Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X
- Thread starter mac.jedi
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Thank you so much for these scripts. I have encoded a hundred or so DVDs with great results so far.
I picked up an HD-DVD drive to start ripping those since the format is now obsolete and I've run into a problem. The Batch Rip scripts do not recognize HD-DVDs as a valid input, so I ripped the movies manually with MakeMKV. I then pointed the Batch Encode script at the MKV files.
The resulting files will play just fine in iTunes and on the new AppleTV. The issue is that there is no surround sound, only stereo. When I encode from a DVD rip I get 2 audio tracks, one in stereo and one that is 5.1. I'm trying to figure out how to get the same results from my MKVs. When I open the latest handbrake GUI and insert one of the MKVs as a source, it seems to encode both stereo and 5.1 by default on the AppleTV 2 preset, which is what I am using with the Batch Encode script. Here is the terminal output from one of the files (sorry, didn't have verbose logging on at the time):
PROCESSING: 12 Monkeys (1995)
*Scanning File: '12 Monkeys (1995)'
Will encode the following tracks: 1
*Muxing Main Video, Audio (A_EAC3-eng) and Subtitle Tracks from temp files
Progress: 100%
HandBrake svn3740 (2011011101) - Darwin x86_64 - http://handbrake.fr
*Creating 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Video Track: 1, Duration: 02:09:40, Size: 1920x1080
Audio Track: 1, English (EAC3) (5.1 ch) (iso639-2: eng)
Subtitle Tracks:
+ 1, English (iso639-2: eng) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
+ 2, Spanish (iso639-2: spa) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
+ 3, French (iso639-2: fra) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
Using AppleTV 2/720p-toolArgs: -e x264 -q 20.0 -r 29.97 --pfr -a 1,1 -E ca_aac,copy:ac3 -B 160,160 -6 dpl2,auto -R Auto,Auto -D 0.0,0.0 -f mp4 -4 --width 1280 --maxHeight 720 -m --subtitle scan --subtitle-burn --subtitle-forced scan --native-language eng
Muxing: this may take awhile...(8.32 fps, avg 10.11 fps, ETA 01h16m55s))
*Adding Meta Tags to 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Searching TMDb for 12+Monkeys... Title found
*Writing tags with AtomicParsley
Started writing to temp file.
102030405060708090100
Finished writing to temp file.
*Adding Chapter Names to 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Searching TagChimp for chapter names... Could not find a match
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PROCESSING COMPLETE: 12 Monkeys (1995)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I haven't really looked into the various arguments for the handbrake CLI yet, maybe that's where I need to start. Any ideas anyone?
I picked up an HD-DVD drive to start ripping those since the format is now obsolete and I've run into a problem. The Batch Rip scripts do not recognize HD-DVDs as a valid input, so I ripped the movies manually with MakeMKV. I then pointed the Batch Encode script at the MKV files.
The resulting files will play just fine in iTunes and on the new AppleTV. The issue is that there is no surround sound, only stereo. When I encode from a DVD rip I get 2 audio tracks, one in stereo and one that is 5.1. I'm trying to figure out how to get the same results from my MKVs. When I open the latest handbrake GUI and insert one of the MKVs as a source, it seems to encode both stereo and 5.1 by default on the AppleTV 2 preset, which is what I am using with the Batch Encode script. Here is the terminal output from one of the files (sorry, didn't have verbose logging on at the time):
PROCESSING: 12 Monkeys (1995)
*Scanning File: '12 Monkeys (1995)'
Will encode the following tracks: 1
*Muxing Main Video, Audio (A_EAC3-eng) and Subtitle Tracks from temp files
Progress: 100%
HandBrake svn3740 (2011011101) - Darwin x86_64 - http://handbrake.fr
*Creating 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Video Track: 1, Duration: 02:09:40, Size: 1920x1080
Audio Track: 1, English (EAC3) (5.1 ch) (iso639-2: eng)
Subtitle Tracks:
+ 1, English (iso639-2: eng) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
+ 2, Spanish (iso639-2: spa) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
+ 3, French (iso639-2: fra) (Bitmap)(VOBSUB)
Using AppleTV 2/720p-toolArgs: -e x264 -q 20.0 -r 29.97 --pfr -a 1,1 -E ca_aac,copy:ac3 -B 160,160 -6 dpl2,auto -R Auto,Auto -D 0.0,0.0 -f mp4 -4 --width 1280 --maxHeight 720 -m --subtitle scan --subtitle-burn --subtitle-forced scan --native-language eng
Muxing: this may take awhile...(8.32 fps, avg 10.11 fps, ETA 01h16m55s))
*Adding Meta Tags to 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Searching TMDb for 12+Monkeys... Title found
*Writing tags with AtomicParsley
Started writing to temp file.
102030405060708090100
Finished writing to temp file.
*Adding Chapter Names to 12 Monkeys (1995).m4v
Searching TagChimp for chapter names... Could not find a match
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PROCESSING COMPLETE: 12 Monkeys (1995)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I haven't really looked into the various arguments for the handbrake CLI yet, maybe that's where I need to start. Any ideas anyone?
First, wanna send me that drive when your done? LOL I have about 20 HD ones collecting dust! Beter yet which one did you buy? from where?
Second ensure you are using HB 0.9.5 it does do AC3 encoding. Have you tried to open 12 Monkey's MKV and tried to encde from the GUI instead of the Batch Encode Script? Click the Audio Tab and does it show the 2 audio tracks?
The drive I bought is the Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon. It is recognized and available when hooked up by USB. It doesn't require any additional configuration. It is still available through a number of third party sellers on Amazon. It works well, it only takes me about forty minutes to rip to MKV. However, it would still be nice if the Batch Encode script recognized HD-DVD as a valid input. I'm sure this isn't a priority for mac.jedi since it's a dead format.
I have the handbrake 0.9.5 GUI installed along with one of the nightly CLIs from around the time that 0.9.5 was released. I haven't tried an actual encode with the GUI yet (that's my next step), but when I put in one of the ripped MKVs as a source and pull up the AppleTV 2 preset the audio tab does show two tracks, one stereo and one surround. It's puzzling. I'll do a test encode today with the GUI and see what I get. Maybe I'll update my CLI as well.
After doing some further reading, I'm starting to think the problem may be with Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital+ tracks. Maybe I need to do some work on the MKVs to transcode these down to standard Dolby Digital AC3 tracks prior to putting the MKVs in handbrake.
That would be annoying, as it would require an extra manual step for each disc. The big appeal of this process is that it's automated and that the only input required of me is to switch out the disc and pick the movie name once or twice per hour.
Call me crazy, but his process I thought does handle the re-muxing of the sound as well? (hope I am using the right verbaige).
The GUI and CLI are not always the exact same. If however opening your 12 Monkey's MKV and it does show the 2 tracks in audio. Encode it that way and what are the results?
I ran the same MKV through a quick test encode on the GUI version of handbrake and I still get just the one stereo track, despite being set to encode two tracks. I'm thinking it's a problem with Dolby Digital+. I may try to find some program to convert the audio to regular AC3. Hopefully I can do this separately without re-encoding the video.
In the meantime, I'll go back to ripping DVDs until I can sort this audio issue out. It's much faster than HD-DVD in terms of encoding anyway.
Apparently someone else is having the same problem:
https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19642
According to that thread, this should be fixed in the most recent handbrake nightly, which I have just installed. I'll run my MKV through the new nightly and see what happens. Maybe I'll update my GUI to the nightly too. I've usually been using a nightly CLI and leaving the GUI on a stable release.
Edit: Excellent! The latest nightly build seems to have fixed the issue, as documented in the handbrake forum thread linked above. It'll take at least two days to re-encode my initial batch of HD-DVDs, but at least I can get working audio without a whole separate audio encoding process.
https://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19642
According to that thread, this should be fixed in the most recent handbrake nightly, which I have just installed. I'll run my MKV through the new nightly and see what happens. Maybe I'll update my GUI to the nightly too. I've usually been using a nightly CLI and leaving the GUI on a stable release.
Edit: Excellent! The latest nightly build seems to have fixed the issue, as documented in the handbrake forum thread linked above. It'll take at least two days to re-encode my initial batch of HD-DVDs, but at least I can get working audio without a whole separate audio encoding process.
Last edited:
Awesome, thanks for heads up. Now tryign to decide to get a HD drive to hook to a system or not. You hook your HD to a PC or a MAC?
I'm using it with a macbook pro. From what I've read, it should work on Windows as well. I thought I also saw something somewhere about some drivers that may improve performance, at least on Windows XP.
The .mkv to .mv4 encodes are slow going. I've decided to shift the HD encoding over to my wife's newer i5 macbook pro, while I continue with the DVD encodes on my older C2D machine. The encodes are at least 50% faster on her laptop.
Makes me long for an updated MBP if they are released later this year. This is probably the most processor intensive thing I've ever done on a computer, I've had my laptop pegged at 100% for 20 hours a day far over a week now!
Good info to have. I love these scripts, but for BD I use the Mac-Mini becuase t's easier the way here has it all set to handle MKV's and the subtitles, Audio. I do most DVD's on my i7 core PC. Becuase it ripps and encodes so freaking fast. 40-60 minture from rip to fully encoded and Meta tagged. So i can go through around 50-60 a weekend. Have 1200 some to do. I have had the mac-mini on non-stop since begining of dec doing this stuff. 700 done... whew..
I will look for a HD-player then. Hate to throw mine away. My DVD player for hoem theater still plays BD and HD's.. so lucky on that part.
So I've been doing some additional reading and I think I may start over on DVDs too. I've been using the Universal preset, but from what I'm reading it looks like I'll get better quality from the AppleTV 2 preset, which I've only been using for HD sources thus far.
I'm primarily using the encodes on the ATV2, though I also have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. It sounds likes preserving compatibility for older devices comes with a quality cost. Since I'll be watching the movies on a 110" projection screen, every little bit counts.
I'm running a test encode of a DVD now with the ATV2 preset. If I can perceive any improvement at all, I'll just throw my whole 1TB folder of rips I've done so far into Batch Encode and leave it to do it's thing for a few days. I'm glad I didn't trash the rips as I went. If it really seems like there's no difference, I'll consider just using the new preset going forward and keeping the existing encodes.
I'm primarily using the encodes on the ATV2, though I also have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. It sounds likes preserving compatibility for older devices comes with a quality cost. Since I'll be watching the movies on a 110" projection screen, every little bit counts.
I'm running a test encode of a DVD now with the ATV2 preset. If I can perceive any improvement at all, I'll just throw my whole 1TB folder of rips I've done so far into Batch Encode and leave it to do it's thing for a few days. I'm glad I didn't trash the rips as I went. If it really seems like there's no difference, I'll consider just using the new preset going forward and keeping the existing encodes.
I restarted mine so many times. I had a ATV1 and ATV2, and a iPad. I started then stopped. Feel your pain. It wasn't until mac.jedi stuff that I started to keep my rips and stuff. Heck I went out and bought a mac-mini just to use his scripts. I had a external 3TB Seagate drive, that I have now replaces with a 411j NAS with 4 2-TB drives just for rips. Guess what' it almost full now. Lookign at 4 3TB drives instead. Man the hours to replace them in a RAID 5 is going to be days and days.
Keepign the rips serves two purposes, one you can re-encode if it's a bad encode and that does happen(get a bunch of pixalation, bad audio sync). Second in case they come out with a Newer preset that works better, you can just select them and walk away.. Of course all depending on HD space.
Big differance between Universal and ATV2 preset. But as always encode to your lowest denomitator. I got rid of my ATV1 becuase I wan't higher quality encodes for ATV2.
The ATV2 test encode I did wasn't any better than the universal preset to my eyes. I may just forge ahead and do future encodes with the ATV2 preset. Since I saved the rips, it won't be too painful if at the end of the process I want to re-encode all the early DVDs as a single large batch.
In terms of storage, I went with a Drobo. I knew early on that my storage requirements would get out of hand quickly. The nice thing about the Drobo is that it can act as a single large drive. It plays nice as a network drive too. I have it hooked to my Time Capsule's USB port. Sometimes I pull it off of the router and hook it straight to the computer for really large file transfers. It works well and streams HD encodes to the ATV2 without a hitch.
The other big advantages to the Drobo are data protection and upgradability. Any one of the four drives can be swapped out at any time without data loss if the drive fails or you want to increase capacity. I currently have four 2TB drives in it, but it will accept up to 16TB of total storage. I'm thinking that will last a while.
You can hope the it will last a while. LOL I went with the 411j becuase was cheaper. Same capabilites i think. I do link it manages everything, I have it hooked to router and both PC and MAC can write to it with no software install. Maintain both PC and MAC attrib. Which is awesome.
I am almost to the point of doing TV Shows which is going to require alot of time becuase of episode stuff.
I spent the weekend ripping and encoding my small HD-DVD collection and haven't seen any problems yet.
BTW thanks for the pointer about using a XBOX 360 drive. I picked one up on Amazon for $19.99. Worked like a charm. Thought that I was going to have to keep my old HD-DVD player around just to have to play these.
multiple audio/subtitle tracks
Hello,
Thanks very much for your scripts.
Is there a way to specify that all subtitle tracks and all audio tracks should be
conserved?
I opened your scripts in automator, but I did not find a way to change the source code that is behind these automator scripts. If I knew how to do this, I could add a loop over all subtitles and all audio tracks and then change the commandline to drive the Handbrakecli accordingly.
All help appreciated!
Hello,
Thanks very much for your scripts.
Is there a way to specify that all subtitle tracks and all audio tracks should be
conserved?
I opened your scripts in automator, but I did not find a way to change the source code that is behind these automator scripts. If I knew how to do this, I could add a loop over all subtitles and all audio tracks and then change the commandline to drive the Handbrakecli accordingly.
All help appreciated!
Finishing
Wow, what an adventure. I bought a Mac Mini just to use these scripts to do my 1000+ DVD collection. Started in Oct, but restarted in Dec once I found these scripts and once I finnaly settled on how I wanted them encoded etc.
I ended up get a 411j to hold all the rips (4-2tb HD) (of which I ran out of room already)
2-3tb external drives. 1 of them holds all the movies for iTunes to use. It is connected to the Mac Mini via Firewire so never any issue with speed or access.
The second 3tb external I ended of using as a place to hold movie rips as well. (I will start to purchase 3tb internals and relplace the drives in the NAS) which must be done one at a time as I have to rebuild the raid each and every time.
And last I bought a 360 HD to rip all those HD-DVD that I thought for sure was gonna win that war(yea, I was wrong)
Anyways these scripts are the best and can't find much flaw with them. They do what they should do, if you take the time and set up Hazel, it becomes so automated. rip, rip, rip and then allow it to encode overnight or in my case sometimes a 1.5 days to finish just one batch of encoding. (6-7 BD)
Thanx magic jedi, for a wonderful set of scripts!!!!!!
Wow, what an adventure. I bought a Mac Mini just to use these scripts to do my 1000+ DVD collection. Started in Oct, but restarted in Dec once I found these scripts and once I finnaly settled on how I wanted them encoded etc.
I ended up get a 411j to hold all the rips (4-2tb HD) (of which I ran out of room already)
2-3tb external drives. 1 of them holds all the movies for iTunes to use. It is connected to the Mac Mini via Firewire so never any issue with speed or access.
The second 3tb external I ended of using as a place to hold movie rips as well. (I will start to purchase 3tb internals and relplace the drives in the NAS) which must be done one at a time as I have to rebuild the raid each and every time.
And last I bought a 360 HD to rip all those HD-DVD that I thought for sure was gonna win that war(yea, I was wrong)
Anyways these scripts are the best and can't find much flaw with them. They do what they should do, if you take the time and set up Hazel, it becomes so automated. rip, rip, rip and then allow it to encode overnight or in my case sometimes a 1.5 days to finish just one batch of encoding. (6-7 BD)
Thanx magic jedi, for a wonderful set of scripts!!!!!!
I agree... this is saving me so much time. It's a really good system.
I do have one(ish) question.
I'm ripping the DVDs while I'm doing my day to day stuff and encoding the contents of the "batch rip" folder through the night. How do I get the "batch dispatcher" to work? I'm manually doing this each morning before I go to work - sending the files from my MacBook Pro to my PowerMac G5 - I presume the dispatcher can automate this also? Can't seem to find the service to edit it.
I do have one(ish) question.
I'm ripping the DVDs while I'm doing my day to day stuff and encoding the contents of the "batch rip" folder through the night. How do I get the "batch dispatcher" to work? I'm manually doing this each morning before I go to work - sending the files from my MacBook Pro to my PowerMac G5 - I presume the dispatcher can automate this also? Can't seem to find the service to edit it.
I don't quite understand what your asking. However the batch dispatcher should automatically fire off when you put a DVD into the drive.
I see. It seems I have got confused somewhere along the line!
When I was first starting off with this, someone told me (in another thread) that I should "Stick with it, it's really worthwhile... you can even set the scripts to send the movies to different iTunes accounts across your home network" - this is what I presumed that Batch Dispatcher was for, but now you've explained it - it makes sense that this is just to send the files to the right folders for processing later.
I'm off searching the forums now, to find out why after converting 10 films last night, the entire contents of my Movies folder mysteriously disappeared!!
When I was first starting off with this, someone told me (in another thread) that I should "Stick with it, it's really worthwhile... you can even set the scripts to send the movies to different iTunes accounts across your home network" - this is what I presumed that Batch Dispatcher was for, but now you've explained it - it makes sense that this is just to send the files to the right folders for processing later.
I'm off searching the forums now, to find out why after converting 10 films last night, the entire contents of my Movies folder mysteriously disappeared!!
I see. It seems I have got confused somewhere along the line!
When I was first starting off with this, someone told me (in another thread) that I should "Stick with it, it's really worthwhile... you can even set the scripts to send the movies to different iTunes accounts across your home network" - this is what I presumed that Batch Dispatcher was for, but now you've explained it - it makes sense that this is just to send the files to the right folders for processing later.
I'm off searching the forums now, to find out why after converting 10 films last night, the entire contents of my Movies folder mysteriously disappeared!!
Ouch. yes this process will take a dvd/bd from ripping to encoding. What you do after is up to you.
Use Hazel, well worth it. from Hazel you can say move movies to one folder and have it add it to iTunes, move TV Shows to another folder, and have it add it to itunes, change the color label etc.
Me:
After tthis process, if the movie is:
Green moves movie(encoded) file to external HD and adds to iTunes
Red/Orange moves the movie to a Folder for holding purpose to be looked at be me to fix either the file or add further MetaData to.
Also the Ripped folder is moved off to my NAS for permanent storage.
I don't have his process add to iTunes because I want more flexiablity when adding it. I let Hazel move the files.
As far as moving them to other iTunes, well you could by using Hazel as well, to do differnet iTunes, I would think you would have Hazel move the movie(encoded) to the Automatically Add folder in iTunes(whereever that Itunes account has it's folders) So 2 diffeerent iTunes would have 2 different locations for Automatcailly Add. Then the iTunes would add the movies to the current iTunes account for that iTunes. Hopefully that makes sense.
When I batch encode Blu-rays, I'm left with a folder containing two mkv files where the original rip was, and int he encode folder the resulting m4v plus yet another mkv file.
I guess I don't understand what is going on here. I end up with three mkv files where I started with one. Anyone know what is happening here?
I guess I don't understand what is going on here. I end up with three mkv files where I started with one. Anyone know what is happening here?