed at all.

Is this a frame rate the my original ATV cannot display? Do I need to upgrade and spend $99? I'm fine with it...since I am now watching non-HD Netflix on my Wii.

 

[gunthermic]

Well, I opened the Batch Encode Service in Automator and it differs from what is shown in that post 3 in that there is no area to choose what type of encode, as there is in the diagram. It has the options for DVD checked but also has 720p checked...again no options below. See screenshot.

View attachment 266642

Thats becuase your on an older version of his scripts. Download and install 1.0.6

The newer version allows you to select what preset to use.

 

[mstrze]

Thats becuase your on an older version of his scripts. Download and install 1.0.6

The newer version allows you to select what preset to use.

Weird, because I downloaded everything fresh from Mac.Jedi's 12/20 update. I had been using his older stuff successfully until then. Once I updated, my newest encodes wouldn't play back. Is the standard in Handbrake now too much for the original ATV?

EDIT: Just re-downloaded and all of those options are indeed there now within the script. How odd.

I'm going to try a fresh encode and see if ATV plays it back without messing with any presets.

 

[gunthermic]

Weird, because I downloaded everything fresh from Mac.Jedi's 12/20 update. I had been using his older stuff successfully until then. Once I updated, my newest encodes wouldn't play back. Is the standard in Handbrake now too much for the original ATV?

EDIT: Just re-downloaded and all of those options are indeed there now within the script. How odd.

I'm going to try a fresh encode and see if ATV plays it back without messing with any presets.

As long as you select ATV1 as the profile you want to use, you should have no problems playing it.

 

[mstrze]

Encodes over the weekend are playable, thanks for the help.

The only issue is with The Empire Strikes Back...I get occasional names of people involved with the film "Kirschner", "Lucas", "Burtt" flash up every 3 minutes or so as a subtitle (it appears on the top of the image). I don't believe I have substitles turned on, in fact I have NEVER seen a subtitle on ATV before. This movie also does the same thing when played back on my Mac through iTunes.

Just an oddity?

 

[grosch]

Leave off Year

Is there any way to get an option so that when I add movie tags it doesn't rename the title to include the year? I really dislike having that, so after every tag I have to then run the rename/retitle service to get rid of it.

 

[Dutch69]

Question for condensed information

This thread is great, but I was wondering if there was a website out there somewhere that contained all the information (software requirements, workflows, etc) without all the posts in between, the posts are great they just kinda get in way after 13 or pages.

I hope that this does not offend anyone or if an answer has already been provided and I missed it.

Thanks a bunch!!!!!!!

 

[SilentPanda]

This thread is great, but I was wondering if there was a website out there somewhere that contained all the information (software requirements, workflows, etc) without all the posts in between, the posts are great they just kinda get in way after 13 or pages.

I hope that this does not offend anyone or if an answer has already been provided and I missed it.

Thanks a bunch!!!!!!!

That's what the first few posts of this thread do.

 

[mac.jedi]

No answer ... Is this too hard to do ?

tahitibub! This is something that I might add in future, but for now Batch Encode is designed to select only one audio track. You should be able to use the custom settings for selecting more than one audio track: -a 1,2,3,4,5

The HandBrakeCLI Guide should help if you're new to setting custom args.

 

[mac.jedi]

Not sure how fairmont works but i actually used this to rip/encode Up the other day. However, I had already removed the CP using anydvdHD. But from that point on, i just used batch encode to convert all the way into M4V. Had no problems with MKVMerge through handbrake.

Fairmont doesnt just remove the CP on the disc? You need to specify the correct files?

Fairmount uses VLC to decrypt the disc. This is similar to the way HandBrake works.

 

[mac.jedi]

Thanks for that. Do you know how to set up a title specific rip? For instance, to properly rip "Up" requires that you rip a specific title on the disc. Is there a way to control Fairmount through Batch Rip to do that?

To rip a specific title on a specific disc, you'll need to it manually. There's no point in automating this. Since you'd have select the title manually.

For BD's I use MakeMKV to extract the chosen title; then use that as the source file for Batch Encode.

For DVD's I just use the HandBrake GUI, but you could use MakeMKV as well.

 

[mac.jedi]

Ok - I'm chugging away nicely with my set-up:

On insert of a DVD, I've got an AppleScript which runs - this calls the Batch Rip (Finder) workflow to kick off ripping the DVD (using MakeMKV).

However, I'm now working on multi-drive simultaneous ripping. I can see that I might run in to a problem.

Whilst ripping with MakeMKV, the Batch Rip workflow creates a temporary mkv file named after the title number of the feature being ripped.

For example, I currently have two discs ripping, one with Title 0 as the main feature, and the other with Title 6. So, in my Batch Rip folder I now have two temp mkv's named:

title00.mkv and title06.mkv

Now, what happens when I have two DVDs whose main titles are the same title number?

Will MakeMKV handle this automatically, or will the two simultaneous rips (of the same title number) try to overwrite each other?

If it's the latter, is there anything that could be changed in the Batch Rip action that could work around this?

Thanks,
Chris

EDIT: Bah. Answered my own question -- they both try to rip to the same file:

Minerva:~ chris$ lsof | grep title
makemkvco 55717 chris   14u     REG       14,2 187564032 2885958 /Users/chris/Movies/Batch Rip Movies/title00.mkv
makemkvco 56041 chris   14u     REG       14,2 186777600 2885958 /Users/chris/Movies/Batch Rip Movies/title00.mkv

Can the Batch Rip action be tweaked to provide a random (or otherwise) output filename to makemkvcon? I see the current command line for makemkvcon is:

chris    55717   5.2 14.0   791132 585280   ??  U    12:33am   0:35.18 /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/MacOS/makemkvcon mkv --messages=-null --progress=/tmp/batchRip-55222/HannibalRising2007/0-makemkv.txt disc:1 0 /Users/chris/Movies/Batch Rip Movies
chris    56041   2.8 13.2   791628 554188   ??  U    12:33am   0:20.72 /Applications/MakeMKV.app/Contents/MacOS/makemkvcon mkv --messages=-null --progress=/tmp/batchRip-55480/BigTroubleinLittleChina1986/0-makemkv.txt disc:0 0 /Users/chris/Movies/Batch Rip Movies

... perhaps the Batch Rip action could amend this command line to use different output names?

Also, I've noticed that there's a problem with automatically ejecting the discs when multi-drive ripping. The first disc that completes cannot be ejected. It un-mounts from the desktop but does not eject. Disk Utility, when used to manually eject the disc, reports that it's in-use. However, lsof doesn't show anything accessing the drive. Very odd!

Copying two BD's at the same time is not recommended. From past experience, each makemkvcon process tries to take over the other process's disc; and will mount and unmount the other process's disc if direct disc access is disabled in MakeMKV … this can be really messy.

This is why Batch Rip does BD's in a queue. DVD's can copy at the same time since Fairmount only mounts a decrypted disc image and doesn't actually do any copying on it's own.

 

[speckryche]

Batch Rip Red Files

Hello - I see that when a rip'd file is changed to red that means there is some sort of error - what I am not finding is what can be done with the rip'd file at that point? Any guidance there? I have a dozen or so that I need to deal with.
Thank you very much!

 

[GroundLoop]

I have a question which is slightly off topic (but I am still a noob to this stuff)...

I have downloaded the latest Batch Rip actions and installed all of the software identified in the tutorial.

Here is what I am trying to accomplish:

"Rip a full-quality .mkv file from a BD while maintaining the lossless audio track, the typical 5.1, and the forced subtitles."

The Batch Rip action almost gets me there as the .mkv output file provided the first three items (albeit with a 30GB+ file - but space is not an issue).

My question is, how can I add forced subtitles to the file that is output from the Batch Rip action without losing any of the quality from this file.

Just an FYI, these files are being used strictly for home theater/media server purposes and will NOT be used on any Apple iOS devices (AppleTV/iPT/iPad/iPhone).

Any help that can be provided is greatly appreciated.

GL

 

[gunthermic]

I have a question which is slightly off topic (but I am still a noob to this stuff)...

I have downloaded the latest Batch Rip actions and installed all of the software identified in the tutorial.

Here is what I am trying to accomplish:

"Rip a full-quality .mkv file from a BD while maintaining the lossless audio track, the typical 5.1, and the forced subtitles."

The Batch Rip action almost gets me there as the .mkv output file provided the first three items (albeit with a 30GB+ file - but space is not an issue).

My question is, how can I add forced subtitles to the file that is output from the Batch Rip action without losing any of the quality from this file.

Just an FYI, these files are being used strictly for home theater/media server purposes and will NOT be used on any Apple iOS devices (AppleTV/iPT/iPad/iPhone).

Any help that can be provided is greatly appreciated.

GL

In order to get the subtitles you have several options. The MKV file that the Batch rip created has the info. However you can encode with the Encode action, which then takes the PGS files and creates them as a temp file to be encoded back into the file. This is done via the several programs he has you install.

To not use his batch encode you would have to get the SRT files from various places and the use HB to bring that into the encode file.

That is the basics of it. There are som many differnet ways to accomplish this. And it depends what your ending file is to be.

 

[GroundLoop]

In order to get the subtitles you have several options. The MKV file that the Batch rip created has the info. However you can encode with the Encode action, which then takes the PGS files and creates them as a temp file to be encoded back into the file. This is done via the several programs he has you install.

To not use his batch encode you would have to get the SRT files from various places and the use HB to bring that into the encode file.

That is the basics of it. There are som many differnet ways to accomplish this. And it depends what your ending file is to be.

I am not at home at the moment to verify this, but I thought that Encode action did not have the option to maintain a 1080p, MKV file with the lossless audio intact.

Is that not correct?

GL

 

[gunthermic]

I am not at home at the moment to verify this, but I thought that Encode action did not have the option to maintain a 1080p, MKV file with the lossless audio intact.

Is that not correct?

GL

Yes you are correct it does not do this. However in the encodign you can choose a preset(from HB) or create your own and use that instead to create the file you want.

I get confused on audio myself. I get DD 5.1 and AAC 2.0 into my files. But I beleive your talking about AAC 5.1?

 

[GroundLoop]

Yes you are correct it does not do this. However in the encodign you can choose a preset(from HB) or create your own and use that instead to create the file you want.

I get confused on audio myself. I get DD 5.1 and AAC 2.0 into my files. But I beleive your talking about AAC 5.1?

No, I want to maintain the LPCM, DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD passthrough (7.1 - since I have a 7.1 set-up in my home).

GL