Importing TV shows (DVD rips)

[SWD]

Starting to think about ripping my DVD collection, now that we have 2 tvs and 2 apple tvs. Movies seem pretty straight forward rip the disc(mactheripper), rip the title (handbrake), add meta tags (metaZ?). But when you rip a TV series (say all of Seinfeld) would you have many more files to attempt to tag and at least figure out what rips are what episode. Am I correct, or is it not as complex as I imagine. Any app suggestions welcome.

2nd question (just though of now) - Will Plex play straight from the VOB folders? I'm thinking rip the discs to Drobo, leave the VOB folders for Plex. I don't use it currently and have no reason to, but I can see myself in the future using it once the kids can watch screens.

Thanks.

 

[Ka Ora!]

Starting to think about ripping my DVD collection, now that we have 2 tvs and 2 apple tvs. Movies seem pretty straight forward rip the disc(mactheripper), rip the title (handbrake), add meta tags (metaZ?). But when you rip a TV series (say all of Seinfeld) would you have many more files to attempt to tag and at least figure out what rips are what episode. Am I correct, or is it not as complex as I imagine. Any app suggestions welcome.

2nd question (just though of now) - Will Plex play straight from the VOB folders? I'm thinking rip the discs to Drobo, leave the VOB folders for Plex. I don't use it currently and have no reason to, but I can see myself in the future using it once the kids can watch screens.

Thanks.

TV shows on disks will produce more single files but it is usually obvious whats what in the dvd structure. Personally I find it better to use Makemkv and then reencode with Handbrake. Yes you have to work out the order and name it and for the Tags I use Subler, it has a episode section for TV shows.

Thus far with my TV shows I have found they rip off in their play order, but I still check to be on the safe side.

 

[Macman45]

I'd go with MKV too, after a recent update it identifies and labels primary titles for you, but the general rule is that the largest file is what you want to rip.

I have 4TB of Movies / Series and documentaries stashed on my R4 and backed up to a 4TB Seagate USB 3 external.

I stream to my ATV"s via any IOS device or my rMBP using Air Video Server...works well full HD and all sound options a s long as you check the transcode in Handbrake.

 

[SWD]

Why rip to mkv and then m4v (or mp4)? Isn't that transcoding for one lossy compressed format to another? And isn't that not good?

 

[institute]

Why rip to mkv and then m4v (or mp4)? Isn't that transcoding for one lossy compressed format to another? And isn't that not good?

Because your not transcoding, just remuxing, changing the container to one that can play natively on the ATV, not the video file itself.

 

[SWD]

Looks like I have a thing or 2 to learn about this process.

 

[skipcooney]

Try Ripit. One step from DVD to iTunes. Very simple. Worked for 95% of the DVDs in my collection. When it does not work, use MKV and Handbrake.

http://thelittleappfactory.com/ripit/

 

[rusty2192]

I typically just use Handbrake straight from the disk. The only time I break out MakeMKV is when I run into a problem, such as a new DRM system (Disney is especially bad about this). I'll typically take the time to figure out the titling system of the disk for each episode (sometimes it goes Title 1, 2, 3..., sometimes its 1, 3, 5, sometimes 2, 4, 6, etc. You get the point. Once I have that, I go into handbrake and manually add each title to the queue, changing the title each time to include the show, season, and episode number (i.e. Dexter_S01_E01). Then I just dump the files into iDentify and it typically does its thing on its own. It recognizes the season/episode convention and fills in that info so that iTunes stores it right.

This can take a few minutes per disk, but you get into a rhythm. There are probably quicker/more automated ways of doing it, but why fix what ain't broke.

 

[SWD]

So when you make an MKV, is it just the compressed title or is it 1-to-1 bits with the DVD? When it plays in Plex(or a dlna server) is it just the movie, or do you get menus and extras?

At the moment I'm happy to live in the apple universe, but I can see a future when the twins are older(9 months now), how easy it will be to add content to iDevices for trips using Plex pass.

I like the idea of ripping multiple titles and then transcoding 5 or 10 overnight to save time.

Thanks for the tip on naming episodes before transcoding. I'll look into that app and for that feature in others.