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

[abdab]

Just updated to v1.0.9 and I am getting the following error when running Batch Rip to rip a DVD:


abdab$ /Users/abdab/Library/Application\ Support/Batch\ Rip/batchRipTmp.sh ; exit;

ERROR: MakeMKV.app command tool is not setup to execute
ERROR: attempting to use tool at /Applications/MakeMKV.app

ERROR: MakeMKV.app command tool could not be found
ERROR: MakeMKV.app can be installed in ./ /usr/local/bin/ /usr/bin/ ~/ or /Applications/


As I understand it, I don't need MakeMKV as I am not ripping Blu-Ray, just DVD.

Use MakeMKV for DVD is not checked.

I see this was an issue way back in the early days, but it was a coding error. I would guess that if there was a coding error, someone would have seen it before now. Any ideas?

 

[HackerJL]

Just updated to v1.0.9 and I am getting the following error when running Batch Rip to rip a DVD:


abdab$ /Users/abdab/Library/Application\ Support/Batch\ Rip/batchRipTmp.sh ; exit;

ERROR: MakeMKV.app command tool is not setup to execute
ERROR: attempting to use tool at /Applications/MakeMKV.app

ERROR: MakeMKV.app command tool could not be found
ERROR: MakeMKV.app can be installed in ./ /usr/local/bin/ /usr/bin/ ~/ or /Applications/


As I understand it, I don't need MakeMKV as I am not ripping Blu-Ray, just DVD.

Use MakeMKV for DVD is not checked.

I see this was an issue way back in the early days, but it was a coding error. I would guess that if there was a coding error, someone would have seen it before now. Any ideas?

I cant speak to this 100%, but I know when mac.jedi redid the new version to autodetect HD, it suddenly needed both installed and sitting in your applications folder. So I just do it myself, works good now.

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Check the hazel forums. I wrote a very detailed post with my fully automated setup using hazel and batch rip actions.

Can you link to this? I dont want to reinvent the wheel for this guy if you have already done so. What I do with hazel works great for me, and again, I dont want to reinvent it all.

 

[abdab]

Thanks for this it worked. I guess i should have tried that. Just didn't seem like MakeMKV was required.

I cant speak to this 100%, but I know when mac.jedi redid the new version to autodetect HD, it suddenly needed both installed and sitting in your applications folder. So I just do it myself, works good now.

----------

 

[Touchstone64]

Can you link to this? I dont want to reinvent the wheel for this guy if you have already done so. What I do with hazel works great for me, and again, I dont want to reinvent it all.

Hi again; I found that post and, while it was informative and useful, it didn't help with my specific problem. I need to do some more testing, and I'm wondering how the script will behave with multiple instances running. So, I'll check that first.

Anyway, here is the post on the Hazel forum.

 

[baton69]

Yup. Been there. Hazel.

Do a name match on a custom token with the -1 at the end. Then have it renaming with the custom token.ext

So I have a custom token of anything (...) -1
and then I have it rename it to my custom token with the extension. See attached.

I have run into a few other odd things, but hazel is the program to bail you out.

I have automated everything 100% with SABnzbd, couchpotato and sick beard. I never touch anything anymore, so if you have questions, let me know, I can get you figured.

There is a snag. In the new version 3.0 of hazel, there is a bug (I found) that renames S03E10 to S0E10. I worked with the AMAZING developer of hazel to get it fixed, so it should be fixed in the next release. Let me know if you are also effected as I am sure he will let me send you the beta,patched version.

Hi!

Just like you I have automated everything with sab, couchpotato and sick beard. But there is one hickup that keeps nagging me. Even if my downloaded movies/TV shows have subtitles included when they are downloaded, they are removed when I encode them to m4v instead of mkv. This is extremely annoying since it's quite a bit of work to download and add subtitles to every single file every single time. Do you have any solutions or tips to automate this process or at least make it faster?

Much appreciated

 

[HackerJL]

Hi!

Just like you I have automated everything with sab, couchpotato and sick beard. But there is one hickup that keeps nagging me. Even if my downloaded movies/TV shows have subtitles included when they are downloaded, they are removed when I encode them to m4v instead of mkv. This is extremely annoying since it's quite a bit of work to download and add subtitles to every single file every single time. Do you have any solutions or tips to automate this process or at least make it faster?

Much appreciated

I'll be honest, I dont have any experience with subtitles, can you explain your process right now?

 

[baton69]

I'll be honest, I dont have any experience with subtitles, can you explain your process right now?

Well, currently I use SB and CP for all metadata download etc. and store all original files in full HD on an external drive. I then, with hazel, copy every mkv file to the batch rip TV and batch rip movies folders (based of course on what kind of file it is, I keep them separated on the external HD). After being encoded as m4v they are automatically tagged and renamed by Mac.jedi's actions (with Hazel starting the actions based on different criteria, mainly color codes). They are then moved and sorted on another drive and lastly added to itunes. This all works wonderfully and all metadata and sorting and renaming looks great in iTunes and in the file system. The one thing that bugs me though is that even if the original mkv had an embedded subtitle, soft coded, it's removed in the final m4v file that is added to itunes. I can't figure out why and according to mac.Jedi's instructions, subs are supposed to be forced during the encoding. I have sup2sub and mkvtoolnix installed correctly so I just can't figure out what the problem is. Therefore I have to add subs with iSubtitle, which is a great program, but it's cumbersome to do it manually for ~15 episodes for example.

If anyone can shed some light on this I would be very thankful!

EDIT: Ok, I've now figured out why I never got any subtitles... I read it wrong on the front page, and thought that "forced" subtitles meant that subtitles always were included. I know, silly me. Since then I've basically made a custom encode setting based on the Apple TV 2 preset. I changed "subtitle scan" to "subtitle 1,2"; hence the first and second subtitles are always included. The problem I now face is that after the encode, for some reason, itunes recognizes only the top row in the subtitles. So basically every second line is skipped. It's really weird, because when I check them in iSubtitle they are there, although they appear really tiny, and all I have to do is resave the file and it's fixed. It's quite a hassle to do this with every file though since I then can't have the file added automatically to iTunes. If anyone has faced a similar problem before and have a fix, please share!

 

[gunthermic]

Anyone havign issues Encoding mkv's lately? MKV updated to 1.7.3 and now when Batch Rip goes to rip the BD it's adding t100 onto the end of the file name. i.e

Hop-t100.mkv

Durign the batch process I have told it it was a Movie and that it was suport to by Hop (2011).. but durign the process of ripping it's nto namign it that file correctly. Not happenign on DVDs just Blue Rays..

 

[HackerJL]

Anyone havign issues Encoding mkv's lately? MKV updated to 1.7.3 and now when Batch Rip goes to rip the BD it's adding t100 onto the end of the file name. i.e

Hop-t100.mkv

Durign the batch process I have told it it was a Movie and that it was suport to by Hop (2011).. but durign the process of ripping it's nto namign it that file correctly. Not happenign on DVDs just Blue Rays..

No change on my end, doing about 3-4 a day.

 

[gunthermic]

No change on my end, doing about 3-4 a day.

Just out of the blue it's doing this. Only thing this Mac is even used for. No surfing, no nothing. All i did was upgrade to the newest MKV becuase it could decrypt HOP. I did several Blue Rays, and the Batch Rip everytime is addign the t100 to the end. So the process is broke. Arggh. I just rename them before I encode and then it carries on..

 

[osohardy]

A few requests...

Hi,

Love the scripts but one niggle I have is that the release year for movies is set in the movie title name during the add movie tags action. I don't mean the filename--I actually want the year there--but rather the metadata title also contains the year so that it shows up on the apple tv, itunes etc in the name. I would rather have it clean with just the name, eg "Aliens" vs "Aliens (1986)". I poked around main.command for the action and I can see where the release year is appended to the title in a few spots, but I'm too useless to modify this without throwing an error when running the action again. If anybody can help much appreciated.

Also, I hadn't noticed this before but when enabling the chapter tracks in Subler and resaving it creates chapter thumbnails that display properly on the ATV. This can also be run with -p on the command line. I wonder if this could also be an option for movie tag action before optimizing the file? Thanks!

 

[HackerJL]

Just out of the blue it's doing this. Only thing this Mac is even used for. No surfing, no nothing. All i did was upgrade to the newest MKV becuase it could decrypt HOP. I did several Blue Rays, and the Batch Rip everytime is addign the t100 to the end. So the process is broke. Arggh. I just rename them before I encode and then it carries on..

You could just write a rule in hazel to have it taken care of automatically. I do that, Im lazy and want to keep it streamlined.

 

[bemaniac]

First of all, I love this thread and these actions! They've been working really well for me and my library is incredibly organized.

That being said, I'm having a slight issue with the Add TV Tags workflow, specifically with the show Will & Grace. For some reason, whenever I try to add the show using Add TV Tags (Filename), it tags the show incorrectly with a different show (some show that does have the word "Will" in it, but not even at the beginning). I've also tried Add TV Tags (Search), and it gives me an error when I try to choose "Will & Grace"

I've also tried changing the filename to "Will And Grace" but this doesn't seem to help.

Is there a way to fix this erroneous tagging? I'd rather not have to tag every single file manually if at all possible.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT: So it looks like the issue is with the ampersand. When looking up the show, an htmlEncode() is performed AND a urlEncode. This causes "Will & Grace" to be translated into "Will+%26amp;+Grace", which doesn't return a proper result. The solution it seems would be to not htmlEncode the input, only urlEncode.

 

[Chimaera]

Question: Can this wonderful setup handle decrypted DVD and Blu-Ray isos?

 

[gunthermic]

You could just write a rule in hazel to have it taken care of automatically. I do that, Im lazy and want to keep it streamlined.

Hmm. how? when it adds t100 to both SD and HD copies?

Since your one of the experts around here. You start doing 1080p yet? What di you do?

 

[HackerJL]

Hmm. how? when it adds t100 to both SD and HD copies?

Since your one of the experts around here. You start doing 1080p yet? What di you do?

Expert? uh...if you say so.

Yes, I have went to 1080p now. Dont know if its the same as you, though.

Give me an example, you say your file is named, and what you need it to be. Maybe I missed what you meant, SD and HD need to be named differently?

 

[waring192]

Hi, I like the program but its not quite for me, I'm having some trouble with the automation part so would like to remove the services etc off my system, could you tell me how to do that please?

Many thanks

PS I'm on OSX Lion

 

[HackerJL]

Hi, I like the program but its not quite for me, I'm having some trouble with the automation part so would like to remove the services etc off my system, could you tell me how to do that please?

Many thanks

PS I'm on OSX Lion

If you went to the first post about this software, you would see the first screenshot there has an uninstall button right beside install. Click it.

 

[mullet05]

So i've been ripping my movies with this setup for months and its been working great. All of the sudden I can't rip any of my blu rays. I am currently running OS X 10.7.4 and have the most recent versions of all the required software and automator actions.

The problem i'm having is I keep getting the error "error: could not find any tracks between 80-180 minutes (movie)" At first i thought it could have just been an issue with a specific blu ray. but i have now tried

Tron legacy
Avatar
Thor
Iron Man 2
Family Guy Its a trap
and cars.

all of these movies give me the same exact error...any ideas would be appreciated. I just updated to my 1080p appleTV and would really like the HD versions

 

[fcmarriott]

batchencode script creating multiple encodes

Hi all - I have been using these scripts (the second time around) for ~ the last 6 months. Everything has been working great and I've done an absolute ton of encodes, until a few days ago. I don't think anything changed, but the batch encode script is creating multiple encodes, it appears to be based on mkvmerge?

Deets:
Downloaded video files from Usenet via SABNZB
Happening with multiple files, multiple shows, multiple seasons

Screenshot of the output: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mm79uqqvwqrghmu/Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 11.36.25 PM.png

batchencode logging: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20224387/batchencode error.rtf

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the batch scripts. I have updated to a new version of HB CLI. Kind of a strange problem, and I don't have any DVDs laying around to test. Other ideas?

 

[cloudcover]

Need advice on what these error messages mean...

hi there -

i came across this thread yesterday, while looking for a way to automate dvd rips. it sounds very close to what i had in mind and so i'm excited to be using it. i installed the required components as indicated in the first post (except for growl) and am using all of the default directories/etc on os x lion. but i keep getting the error message shown in the attachment (i took the liberty of removing some info in the following and replacing it with asterisks). looks like it has something to do with adobe, but i'm not sure why that would arise.

thanks,
cc

 

[Leesy]

looks like it has something to do with adobe, but i'm not sure why that would arise.

This problem has popped up a few times in the history of this thread. I've never seen a complete walkthrough on how to fix it but Mac.Jedi did say:

The scripting additions errors are due to old PowerPC versions of Adobe CS's osax files. Adobe has issued new intel versions, but you have to seek the installer out via google as it's not part of the auto update.

I had a quick Google & I couldn't find anything that made sense in this situation. So perhaps ensure any Adobe software you have on your PC is up to date.

 

[hansdg1]

Question about automating multiple audio tracks and subtitle tracks

Hi guys, I have searched far and wide for the answer to this question and I can't figure it out.

Basically what I am trying to do is rip multiple seasons of The Office. I want to keep all of the audio tracks and add all the subtitles as soft subtitles. What makes this a bit different is that not all of the episodes have the same number of audio tracks. Some of the episodes have up to 3 audio tracks (Main, Director's Commentary, and Director's Commentary 2), while the others might have 1 Director's Commentary or none at all. Based on my research I have concluded that I need to set this up in a custom encoding in BatchRip. (I am also adding a 2nd Main audio track that is downmixed)

The problem that I'm running into is that when I do a BatchRip and specify all of these it will skip episodes that don't have the same number of audio tracks. Here's what I'm using for custom arguments:

-e x264 -2 -T -a 1,1,2,3 -A "Main Audio","Downmixed Audio","Director's Commentary","Director's Commentary 2" -E copy:ac3,faac,ffaac,ffaac -B auto,160,auto,auto -R auto,auto,auto,auto -6 auto,dpl2,auto,auto -f mkv --subtitle scan --subtitle-burn --subtitle-forced scan -s 0,1,2 -m

If I only specify one audio track in the CLI arguments (like this) I think it will successfully encode all the files.

-e x264 -2 -T -a 1,1 -A "Main Audio","Downmixed Audio" -E copy:ac3,faac -B auto,160 -R auto,auto -6 auto,dpl2 -f mkv --subtitle scan --subtitle-burn --subtitle-forced scan -s 0,1,2 -m

Can anyone help me with this (possibly) over complicated setup?

 

[fcmarriott]

re: batchencode script creating multiple encodes

Well, it appears that the problem was due to a new version of MKVToolnix. I upgraded to the 5.6.0 version from this site:

http://jonthn.free.fr/MKVtoolnix/

And I think that caused the issue. I reverted back to the version recommended by the download links in these scripts (version 4.9.1) and everything started working perfectly again. I haven't been able to upgrade and test again as I've been catching up with my encodes for the last ~36 hours, but it looks like everything is back to normal.

Unless there is validation from other people that there aren't problems with 5.6.0, I would avoid for now.

Hi all - I have been using these scripts (the second time around) for ~ the last 6 months. Everything has been working great and I've done an absolute ton of encodes, until a few days ago. I don't think anything changed, but the batch encode script is creating multiple encodes, it appears to be based on mkvmerge?

Deets:
Downloaded video files from Usenet via SABNZB
Happening with multiple files, multiple shows, multiple seasons

Screenshot of the output: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mm79uqqvwqrghmu/Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 11.36.25 PM.png

batchencode logging: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20224387/batchencode error.rtf

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the batch scripts. I have updated to a new version of HB CLI. Kind of a strange problem, and I don't have any DVDs laying around to test. Other ideas?

 

[dharvey1221]

Its been a while .....

I have loved this thread and have been using it since the beginning, thanks a million mac.jedi. I got side tracked on Blu-Ray rips with MKV and haven't used the automator since installing lion. I upgraded to latest batch rip. When I try to run the batch rip fair mount is getting stuck trying to locate VLC. Its there plan as day but no dice. Says it can't find the vlc libraries. I have deleted VLC, re-installed VLC 32 bit version and still can't get it to launch. Any help would be greatly appreciated.