How do you like to rip bluray tv seasons?

[medwynd]

I am attempting this for the first time and trying to decide on the best method. I am thinking of ripping the bluray to my drive then ripping the individual episodes each into their own BDMV structure. Then creating a "disc" for each episode of the title in the collection manager and pointing each disc to a particular episode.

Is this the way people are doing it currently or is their a better way?

[SWKerr]

I have only done one and it is a pain. I may look at DVDFab for BluRays just for this issue. I use tsMuxer to get each episode and then run them through RipBot264 to further compress them. Each Episode goes into a directory named for the series and then season directory. Finally the name with the episode information.

Example:
\\TV Shows\The Pacific\Season 1\The Pacific S01E01.m2ts

The biggest problem is figuring out which episode is which. There is never any logic to the naming convention. I usually note the time for each one and then figure it out from that.

I don't back them up to disk but just leave them on the server. If I was to loose them I could always re-rip but I keep a External backup of all my ripped movies and TV so I am probably still good.

If you leave them the way you referenced you would probably need to update all the metadata\show Info by hand. It would be a pain. My way will let the Show info and Fanart be added automatically.

[stanger89]

I've been playing with MakeMKV and Another EAC3TO Gui to rip/convert my BD television rips to individual MKV files. I'm not entirely happy with either of these two programs (too dumbed down, can't choose audio/sub tracks). That said, MKV seems a good match for TV shows, it retains chapter info and multiple audio/sub tracks which is a plus, and it retains the original quality (if you do it with either of the above methods).

I've pondered converting to BDMV structures, but I'm not sure if there are any benefits to that (even though that's how I like my movies).

[BobPhoenix]

I use DVDFab to rip each episode to an individual m2ts file and then rename the file created to "Title SxxExx - episode name.m2ts" file like SWKerr. Then use BMT to get metadata for them. Could have used MKV as well like Stanger but that actually took slightly longer (measured in seconds) since it required a container change from the m2ts to mkv. DVDFab just has to remove the headers from the individual m2ts files when combining them together into one m2ts file. My SGU episodes were done as mkv's before DVDFab ripper allowed m2ts.

[Flips]

One shortcut on renaming could be to just rename to Chuck S01E02.m2ts and then use the rename files function of sickbeard to add the Chuck versus the helicopter part.

In the past I have had good luck with the command line version of eac3to. that makes it pretty easy to select audio tracks.

flips

[Bagal]

I use MakeMKV, in my experience it's the most efficient way to do* it as you can select each individual episode, choose the audio and subtitle tracks you want and then rip the whole lot in one go with each episode in its own MKV file.

@stanger89 - not sure what you mean by 'too dumbed down, can't choose audio/sub tracks' as MakeMKV allows you to choose audio and sub tracks or am I missing something?

* - Haven't tried DVDFab to rip Blu-Rays, used it for DVDs in the past, have had the displeasure of using EAC3TO though and have previously used AnyDVD HD.

[stanger89]

I don't know, I never found those options, just the ones to select which titles you want converted. Guess I'll have to go look again.

[Bagal]

Have a look at the screenshots in the online help, you can expand each title to reveal the various audio and subtitle tracks and you can then choose which ones you want.

In the preferences there's options to choose what you want selected by default, for instance I've set it up to unselect all non-english subtitles, which makes things quicker and less tedious if your ripping multiple discs.

[stanger89]

I missed the expansion, options, but it doesn't seem possible to tell it to automatically select the lossless tracks, it seems to ignore those.

[Bagal]

Yeh, it is annoying having to manually select those, there is a thread in the MakeMKV forums asking for HD audio to be selected by default but unfortunately the dev hasn't responded and the last post was back in November.

[iansilv]

Just an FYI- I think Brian at MyMovies is working pretty feverishly on implementing television series functionality like what you guys are trying to achieve, but automated. He won't divulge too many details though...

[stanger89]

Frankly I don't see how it's really "possible" to implement truly automated TV ripping. There's just too many ways the discs are laid out to figure it out dynamically on the fly. I mean I've seen some nicely laid out discs where every ~25 min title is an episode, those are easy, but I've seen a lot of discs that only have one title with all the episodes, so you've got to figure out which chapters are which episodes, and then I've seen some with a lot of similarly, "correctly" sized titles but only some are episodes.

Only way I see it being done is if there's a central database of what titles/chapters/timestamps belong to which episode. Of course that would (unless you're like Kaliedescape and get every disc yourself) require users to upload it. But even so it would be a few steps in the right direction.

[iansilv]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Only way I see it being done is if there's a central database of what titles/chapters/timestamps belong to which episode. Of course that would (unless you're like Kaliedescape and get every disc yourself) require users to upload it. But even so it would be a few steps in the right direction.

I think that is where MyMovies is going with things. They have their user contributed database. That could storethe data you are referring to and automate the process. I just hope that the disk would be ripped as an iso first, then taken apart based on the database info so if there were errors with submissions it could be redone after the database is corrected.

[stanger89]

Of course the other option is to just not rip to individual episodes and just start the "disc" to the correct title/chapter. I think I saw some references to this on the MM forums, there are some problems with that, like most of the time BDs are launched to an external app so there's no way to specify a specific title/chapter. Of course I think you could do that if playing them locally in Sage. The biggest issue if doing it that way is Sage wouldn't be able to track watched status, and would likely not know where to stop.

[Fuzzy]

The few I've done have just used MakeMKV to make a single MKV file for each episode. Of course, I've then moved those episodes into the sage recordings database, and have no desire to see them in SMM (which should only be used for movies, IMO)

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The few I've done have just used MakeMKV to make a single MKV file for each episode. Of course, I've then moved those episodes into the sage recordings database, and have no desire to see them in SMM (which should only be used for movies, IMO)

I don't record television with Sage so I pretty much watch all my media through SMM.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by medwynd

I don't record television with Sage so I pretty much watch all my media through SMM.

Just because you don't record content with sage, doesn't mean you can't use the recording library for content that it is better suited to (like tv shows).

[stanger89]

Yeah, I don't want my TV in with my movies, but at the same time I don't want my purchased ("permanant") content with my recorded ("temporary") content.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, I don't want my TV in with my movies, but at the same time I don't want my purchased ("permanant") content with my ripped ("temporary") content.

I think you meant permanant and Recorded.. right? still... I use the Archived flag to diffrentiate between the two. Purchased TV Show's that I've ripped all have the Archived flag set. This flag is then used to specify between different views in the recordings screen (Malore, for me). In fact, I believe the two methods of moving an imported show to recrodings (BMT directly, or though my plugin) both set the archived bit on the transfer, so it's kind of taken care of.

For me, that IS the purpose of the archive flag. To diffrentiate between temporary and permanent content.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I think you meant permanant and Recorded.. right?

No, I pretty much don't save anything I record, the quality is too crappy, between the network overlays, compression artifacts, commercials, subpar audio, Pan&Scan, editing, etc, not to mention minor recording glitches. If it's worth having permanently, it's worth having purchased on DVD or Blu-ray.