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Necro55 · 2012-12-05, 02:23

Hello, I am new to XBMC, as a couple coworkers had recommended this to me. I am doing a full media center here, and I have figured out most of my questions, but, a feature I was told was possible I am not sure how to use.

I was told that for both DVD and BD that I can have the disc in it's entirety viewable here, with menu system intact as well as special features etc. How would I go about doing this?
A secondary question to that, is if I can do this as it was suggested, what software would you guys recommend for ripping both the DVD and Blue Rays in a way that everything is still intact?

Thaks all!

Skyhawk · 2012-12-05, 03:51

Well I can answer part of this for you. Ripping a DVD is very easy to do and yes XBMC will play all the menus, special features etc. It acts just like the normal DVD. To rip the DVD I use DVDFab, the free version will work for what you need.

Once DVDFab has ripped the movie it puts in a VIDEO_TS format, just name the it:

\Movie Folder\Movie Name (YEAR)\Video_TS

The scraper will should pick up the movie and add it to your library. To go to the main DVD menu press the M during playback and select the menu option (not sure what its exactly called but you will figure it out).

Now saying that, currently my movie collection is in the Video_TS format. I liked it at first but after not using the extras or special features it's more of just a pain. I'm currently in the process of changing all my movies to .MKV and keeping the main film only.

BD I know you can convert them to .MKV and keep just the main feature, not sure about keep the menu intact...

Necro55 · 2012-12-05, 04:28

Excellent, thank you!
Im sure this was written SOMEWHERE already, but, this software has a lot to it and a lot of features. So the help is much appreciated.

I plan on syncing this all with a remote, as well to be used with my primary media stuff on the TV. How would I get the M button from a remote?

I have heard that DVD Fab is a VERY powerfull tool. Do you think, or anyone else with info either way feel free to chime in too, that the FULL version of DVD Fab would have the blueray functionality I want?

I like the special features, btu also the other half watches ALL of them, so I thought this would make it easy. Also the push for a way to do this without DVD Decrypter and some other encoder like AutoGK, Gearbox, etc is mainly for the old movies I have, when encoding older movies (I dont mean 80's, im thinking Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart etc) I get BAD interlacing from them, whereas when I have seen them as DVDs on the PC, or even ISO's I haven't had the problem.

I will download the free version of DVD fab now and do some testing.

Skyhawk · 2012-12-07, 23:16

Hey sorry it's taken me a little bit to respond back to you. I have a Haromy One remote and simply mapped the M key to the Menu key within the Harmony software. I also modifed my Keymapfile for XBMC so that I can press and button and jump right to the DVD menu without pressing M (ShowVideoMenu). In the link above you can also see information about remotes.

Necro55 · 2012-12-12, 05:05

Got busy, but now I am back working on this again. I just ripped V for Vendetta, and I have the Video_TS folder and several VOB files. Did I do the rip incorrectly, or am I missing something? I got the menu, but the menu was a seperate VOB and just played over and over again, like it was its own movie.

Any Idea what I missed?

Skyhawk · 2012-12-12, 21:22

(2012-12-12, 05:05)Necro55 Wrote: Got busy, but now I am back working on this again. I just ripped V for Vendetta, and I have the Video_TS folder and several VOB files. Did I do the rip incorrectly, or am I missing something? I got the menu, but the menu was a seperate VOB and just played over and over again, like it was its own movie.

Any Idea what I missed?

Are you looking at file mode? XBMC should have scrapped the movie and loaded it in. From the main menu select Movie and then the movie. You shouldn't be able to see the individual files within XBMC (unless you are using File Mode).

Necro55 · (This post was last modified: 2012-12-15, 03:24 by Necro55.)

Yeah, I was using the file option. I am assuming this is wrong? I have been trying different media softwares before this being recommended this from a coworker, and most others I just went through that type of option.
Incase it matters, since I have a lot of media of very different types, it is on a different system I use as a media server, driver is mapped (shared as Media Center) from there it is seperated into TV, movies, Sports, animated. TV is divided out by series then season, Movies has genre directories, sports same thing. Fired it up clicked Video, clicked file and it was there, never thought to look elsewhere. Im sure I inspired at least one /facepalm for anyone reading this. If it matters, a majority of my media is just AVI files currently (but going to straight DVD/BD rips).

At the main menu I see Video/Music/Settings and thats it. I just looked again and I'm not seeing a "Movie"tab/option.

So please, let me know what I missed Smile

Skyhawk · (This post was last modified: 2012-12-15, 06:45 by Skyhawk.)

File mode is a using Explorer in Windows to look at your files. You want to add the videos to XBMC as a source so it knows what they are and pull in information like year, rating, synopsis, actor info etc. See this page for instructions.

Edit: Add a source has changed slightly, from the main menu click Videos > Files > Add Videos... after that the instructions should be the same on the page above.

Necro55 · 2012-12-15, 22:06

OK, I will take a look at the link. Honestly, I dont care if it can give me date information actors etc, to me thats extra clutter I dont want or need. However if I have to do that to make the rest of the software work propperly, then I will.

Necro55 · 2012-12-16, 00:34

I did that, now I have a new submenu and it jumbled everything. It did not retain my directory structure. I have way too much stuff of way too many different genres to do it like this.

Is there a way to do this and have it retain the way they are organized within the folders on my media server? I only brought in my movies folder, not the TV, sports or animated stuff. I thought it may have tried to put everything into it's own genres, it didn't, EVERYTHING is under action, from Comedy Central Roasts, to White Christmas..... I checked the other genres and it has been sorted with no rhym or reason to them that I can find, the other genres look completely random.

If I go to Video - Files - then my directory structure is intact, and I see background pics form the movie when I mouse over them, but neither here nor in the movies option (under Video) did I the movie I was testing. Under the file view I still have the TS folder with the VOBs.