Possible to import DVD rips with chapter in tact into iTunes?

[netdog]

I have a bunch of iRip DVD rips of of a series of lectures I attended. Each DVD-R seems to have a number of video chapters (VOB files) and it would be nice to import those into iTunes without individual converting each file manually.

I am currently planning to use Handbrake for the conversion to iTunes-compatible files. Will this take the whole rip and import it with each VOB as a chapter? Is there another piece of software that will do this?

There is no copy protection on any of the material. Only the VIDEO_TS folder seems to be populated on the disc and subsequent rip, and not the AUDIO_TS folder if that matters.

Thanks for your help!

 

[ftaok]

Are you saying that each chapter is actually a separate lecture? And that you want to rip each lecture as a separate file for iTunes?

If so, when you fire up Handbrake, you can select individual chapters to rip as separate files. For instance, let's say you have 7 lectures, each one consisting as a single chapter within the same title. In Handbrake, select the correct title, and select the chapter start/finish to be 1, 2, 3, ... for each individual file.

It's harder to describe in words than in pictures, but I'm not able to take a screen shot right now. Just look in the upper right corner of the Handbrake window. There are a few drop down selection boxes that you can mess with.

Good Luck.

 

[netdog]

Actually there are roughly 14 discs per day times 3 days of lectures. The same lecturer is speaking and demonstrating all three days in a continuous workshop.

On each disc, there are 5 or so segments that probably coordinate to starting and stopping the camera.

As I am going to convert these to iTunes, ultimately to be played on my iPad and Apple TV, it would sometimes be nice to be able to skip ahead in chunks, like in movie chapters, when viewing. So rather than manually breaking these down into individual iTunes files, I'd like to keep them as discs (or that size) in iTunes with sub-chapters.

Honestly, best would be to assemble each day or half day as a single iTunes video with chapters throughout each. Does that make sense? Is there any way to do that? Or to do what I described above?

 

[ftaok]

I don't know if this is the best way, but it's probably how I would do it.

1. Copy each DVD onto your Mac's hard drive. Since these DVDs aren't copy-protected, just copying them from Finder will work.

2. Use Handbrake to encode the lecture segments into whatever makes sense to you. Maybe it's 6 files ... morning-Day 1, afternoon-Day 1, morning-Day 2 .... etc.

3. Once you have the files created, play the files to determine the play time for each chapter point. This may be tedious.

4. Use Subler on each file to add a chapter track to the file. A chapter track is basically a text file with the chapter name and time.

BAM! You're done.


EDIT - I just realized that you have multiple DVDs involved. This may complicate matters. You'll probably have to merge the files after using Handbrake. I think you could use MPEGStreamclip to merge the m4p/m4v files together into a single file before adding the chapters in Subler.

 

[Nancy258]

In compliance with Fair Use policies, one can copy the content on a DVD with a DVD ripping program for their own personal use. It is not legal to distribute software allowing you to do this, however it is legal to do this.


I suggest HandBrake, it's free and easy to use, and can also be used to convert files to MP4 files if you need to.